5,606 karma · joined March 21, 2017
Users need to know the electrical features of their H/W and its limits. If a loudspeaker output stage is designed (hardware wired) so that it can never act as an input then no later firmware update can turn the speaker into a microphone.
This is why hardware authentication is becoming more and more important.
limits
Why wouldn't one be? Not that long ago 'dumb' TVs never even had firmware (and that was the situation throughout most of television history). Allowing a manufacturer to update TV firmware online is dangerous and foolhardy. (Same reasons why I never let any of my printers go anywhere near the internet—any driver software is always blocked by a firewall.)
Perhaps a few are unaware but most know. As I said in my post, some (like me) only want traditional FTA — and with it comes anonymity by default.
Smart TVs undermine and subvert the virtues of FDA services. It should be mandated that it's possible for modern smart TVs to switch to FTA-only mode if viewers so desire. Similarly, regulation should ensure that dumb TVs always be available for those who want them.
Fully solve it by disconnecting network cable/Wi-Fi so there's no internet.
For me a TV set only receives FTA signals and has connectors for local media/AV input. It ceases to be a TV set when it starts doing what my PCs and laptops do.
(Anonymity is the reason why FTA broadcasting is still so very important, by design it's only one-way — broadcaster to listener/viewer. Unfortunately smart TVs and the internet subvert anonymity by design.)
Despite the point in my comment about power cable extensions coverings becoming hard through the lack of plasticizers, I confirm your point about overplasticized PVC in instrument cables.
I have a lot of instrument leads that I thought were silicone only to find that after a year or so they've gone hard. So much so that new unpacked ones can no longer be easily straightened (the kinks remain unless one heats the cable up and then straightens them).
Despite availability issues,the problem is trying to determine what's real silicone and what's not.
What's made this situation worse is that it seems that worry over plasticizers and health etc. has lead to a reduction in the amount being used in cables. I have some power extenstion cables whose jackets have gone so hard that I can no longer coil them effectively — even though I take care the coiled cable still ends up a tangled mess.
Even if silicone jacketing is more expensive it's so good I'd pay extra. Trouble is it's not normally available on products found at the local hardware shop.
Seems to me we need to:
(1) Reverse engineer/disassemble the code to find out exactly how they're stealing our data.
(2) Hack the firmware to restore both our privacy and user-friendly functionality.
(3) Send garbage/random noise back to LG and Samsung, et al to overwhelm their servers—and actually cost them money for collecting our data.
Of course, this ought to be a temporary measure until our legislators listen to us and make what these manufacturers are doing strictly unlawful.
The real reason why vendors want users to use their apps is that an app maximizes the information they can steal from users with the minimum disruption (unfortunately users aren't aware of the fact).
I've never understood why this isn't obvious to everyone.
For years, I've avoided giving my phone number out to organisations by saying I don't have a phone. It's blistful, I almost never receive an unwanted call.
One way to familiarize students with mercury was to have several liters of it in a wide open-top jar and have them force their fist through the mercury pool to the bottom of the jar.
In fact, forcing one's hand through mercury between six to eight inches deep is not easy, some kids found it too difficult to do.
I'd describe my hand as feeling very squeezed and it being forced upwards to the surface with considerable force. The experience was certainly unforgettable.
There were some safety protocols: good ventilation (to minimize Hg vapor) and afterwards hands had to be thoroughly scrubbed with soap and water.
Very true, I still have my XT and AT manuals and use them as illustrations of how documentation should be done. Back then, good documentation included both operational and service manuals including maintenance and circuit diagrams (and as you say IBM even included BIOS source code).
IBM documentation up until at least that point had always been suburb across its product range. For example I have the original copy of this IBM typewriter manual even though I've no longer the machine because the manual is so very excellent:
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibmtypewriricTypewrite...
Manufacturers considered their products and manuals proprietary and protected them with patents and copyrights but they were not secret as is so often the case nowadays. Right to Repair wasn't even a concept back then, had anyone suggested such a notion they'd be laughed at, as it was automatically assumed. What counts as documentation nowadays is an utter disgrace.
IBM was not alone, companies such as HP, Tektronix, Racal (and many others) also produced truly excellent documentation—especially so their maintenance and repair manuals. Equipment performance could often be judged on the quality of the manuals alone.
First is strong and enforceable law that makes it unlawful to violate one's privacy. The second is to prosecute violators directly—that is, employees cannot hide behind corporate walls and allow the corporate entity to take the blame.
Irrespective of what employers demand, employees have a responsibility to obey the law. Risk of individual employees being chucked in the slammer would change corporate culture overnight.
Fining corporations alone is a waste of time, they see such fines as the cost of doing business, losing one's freedom for an individual is another matter altogether. Employees must be frightened of the consequences of violating the law or the practice will continue.
Just a couple of hours in a supervised exam room with only one's own brain for answers.
Surely this is obvious.
For example, I used to use GIMP and became quite expert at it and would often swap between it and Photoshop. That changed when GIMP's developers removed the Fade feature (similar functionality as in Photoshop). The result is that they turned a perfectly functional program into a clunky mess that was ergonomically horrible to use. Using it was now like going from a modern auto gearbox back to a clunky manual.
Their rationale was that fading was better done by layers and such. Technically that's likely so (depending on what one's doing) but for the rest of us who were happy with the Photoshop-like Fade GIMP suddenly became useless.
GIMP's developers are more interested in some strange notion of technical purity than providing good ergonomic software that ordinary users can use. In short, GIMP's just a play toy for them, benefitting the opensource world isn't on their horizon.
Sure, as GIMP's developers they have the right to fuck up their software, what they don't have the right to do is fuck up bona fide users who've spent a large investment in learning the product by essentially making the product unusable.
Keep away from GIMP, as others have said there are much better alternatives now available.
More importantly, as I've mentioned, ReactOS is not stable nor reliable enough to even use as an offline O/S sans the Win 11 dross.
If these stability/compatibility issues were fixed then it'd develop a reputation for being reliable which would lead to further development work.
Unfortunately for everyone except Microsoft this is not the case.
Right, there is a long tradition in it taking centuries to build great cathedrals, Chartres, Notre Dame, etc.
I've little issue with that, however taking so long to build something such as an O/S that it's obsoleted itself many times over before being finished is another matter altogether.
Trouble is there's never been enough interest in ReactOS to get it to the point where it's stable let alone warrant fancy extras. (After three decades of trying to clone the basics and failing is proof enough.)
In short, developers see it as a dead end. Why there's so little interest I've never fully understood, but it's fact.
If it were actually stable and usable as a basic operating system it could be used for lots of offline stuff but it's not—even at this point. If it were useable I'd readily adopt it to use offline (I've tried many times and failed).
Another point, this lack of interest shows up on ReactOS's website; there's so little new news and info the site may as well be dead.
The American War of Independence, French Revolution and English Civil War were acts of terrorism.
Were those acts justified? Not if you're the ones who were initially holding the power.
How I came by them was by accident when I was helping a guy who was a worse (indiscriminate) hoarder than I am move his tooling and machining factory. He hoarded anything technical, especially electronics stuff.
He didn't know what the circuits were but I did. Despite having little interest in either the modules or circuits instinct made me rescue them (it's a fluke they weren't scrapped). Reason: I once recall hundreds of these modules flooding onto the auction market and no one wanting them except for the tubes so I assumed everyone who'd be interested was already in the know.
The circuits (if I recall correctly—the factory move was in 2012) were together in a big folder a bit too big to scan on a quarto/A4 scanner.
Incidentally, there were stacks of old IBM computer racks that IBM historical people had rescued earlier (presumably the modules were from the same computer) but the modules and circuits surfaced later and never ended up with the rest of the hardware.
I'd be very surprised if others don't possess copies of those folders of circuits (computer historical societies etc.) as at one time those modules were so ubiquitous.
Seeing there's interest I'll hone in on them as I sort through the files (I know roughly what room they're in). The moment I find them I'll put them on line.
In the meantime I'd urge you to seek out copies of those circuit folders. IBM documented everything so well, their manuals were masterpieces of documentation in their own right (unlike the terrible situation of today where tech info on products is as scarce as hen's teeth).
Re museum, I'm in Australia so I'll seek out the mob who took the racks and try to mate the modules with the rest of the H/W. Thanks for the offer.
They've been getting in the way and I've been meaning to chuck them away on many an occasion but something inside me has stopped me doing so because of their possible historical value.
Shirriff's blog has reinforced my thinking, they'll just have to clutter up my place for a little longer methinks.
People insist on Windows at work because it's so ubiquitous, when they go home their modus operandi doesn't have to change.
Forcing workers to change OSes against their will only puts one's job on the line (management will side with workers as it's the path of least resistance). QED.
Appealing to reason is a waste of time as no big monopolistic corporation will willingly forfeit money. The only realistic (effective) solution is legislative. I don't see that happening anytime soon in the US but perhaps it's possible in other jurisdictions (more likely now that the US is no longer the flavor of the month with many).
Simply, this shows who's actually in charge of the Country and it's not the Government.
I've never had any pretense at being good enough to entertain people with those works as everyone knows them so well (from professional recordings). Even Mozart's a problem here. For example the Romance in the D Minor Concerto, K.466 looks deceptively simple (at least in parts) but it's anything but after hearing someone like Brendel play it. Everyone knows it so well it's not worth the embarrassment of even trying (except perhaps in secret).
(Mozart has a habit of looking simple until one tries to play it, Bach is none of that—one knows what one's in for at pretty much first glance.)
Still I prefer to use scissors with the left hand and most are right-handed. It's a damn nuisance as the loop handles are the wrong way around/wrong size for a leftie.
As a left-hander, it's very obvious to me. That said—because of the above point—my right hand is much stronger and more adept at playing. In short, I'm right handed when playing the piano.
No sarcastic comments please, I well know more practice and playing those damn Czerny scales ad nauseam would have restored proper balance. :-)
It's only afterwards and as a consequence some highly newsworthy disasters occur such as a child abduction or political sex scandal involving a high profile politician come to light that the lay public will get the message that weak encryption is effectively no encryption.
In the meantime criminals will be early adopters of more sophisticated messaging such as steganography.