Geekly Update - 06 October 2016

"Pilots and air traffic controllers are switching from...radio transmission...to text messaging.... I wonder if anyone has considered how easily a text message’s origin can be faked, or the message modified enroute."

Anyone can buy a handheld aviation radio transciever and transmit to their hearts delight, and everyone on the frequency can hear it. The sender can't be authenticated.

I should think that the text messages would be encrypted, and or authenticated.

"Sometimes, a 1 MHz CPU and 64 kilobytes of RAM is enough."

Sometimes a pad and pencil are enough.

I think Yahoo is doing a very patriotic thing!!
Who the h3ll wants to help terrorists hide?

:..Yahoo Said to Have Aided U.S. Email Surveillance by Adapting Spam Filter
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and NICOLE PERLROTH

A system built to scan emails for spam, child p**nography and malware allowed Yahoo to search for a terrorist organization's "signature" to satisfy a secret court order, several sources say.
.."

It should be noted the iDrive offer is only good in the US. Its there in very fine print, but not noted in your email publicity. -=Geo=-

I used to work with students who have an Acquired Brain Injury (educationalize for Traumatic Brain Injury). When trying to find a way to serve an ABI student, I met his father - a computer and programing wizard. He used an old Commodore 64 that would turn on the outside lights, turn on inside lights and radio, turn up the heat - turn on an electric stove - you know, kidnda run a house - USING VOICE COMMANDS - and that was 'back in the day'. I was astounded. He'd done it to try to help his son (ABI from Motor-cycle accident sans helmet). Back then the 386's were SCREAMING - and a 10 MEG hard drive was HUGE (who'd EVER use that much memory!??).

I'm not surprised that code can be written so tightly that it can take up virtually no room at all - Clap your hands 3 times and it 'turned on' the voice command program (one of two external drives) (?? I think that's right) - and the kid (16) could turn on lights, the hot water heater, the heater, the stove with a meal on it if Dad was out working late (plumber) -- you don't need a lot to do a little. Let's remember we would have fought World War III with less memory than our lap or desk top - and we sure used a LOT less RAM than even the most modest desk top to run our lunar space programs (including putting a man on the moon) - so it' just how tightly you can write code.

I am still amazed so many years later that you made me remember the plumber who lived nearly 'off the grid' had used a Commodore 64 to use speech recognition that was 100 times better than Dragon Dictate when it first came out. HIS program didn't need to 'train' on your voice. His advice to me when Dragon first came out? -- "Get the best microphone your school will let your buy". I got a $100 mic, and a LOT of problems were solved, esp the AM-PM change in voice that required most kids to retrain their program after they'd been speaking for about 90 minutes trying to get their term paper out on time.

And, I agree with David - sometimes - MOST of the time - a piece of paper and pen is all you need (I use a pen because I don't make mistakes ;-) ) -- And my desk is littered with scraps of paper to prove it.

"Wi-Fi signals can be used to identify humans and monitor..." Hmmm...isn't that how the stealth jet was tracked and shot down in Bosnia?

How long before a DDOS attack by a Teddy Ruxpin bot army against the Brian Krebs site.

"Sometimes, a 1 MHz CPU and 64 kilobytes of RAM is enough."

A member of my family knows very little about computers but is the smartest computer user I know.

He learned VisiCalc, the first computer spreadsheet, around the time it was introduced in 1979. He continued using it decades later because "it does everything I want."

So much for "upgrading."

Howard L

Bob, Do you know where one can get old BBCMicro B
or B+ or Master.

further to the comment by George 06 Oct 2016 and my comment on a previous offer _ PLEASE make it clear when an offer is available only in the US !! The order page allows input of non-US contact details but restricts delivery info to US addresses.
Or maybe YOU can persuade the sellers that Europeans also want to take advantage of such offers.
Thanks
Ted

I'm not buying a Teddy Ruxpin until it is as smart as Ted. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/

According to a 2012 PC World article, at that time Sparkler Filters was still using an IBM 402 with punch cards. [url]http://www.pcworld.com/article/249951/computers/if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it-ancient-computers-in-use-today.html[/url]