On 3/17 I was driving home from work and I got cut off by a Comcast van.
I sent a request in to their support company to let them know (I’m not a customer so I didn’t expect to hear anything back). I did get a reply, but it was a boilerplate response.
I’ve been playing The Division pretty much since the day it came out, and I have to say: I’m very impressed with it so far! It’s a very enjoyable game with a lot to offer. There are some problems with it, for sure, but it’s a solid 7/10 or 8/10 game.
Let’s start with the basics. I take The Division to be a 3rd-Person Over-The-Shoulder Tactical Combat Role Playing Story-Based Shooter. That is to say: there is inventory to manage, skills to manage, weapons to customize, and character appearance to manage. These are all elements of role playing. The story elements are all there. The game play is over-the-shoulder third person (see my screenshot gallery and game play video) tactical. You need to be moving in and out of cover (dodging and pinning to walls, cars, etc) in order to survive.
Edit: It’s come to my attention that the video I uploaded skips a lot of frames. I will be correcting it tonight. Sorry!
Edit 2: The video has been replaced.
Last week I wrote about my Kindle Fire 5th Gen and getting custom launchers, root, and the Google Play Store (you know, all the goodness that is SUPPOSED to come with an Android tablet but was mysteriously missing from the Amazon Kindle because reasons). I had also mentioned that I was kind of disappointed with the custom ROM support (I have had 3 Android phones in the last 6 years: HTC Evo 4G (the original Evo!), HTC One M7, and a OnePlus One); all of these phones pretty well supported custom ROMs with unlockable bootloaders. I was expecting the same from the Amazon Kindle. Boy, was I wrong.
Recently I picked up a Kindle Fire 7″ 5th Gen from Best Buy because they were on sale. I love reading (both books and magazines) and honestly: it’s a super convenient little tablet. For what I paid for it ($40 or so) I couldn’t be happier.
Or so I thought.
But in an odd way.
Reporting from TechCrunch we see that Apple has gone ahead and made an update (9.2.1) for their iPhone devices with 3rd-party-replaced Home Buttons and Screens.
In case you missed the gaffe, any person who had a 3rd-party shop replace their screen or home button and then attempted to do the latest iOS update (primarily via iTunes) they received an error 53 during the update, and an extra Apple-branded extra: a bricked phone. Literally bricked. You couldn’t go back. You couldn’t go forward. You couldn’t even start your phone. Their devices showed “Connect to iTunes” permanently. Connecting their device to a PC with iTunes reported “Error 53” for infinity. There was simply NOTHING they could do.
Apple has gone back and released a software update which will get you back to a working state, with one caveat: you will LOSE TOUCH ID.
The FBI demand for Apple to unlock Those-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named’s iPhones (the San Bernardino shooters) has officially been ruled on by a federal judge. The verdict is in: Apple must give investigators access to the encrypted data on the iPhone used by the shooters. (Link)
But wait, there’s more! The FBI demand (apparently) includes a demand that Apple help decrypt the data. This is something that Apple steadfastly (rightly so) claims to not have the ability to do. The FBI claims that Apple simply MUST have that ability, and lacking that ability currently, must develop such a method to do so (if you believe Tim Cook, which I do in this case).
Original Articles: MSNBC, CNBC, Business Insider, Washington Free Beacon
Well, this is a long time coming in my book. Just wow. We first learned that Hillary Clinton ran a private email server where she was corresponding with people about government matters while she was the Secretary of State in March (or so) of 2015. It is now February 2016. That is almost a full year of “What the hell were you doing FBI?!?” I really don’t understand why this took so long to get any sort of meaningful announcement from the FBI. A former inspector general was reported to have indicated in this New York Post article claims that Hillary “never set up an agency email address for her in the first place” – this would mean that any and all communication she was doing as the Secretary of State via email had to be on these insecure channels (namely her private email server).
Recently I’ve heard of a few states (NY and CA, I’m looking in your direction) thinking about outright banning the sale of phones that are capable of encrypting phone contents. Specifically they claim that the state (namely the police) should have the ability to decrypt and access all the contents of your personal mobile devices (because reasons). Interestingly enough though, these two states have taken the stance of punishing the seller, not the user (this is a common theme in law). That means that Apple, Google, and Microsoft (and all other cell phone manufacturers like LG, HTC, OnePlus; and all cell phone providers like Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint) would be unable to sell their equipment in NY and CA (or face stiff penalties of up to $2,500 in the case of CA). These penalties would be retroactive (how is that even legal???) back to January 1st, 2016. I don’t see how any of this makes any sense.
Look, I get it. Law enforcement agencies exists to arrest and subsequently convict people of crimes (under the pretense of the greater public welfare and trust). Law enforcement needs information to make their cases as air-tight as possible. Law enforcement also understands that people have their lives on their phones. Law enforcement therein made the (what I can only assume they thought to be) logical jump to say: we need complete and unrestricted access to cell phone contents. I do not see how a cell phone (and it’s contents) are not protected by the 4th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The police cannot just barge into your home (without a warrant) and root around for anything that might be suspected of being used in a crime. Even more than that, even if they do get a warrant it has to be very specific (at least in theory; in practice lately this does not seem to be the case, but that isn’t really in the purview of this discussion) or else the results of the search can be entered as inadmissible.
Encryption is a natural backlash to a string of perceived slights from the public by law enforcement. Encryption simply denies access to the information by anyone without the access code. The Supreme Court has recently decided that the 5th Amendment applies to your access codes to your devices. This means that if your phone is encrypted you cannot be legally coerced into providing your password. Therefore, an encrypted device would be largely inaccessible to law enforcement. I can see why they’d be bothered by this. What I can’t see is how they have any legal basis to declare that encryption is inherently bad (unless in their hands).
Encryption is your final line of defense against people who would use your mobile phone and the data therein to build a case against you (even for something you may not have initially been suspected of). You should be using it (and there are instructions later in this post about getting it done) for your own (and for your contacts) well being and protection. It also has the handy ability to make your phone a paperweight upon being stolen (most devices encrypt the bootable partitions of the device, meaning you must enter the decryption code before the device will even start up, meaning you cannot even format it or recover the device without the code.
The funny part is these laws supposedly would apply to goods purchased outside of the state and shipped in as well, but not to goods you physically purchase in another state and then transport into the other state by hand. This means you would not be able to buy an Apple phone in NY, or via Amazon shipped into NY, but you would be able to drive into NJ, buy the phone, then drive back. Are they seriously trying to kill their own tax revenues by limiting technology sales? That seems like a recipe for disaster.
All things considered: I am not surprised by NY claiming that encryption is evil and that police should have access to your data at all times.
I am, however, completely surprised (and taken aback) by CA making the same claim. I wonder how Apple and Google feel about their headquarters states now? It astounds me that a state so rife with technology can be so utterly left in the dark ages via their politics.
And if these states honestly expect Apple and Google to stop full device encryption then I think those states are definitely in for a rude awakening (assuming the bill even passes, which I doubt will happen). Apple’s CEO Tim Cook challenged this anti-encryption mentality in early 2015 with his statements: ““history has shown us that sacrificing our right to privacy can have dire consequences.” I am honestly surprised that the heads of Google and Microsoft haven’t come out with a similar statement or sentiment. Regardless I have no doubt that any company would be willing to forgo the sales in a particular state (knowing full well that someone who wants their device would just go a state over to get it).
Whatever the case may end up being one thing is clear: 2016 is going to be an interesting year for encryption technology and end user rights.
For your information:
So I’ve been playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons lately (and I mean, a lot. 2-3 hours a day, 4-5 days a week) and it got me to thinking: As much as I like rolling the dice sometimes it is just easier to have a thing that does it for you. There are plenty of websites that will do a dice roll, and even different kinds of dice rolling. It isn’t all that difficult in actuality to program a computer to do this. Even Google’s search will respond to “Roll a dice” and the like.
Well, Dan got me the Sunfounder Super Kit (which happens to include a handy-dandy display ) for my Arduino Uno R3 which got me thinking: I bet I can make my Arduino roll dice for me. Let’s start with a simple one (this is going to be an ongoing series I think, as I keep coming up with extra things to implement): rolling for attributes.
Today on the way home from work I was listening to the radio (NJ 101.5) discussion about the proposal to change the minimum wage in NJ from $8.38/hour to $10.10/hour. The question presented was whether or not this made sense for NJ. I sat in my car thinking, who on earth could possibly be opposed to giving people who are working any form of job a little extra money to help make their lives a little easier.
Boy, oh boy, did I sorely overestimate the people of NJ on this one. The calls were (overwhelming) against it with the standard cry being “How can small business afford to pay their employees anything more than what they’re currently being paid?” – to which my response is: what? A friend pointed out that businesses can deduct payroll as tax exempt, potentially saving on the difference in cost. This is a valid point to consider, but I am taking a more person-oriented approach to this as a problem.
I am starting with a few base assumptions here:
I came out with the following numbers (and I will post a copy of the sheet for you to look at if you wish):
For someone facing:
They would need to work:
Now, let’s examine my living expenses:
I would need to work:
So, clearly, there’s room for improvement here. These numbers are all experimental guess work numbers, but I think you can see that that small bump in wages can make a minimum wage earner’s life MUCH easier. At very little overall cost. Well worth it in my opinion.
Have a heart, you cold bastards, and try to put yourself in their shoes for a goddamn minute before you try and discredit a decent idea.
You can view the sheet I used to calculate these numbers here.
-M, out
