News: We Need to Raise Taxes for Shareholders and Cut Them for Companies
Updated on Sunday, November 6, 2022
We Need to Raise Taxes for Shareholders and Cut Them for Companies
Yes - totally agree with this.
I Thought He Came With You (ITHCWY) is Robert Ellison's blog.
Risky
The World Economic Forum has published a risk/reward matrix for 12 key "emerging" technologies. You'd think this would be pretty good, because:
"The report’s conclusions on risk are heavily based on its Global Risks Perception Survey, which gathers the opinions of the World Economic Forum’s multi-stakeholder communities of leaders from business, government, academia and nongovernmental and international organizations. Members of the Institute of Risk Management are also consulted."
For some reason IoT devices are the second highest risk. Ahead of biotechnology (we're all dead from an engineered virus), nanomaterials (we're all dead because we're now gray goo) and space technologies (we're all dead because we provoked a violent alien civilization).
The least benefit comes from Geoengineering. Because with Trump in power I'm sure we're going to solve Global Warming via emission cuts. There is apparently more benefit in Virtual Reality and even more in 3D Printing.
(Image from World Economic Forum)
Related Posts
- New Scientist on Immigration
- Securing the Internet of Things
- OpenAGI, or why we shouldn't trust Open AI to protect us from the Singularity
- Extreme Environmentalism
- Three reasons the dream of a robot companion isn't over
(Published to the Fediverse as: Risky #etc #wef The World Economic Forum is thinking about risks in a pretty weird way... )
If You Give a Browser a Cookie
Updated on Monday, August 23, 2021
If you give a browser a cookie, it’s going to ask for local storage.
When you give it the local storage, it’ll probably ask you for a list of system fonts. When it’s finished, it’ll ask you for your screen resolution.
Then it’ll want to look to see if Flash cookies are supported. It’ll probably create a local shared object.
When it’s finished with the local shared object it’ll want more things to hash. It will hash your timezone and language. It might get carried away and hash every supported plugin. It may even end up hashing the platform and user agent.
When it’s done it’ll probably want to check out your WebGL. You’ll have to tell it your WebGL vendor and renderer. It’ll probably ask you to open a HTML5 canvas.
When it looks at the HTML5 canvas, it’ll get so excited it’ll want to draw it’s own hidden image. Then it’ll want to hash the image as well.
Looking at the image will remind it that it should store the hash somewhere. So it’ll ask for local storage.
And chances are if it asks you for local storage, it’s going to want a cookie to go with it.
(With apologies to Laura Numeroff, and you may be a snowflake yourself. Learn more about browser fingerprinting.)
Related Posts
- I'm not afraid of Google
- Top 5 reasons to hate the Facebook like button
- Going Chrome
- Got It
- More Colors
(Published to the Fediverse as: If You Give a Browser a Cookie #etc #cookies #flash #html5 #tracking If You Give a Browser a Cookie, it’s going to ask for local storage. A cautionary tale about Browser Fingerprinting in the style of Laura Numeroff )
Subscription Economics
I think I'd be more likely to subscribe if you'd take a charger away. Most right thinking gadget vendors don't even include them anymore.
Even better than threatening to send me e-waste: skip the news bit (it's already stale) and send my Kindle a monthly compendium of analysis.
Related Posts
- Nonfiction
- New Podcast Business Model: Less Content
- Doing news right with Feedly and Google News
- Facebook shouldn't own your social graph
- Think before you print?
(Published to the Fediverse as: Subscription Economics #etc #economist The Economist is offering a free cell phone charger on Facebook, I have a better idea to boost circulation. )
Happy Storm
Is it just me or is the weather radar smiling at San Francisco right now?
Related Posts
- Stormy
- Post Storm Sunset
- Grand View of Fog
- Sunset #9
- Cause and Effect, or Strange Skies over San Francisco
(Published to the Fediverse as: Happy Storm #etc #weather #radar #earth Local weather radar shows a big smiling face off the coast of northern California. )
3D DIY
Updated on Thursday, February 2, 2017
This stupidly placed light switch has been niggling around near the bottom of my list for nearly three years. It's probably sat there with its wires exposed for closer to thirteen, since the kitchen was remodeled by the previous owners.
I could have hunted down a plate and tried to saw a bit off I guess but we got a 3D printer for Christmas and I finally fixed it:
This was easier than I thought once I discovered that this sort of switch is a Decora Duplex. I grabbed this model from user KHF on 3D Warehouse (thanks!), chopped the edge off in FlashPrint, two failed prints (glue, then hairspray, then figuring out the temperature was wrong) and only slightly sliced open my thumb removing the supports. Welcome to the future!
Related Posts
- 3D Printing a Window Mount for a Google Nest Indoor Wired Gen 2 Camera
- 3D Printing a discreet wall mount shelf for the Aura Carver Mat
- Hoover Dam (Fixed)
- Semi-flooded duck (DUKW) headlight
- Echo Show Me The Door
(Published to the Fediverse as: 3D DIY #etc #3dprint #decoraduplex 3D Printing a Decora Duplex wall plate for a badly positioned electrical socket using 3D Warehouse and FlashPrint. )
Routers to defend against rogue IoT devices
A few months ago I wrote about my cunning plan to stop Internet of Things botnets: stop them at the router.
It's just possible that these were in the works before that post but Symantec, BitDefender and Intel unveiled router level IoT security at CES this year. Not as hard core as my plan, but looks like a useful start.
(Image from Norton Core website).
Related Posts
- Securing the Internet of Things
- Air Gap
- More on breaking the Internet
- Three reasons the dream of a robot companion isn't over
- Risky
(Published to the Fediverse as: Routers to defend against rogue IoT devices #etc #iot #symantec Will Norton follow my plan to prevent IOT botnet attaches at the router? )
Expert
I haven't checked Klout for a long time - while I was away they've decided I'm a expert in Indian politics. Explains a lot...
Related Posts
- Pulling the plug on Facebook and Twitter, Tweet Archive
- Zombie Robs
- I didn't think I'd ever fall for fake news on Facebook
- 1,000th Post!
- Deep Fake Rob
(Published to the Fediverse as: Expert #etc #klout Klout for some reason thinks that I am an expert in Indian Politics. )
Securing the Internet of Things
Updated on Wednesday, February 22, 2017
We can’t trust manufactures to build secure connected devices and so routers need to be updated to solve this problem once per network.
The distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on Friday, October 21 was apparently caused by dodgy webcams. But next time it will be Nest or Alexa or Hue - not picking on Google, Amazon or Philips specifically here, those just happen to be the IOT devices currently plugged into my home network. My washing machine and drier would be as well but fortunately LG’s dismal app has saved me from myself by not working for toffee. Oh, I have some DropCams too. And my car is connected. The next attack will probably just come from me.
My fix: update routers to sandbox these devices. A Nest thermostat can only talk to nest.com. If it wants to DDOS Reddit too bad, no connection allowed no matter how badly the device is compromised.
When a new device is connected the router looks it up (MAC address registry?) and then puts it in the appropriate sandbox.
If Nest needs to connect to weather.gov to check the forecast then Google would need to proxy this via nest.com. If the device goes bad it’s only got one domain to attack (so there’s a pretty good incentive for the manufacturer to make sure it doesn’t).
The only downside is new routers or new router firmware. Given the current state of IOT I’d buy one.
As usual if any of my billionaire investor readers are interested get in touch.
Related Posts
- Routers to defend against rogue IoT devices
- Leaving the Nest
- Air Gap
- More on breaking the Internet
- Chromecast won't connect to wifi - finally found the fix
(Published to the Fediverse as: Securing the Internet of Things #etc #iot #google #philips #lg #amazon A proposal to secure the internet of things via sandboxing to manufacturer owned URL by MAC address. No more DDOS from toasters. )
Where did that app icon go, Android?
Updated on Sunday, May 16, 2021
As much as I’m looking forward to Daydream VR and trying to train my Google Assistant to swear there is one big problem left with Android that Mountain View should tackle first.
Where the fuck did my icon go Android?
Every so often when I update apps an icon is missing from my home screen. It’s one of sixteen apps that I use frequently enough to have pinned there but I can’t remember what it was until my muscle memory sends my finger flying to the empty square an hour or day later. Until then I’m distracted and can’t focus and scroll helplessly through the recently updated list in Google Play trying to figure out which of the updates is the culprit.
It’s not the first time I’ve been through this so I took a screenshot of my home screen just so I could not go through this again. But Google Photos backed it up and deleted it to save space so it’s somewhere in Drive that I can’t find doing me no good at all. When I figure this out I’m going to borrow my daughter’s instax and keep a hard copy in my wallet.
Google booking me a restaurant and a babysitter at a whim won’t save the time I lose to hunting down missing apps.
It might be fixed in Nougat but I can’t update for an unknown number of months because of device/carrier/manufacturer fragmentation so that’s still Google’s fault.
I have been a HTC loyalist so maybe it’s Sense and not Android in which case sorry Google, I should get mad at HTC instead.
I’m pretty sure it was Goodreads.
Related Posts
- Did anyone tell Material Design about Gesture Navigation?
- Android 11 Gripes
- Google Maps Ate My Battery
- Material Design 3
- Got It
(Published to the Fediverse as: Where did that app icon go, Android? #etc #google Why oh why does Android sometimes feel the need to remove the icon for an app from your home screen when updating it? )