Archives for July 2014

« Older Entries Newer Entries »

элементарные подсчеты

12 July 2014 | Apple, Economics, Microsoft | No Comments

пожалуйста:

My biggest fear about trying to use something like the Surface Pro 3 <...> [is] it just not being an outstanding device.

The iPad is an outstanding device, as is my MacBook Pro. So then the only use I would have for a Surface is as a secondary device to remove the need for VMware running Windows.

But then we are talking about $799 for a base model machine and I still have to buy the type cover. So really $928 all in. All that for a device I may not even like.

For less money I can buy an 11″ MacBook Air and install Windows on it (I already own Windows) in a native Bootcamp partition. Even if it turns out I don’t use Windows on the MacBook Air, I still have a MacBook Air.

  

соучастники

11 July 2014 | Internet, Jurisprudence, Politics, Privacy | 4 Comments

как известно, еще в апреле Европейский суд справедливости признал нарушающей права человека Директиву по сбору данных:

The Court takes the view that, by requiring the retention of those data and by allowing the competent national authorities to access those data, the directive interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data. Furthermore, the fact that data are retained and subsequently used without the subscriber or registered user being informed is likely to generate in the persons concerned a feeling that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance.

что ж, Великобритания, ингсоц во всей своей красе, не собирается отмалчиваться в ответ:

The government is set to announce plans to rush through emergency legislation that will force phone and internet companies[1] to keep records of users’ online activities as well as customers’ calls and text messages.

не мытьем, там катаньем (“thanks to the secret deal, we know it will be law by the end of next week”[2]), разумеется:

Prime Minister David Cameron has secured the backing of all three main parties for the highly unusual move [emphasis mine; love BBC slang].

He said urgent action was needed to protect the public from “criminals and terrorists” after the European Court of Justice struck down existing powers.

But civil liberties campaigners have warned it will invade people’s privacy.

какие там liberties, если даже подготовительные работы, очевидно, выходят за всякие рамки — вот, что говорит Том Уотсон, член Парламента от лейбористской партии:

There are hundreds of thousands of people out there very concerned about this particular policy issue. They’ve not seen this bill either, but it doesn’t really matter this year because there’s been a deal done between the three parties and it’ll be railroaded through. If you’re an MP you probably shouldn’t bother turning up to work next week because what you are thinking doesn’t really matter.

и он же дальше:

Regardless of where you stand on the decision of the European Court of Justice, can you honestly say that you want a key decision about how your personal data is stored to be made by a stitch up behind closed doors and clouded in secrecy?

None of your MPs have even read this legislation, let alone been able to scrutinise it.

The very fact that the Government is even considering this form of action, strongly suggests that they have an expectation that the few people on the Liberal Democrat and Labour front benchers who have seen this legislation, are willing to be complicit.

или Джим Киллок из Open Rights Group:

The government knows that since the ECJ ruling, there is no legal basis for making internet service providers retain our data, so it is using the threat of terrorism as an excuse for getting this law passed.

The government has had since April to address the ECJ ruling but it is only now that organisations such as ORG are threatening legal action that this has become an ’emergency’.

что, впрочем, не отменяет кардинальных проблем и с содержанием:

Subhajit Basu, an associate professor in information technology law at Leeds University: As I understand this, the proposed new legislation will cover all persons and all means of electronic communication. It extends the type of communication service provider. It is not subject to geographic restriction. It remains to be seen if a CSP would include Wi-Fi cafe or an unsecured router.

Because of this bill, law enforcement authorities can ask Google to decrypt the content (with a warrant – they were able to do it before in the same way), not just Google UK but ‘any’ company based outside the jurisdiction of UK.

кто-то слишком уж торопится построить свою Океанию, других слов у меня нет.

 

  1. касается не только британских операторов, но и тех зарубежных, что действуют на территории Соединенного Королевства.  ↩

  2. надо помнить, что изначальный The Communications Data Bill был заблокирован в прошлом году как раз усилиями лейбористов и либерал-демократов — однако теперь, with “a tiny amendment to section 5 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, presumably inserted to save the blushes of those Liberal Democrat MPs who stood on a manifesto to reduce state surveillance”, правительство заручилось поддержкой всех трех основных партий — что это, если не самый настоящий преступный сговор, целенаправленно продолжающий сотрудничество американских и английских спецслужб?  ↩

  

назад, к истокам

10 July 2014 | Internet, Jurisprudence, Politics, Privacy | 3 Comments

каторжане совсем двинулись:

Australian federal and state police are ordering phone providers to hand over personal information about thousands of mobile phone users, whether they are targets of an investigation or not.

говоря иначе, известный анекдот скоро будет уже отнюдь не так смешон.

  

монополия на насилие

10 July 2014 | Crime, Economics, Internet, Jurisprudence | 1 Comment

тем временем, в случае с Silk Road мы наблюдаем очередное показное делопроизводство:

That earlier motion, filed in April, raised potentially trial-shifting questions: Can Ulbricht really be accused of running a drug-selling conspiracy when he merely ran a website that made the narcotics sales possible? And can he be charged with money laundering when bitcoin doesn’t necessarily meet the requisite definition of money?’

According to [Judge Katherine] Forrest’s latest ruling, yes and yes. She rejected every argument made in the defense’s motion, starting with the idea that Ulbricht had merely provided an innocent platform for hosting the Silk Road’s illicit e-commerce, just as eBay might occasionally host illegal content without its knowledge.

сам Ульбрихт, конечно, личность в достаточной мере одиозная, и некоторые вопросы разумеется нуждаются в ответах. но обвинять в создании платформы для торговли или в отмывании денег на основании до сих пор не формализованных инструментов — это, как минимум, весьма странно[1].

 

  1. что, впрочем, не отменяет определенного здравого подхода в ее положениях:

    Put simply, funds can be used to pay for things in the colloquial sense. Bitcoins can be either used directly to pay for certain things or can act as a medium of exchange and be converted into a currency which can pay for things. Indeed, the only value for Bitcoin lies in its ability to pay for things – it is digital and has no earthly form; it cannot be put on a shelf and looked at or collected in a nice display case. Its form is digital – bits and bytes that together constitute something of value. And they may be bought and sold using legal tender.

    проблема, иными словами, в другом: в том, как власть жонглирует этими понятиями в зависимости от того, что на данный момент требуется — и здесь мы снова видим еще один пример таких манипуляций.  ↩

  

в поисках выхода

9 July 2014 | Culturology, Metaphysics, Science | No Comments

немного истории:

From 1779 to 1785, an English bishop called Samuel Horsley brought out five very large volumes of Isaac Newton’s complete works. The series was called Isaaci Newtoni Opera quae extant Omnia (“Everything that Exists of Isaac Newton’s Works”). This was the first time Newton’s works had ever been collected and it included the books that you’d expect to find, things like his Opticks and the Principia, along with lesser known things like Newton’s commentaries on the Temple of Solomon and his interpretation of the Book of Revelations. What Horsley’s edition notably did not include, and which in length far outnumbered everything Newton ever published, were his magical writings. Horsley didn’t think it seemly to publish what amounted to number mysticism and alchemy alongside the most important works of Enlightenment science. And so he simply put them in a drawer. A hundred and fifty years later in 1936, Newton’s mystical and alchemical writings reemerged at Sotheby’s in London, where they were bought by the economist John Maynard Keynes.

Keynes had eagerly collected Newton’s occult manuscripts all his life and he stated the situation in a very stark way. He said that Newton “was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians.”

This is important because scientists and magicians seem to tell very different stories about the world. The stories that science tells are meant to interlock with each other, like Legos. Every scientific story has certain features in common with every other scientific story. These features, like the use of mathematics or logic or the conceit that matter is atomic, allow explicit connections to be made between them, even if their subjects are widely separated. This availability for interconnection is one of the things that makes science a powerful force in our world.

и самое интересное — call it Pynchonesque in a way — чуть дальше:

The stories that magicians tell would seem to be very different. The word occult means “hidden;” this tends to describe the types of stories whose logic is not readily apparent. However, the important thing to remember is not that magical stories “don’t make sense” or that alchemy “doesn’t work,” but that Newton thought they did.

что ж, он бог, ему можно.

  

канадские просторы

9 July 2014 | Television | 2 Comments

при всем том небрежении, коим я старательно одаряю любые теории заговора, наблюдать их на экране всегда и забавно, и смешно — однако, даже в таком случае хочется, все же, хоть какого-то разумного начала в сценарии, некой минимальной жизнеспособности.

иными словами, я никак не могу понять, откуда у “Orphan Black” такие замечательные отзывы и оценки.

  

to be inspired – that’s the secret

8 July 2014 | Sport | No Comments

к стонам о минувшем Уимблдоне и слезах на траве мне, очевидно, хочется вспомнить одну цитату из книги Андре Агасси — и потом еще одну:

We live in Las Vegas, Nevada, but currently reside in a suite at the Four Seasons hotel in New York City, because I’m playing in the 2006 U.S. Open. My last U.S. Open. In fact my last tournament ever. I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have.

As this last piece of identity falls into place, I slide to my knees and in a whisper I say: Please let this be over.

Then: I’m not ready for it to be over.

Now, from the next room, I hear Stefanie and the children. They’re eating breakfast, talking, laughing. My overwhelming desire to see and touch them, plus a powerful craving for caffeine, gives me the inspiration I need to hoist myself up, to go vertical. Hate brings me to my knees, love gets me on my feet.

  

there is no real me

8 July 2014 | Culturology, Literature | No Comments

Владимир Сорокин о культурных различиях:

Московский гламур — это новые голодные. Но это не голод по деньгам — а голод по вещам как абсолюту. 70 лет у нас, по выражению Бердяева, было изобилие идей и дефицит вещей. Сейчас, когда эти идеи умерли, их место заняли идеи вещей, то есть вместо марксизма сейчас — Kenzo и D&G. Но пока нет еще пресыщенности — а есть чувство легкой сытости. В глазах у всех — такая еще жажда, конечно. Это понятно: двадцать лет только прошло, это очень мало для такой огромной страны. И никого пока не рвет. В Европе тоже никого не рвет, но по другой причине — их вырвало в 68-м году, у них сейчас чистые желудки. И они уже не переедают.

и он же про две важные книги:

Ничего не открыв, Эллис создал библию гламура, где люди и вещи одинаковы, где между BMW последней модели и девушкой, сидящей в ней[1], — между ними нет разницы. И вещи даже больше, чем люди — они уже самодостаточны, а человеческое тело существует лишь для демонстрации этих вещей.

 

  1. a bit of sexism here?  ↩

  

про заек

8 July 2014 | Culturology, Psychology | 2 Comments

поразительно, с каким все же упорством люди несут чушь, дабы только попасть в закрытый, как им кажется, клуб.

таким образом, это не литературная ремарка, очевидно, но… психологическая?

  

on dumb adopters

7 July 2014 | Design, Google, Hardware | No Comments

неделя только началась, а смешно уже всем без исключения:

Android Wear really does two main things, it moves app notifications to the watch’s face, and it puts Google Now’s voice-powered search capabilities on your wrist. That’s about it. But that’s pretty powerful.[1]

дальше в статье натужно конструируются ситуации, где подобное могло бы сгодиться — based on your location and digital history, конечно же. и все это pretty powerful, huh?

oh, what a moron.

 

  1. actually, this exact quote sounds like a huge sarcastic remark to me. but I understand, that wasn’t their intention.  ↩

  

« Older Entries Newer Entries »