Google Fiber wants to slow things down a bit, so they’ve added Dialup Mode to Google Fiber.
Happy April 1st!
Check It Out
Links to cool places or things.
There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 65 of 153).
Cisco Shipping Hardware To Bogus Addresses To Throw Off NSA Intercept-And-Implant Efforts | Techdirt
Cisco became an inadvertent (and very unwilling) co-star in the NSA Antics: Snowden Edition when its logo was splashed across the web by a leaked document detailing the agency’s interception of outbound US networking hardware in order to insert surveillance backdoors.
It moved quickly to mitigate the damage, sending a letter to the President asking him and his administration to institute some safeguards and limitations to protect US tech companies from the NSA’s backdoor plans. To date, there has been no direct response. So, Cisco has decided to handle the problem itself.
via Cisco Shipping Hardware To Bogus Addresses To Throw Off NSA Intercept-And-Implant Efforts | Techdirt.
New Hampshire legislatures kill fourth graders’ bill and dreams.
What assholes.
Last Thursday, fourth graders from Hampton Falls, New Hampshire visited their state legislature to observe a bit of democracy in action. The children had previously proposed House Bill 373, establishing the Red Tail Hawk as the New Hampshire State Raptor, as part of a civics lesson in how bills become laws. Their measure had already sailed out of the Environmental and Agriculture Committee. Now the young students gathered in the House galley to watch their bill pass its next hurdle.
via New Hampshire legislatures kill fourth graders' bill and dreams..
Google Fiber: Kansas City offers Charlotte ‘Digital Divide’ lessons | The Charlotte Observer The Charlotte Observer
CharO talks about Google Fiber and the Digital Divide
In a past job in Kansas City, Julie Porter was part of an intense, door-to-door campaign to get residents in economically challenged, mostly minority neighborhoods to sign up for Google’s high-speed Internet service.
Community organizers didn’t want residents in these areas to face an even wider Digital Divide.
Now the head of a Charlotte housing agency, Porter has urged local leaders here to get an early start encouraging residents to embrace broadband service, long before Google Fiber makes its planned Charlotte debut.
“It was just very, very challenging,” said Porter, president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership, of the Kansas City situation. “I wanted to make sure that Charlotte didn’t have the same experience.”
The magically-filling fuel tank
Earlier this week I got to experience a phenomenon very unique to electric vehicles.
I was driving out of the parking deck at work on a warm day that had started much cooler. Batteries are sensitive to temperature and don’t provide less power when it’s cooler. My electric car had dialed back its expected range on my cooler morning commute and kept it there as my car waited in the cool parking deck for me to get off of work.
As I drove out at the end of the day, the car’s thermometer rose briskly as it went from the cool parking deck to the warm afternoon air. I watched in amusement as my car’s range began increasing as I drove! It was like someone was adding fuel to my tank! I gained 20 miles of range on a six-mile drive.
Only in an electric car can one drive somewhere and actually get an increase in range!
Media helped feds arrest suspected ‘child predator’ in Raleigh | News & Observer News & Observer
I’m thrilled authorities caught this sick bastard who allegedly committed this heinous crime. I only hope, though, that the innocent man they first arrested can put his life back together. He spent 105 days in jail and lost his house and job. How can this be fixed?
A wildfire of social media helped federal authorities find and arrest a Raleigh man accused of sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl as part of a suspected child pornography ring in Harnett County.
On Wednesday, federal agents asked for the public’s help in locating “John Doe,” a man they described as a “child predator.” They provided a photo of the man and said he might be using the name Peter Gilbert.
via Media helped feds arrest suspected ‘child predator’ in Raleigh | News & Observer News & Observer.
Fifteen years of public service
Found in the attic a few weeks ago is this letter from the late Garner mayor F. Don Rohrbaugh, thanking me for my service on Garner’s Land Use Ordinance rewrite committee. It was my very first public service (outside of the military).
Thanks, Don (wherever you are), for getting me started!
5 myths about daylight saving time – The Washington Post
Daylight saving time strikes again Sunday at 2 a.m., at least for every state outside Hawaii and Arizona. Though DST has been part of life in the United States since World War I, its origin and effects remain misunderstood, even by some of the lawmakers responsible for it. Here are some common myths.
via 5 myths about daylight saving time – The Washington Post.
Who Really Benefits from Daylight Saving Time? – The Takeaway
Most Americans will "spring forward" this weekend and lose an hour to daylight saving time. But daylight savings is hardly standardized in the United States, much less the world: Both Hawaii and Arizona will stick with standard time on Sunday, and Europe won’t spring forward until March 30th. Few other countries practice daylight savings at all.
Michael Downing, a lecturer at Tufts University and author of the book "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time," started wondering about the history and purpose of daylight savings a few years ago. He began to research the phenomenon and realized that most of the justifications for the practice that he remembered had very little to do with its existence.
via Who Really Benefits from Daylight Saving Time? – The Takeaway.
Hillary’s Secret Email Was a Cyberspy’s Dream Weapon – The Daily Beast
Here’s a good, in-depth look at the perils Hillary faced when she opted to run her own mailserver.
The private email address for Hillary Clinton, which became the talk of Washington this week and created her first major speed bump on her road to the White House, has actually been freely available on the Internet for a year, thanks to a colorful Romanian hacker known as Guccifer.
On March 14, 2013, Guccifer—his real name is Marcel-Lehel Lazar—broke into the AOL account of Sidney Blumenthal, a journalist, former White House aide to Bill Clinton, and personal confidante of Hillary Clinton. Lazar crowed about his exploits to journalists, disclosing a set of memos Blumenthal had written to Clinton in 2012, as well as the personal email address and domain she’s now known to have used exclusively for her personal and official correspondence.
Few journalists noticed that at the time, and it caused no ruckus in Washington. But the fact that Clinton’s private email was now public means she was not just putting her own information at risk, but potentially those in the circle of people who knew her private address.
via Hillary’s Secret Email Was a Cyberspy’s Dream Weapon – The Daily Beast.