Dvorak News Blog

Is Software a Life Form?

By Marc Perkel Saturday June 7, 2014

Let’s for a moment expand our understanding of “life” so that we aren’t limited by only biological life. Is software a life form? I argue that software is a life form because:

It reproduces
It evolves

One has to recognize that computers and the Internet is software’s habitat. And it is totally dependent on humanity maintaining that habitat. But the Earth is our habitat and we are (presently) totally dependent as well. We are also totally dependent on the other life forms on the planet for food, oxygen, etc.

Reality Has No Place in Washington

By McCullough Wednesday June 4, 2014

116 Comments

Best comment at 3:06……then again at 8:12. A strong economy, seriously? I bet 97% of economists might disagree with that.

And people wonder why some don’t blindly accept the “official stories” that come out of DC.

DH Unplugged
Bad Numbers

By John C Dvorak Tuesday June 3, 2014

4 Comments

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Here is the latest conversation I had with money manager Andrew Horowitz…. new insights for anyone who invests in anything.

Click here for non-Flash version.click ► to listen:

Right click here and select ‘Save Link As…’ to download the mp3 file.

Who Needs Random Numbers?

By Marc Perkel Monday June 2, 2014

26 Comments

I’ve been playing around generating random numbers from compressed spam and other random events just to see if I can do it. Every now and then I see stuff on the web having to do with generating cryptographic keys and things being hackable because there isn’t enough entropy to generate good random data.

So after playing with it I can generate a lot of good random data fast and I was thinking of making a random data server that anyone could access that would provide a chunk of random data to seed or mix in to the data pool you are using.

Maybe I have a solution where there is no problem, but I was wondering if there was any value in providing – maybe selling – random data?

Patent Royalties Add How Much to a Smartphone’s Cost???

By Uncle Dave Monday June 2, 2014

18 Comments

The report, titled The Smartphone Royalty Stack: Surveying Royalty Demands for the Components Within Modern Smartphones, has finally tagged a dollar amount to what consumers pay toward royalty fees. The figure comes to about $120 for a hypothetical smartphone that costs $400. This means that 30 percent of a device’s cost goes to royalty payments, which is almost equal to the price of the phone’s physical components.

SWAT Team Frags Toddler During No-Knock Home Invasion

By McCullough Friday May 30, 2014

54 Comments

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ATLANTA —
A family says a SWAT team raided their home in the middle of the night and seriously injured a 19-month-old boy with a stun grenade. Alecia Phonesavanh told Channel 2’s Ryan Young her child is at the Grady Memorial Hospital burn unit and is in a medically induced coma. Phonesavanh said she was at her sister-in-law’s home in Habersham County early Wednesday when police raided the house.

“It’s my baby. He’s only a baby. He didn’t deserve any of this,” Phonesavanh said.

Phonesavanh told Young the grenade landed in the child’s crib; she showed him a photo of a charred portable crib.

“It landed in his playpen and exploded on his pillow right in his face,” Phonesavanh said.

She also showed Young pictures of her child in the Grady burn unit. Channel 2 has decided not to share most of the photos because of the graphic nature of the child’s injuries.

“He’s in the burn unit. We go up to see him and his whole face is ripped open. He has a big cut on his chest,” Phonesavanh said. “He’s only 19 months old. He didn’t do anything.”

Cornelia police Chief Rick Darby confirmed that the raid took place at the home just before 3 a.m. He said a multijurisdictional drug unit issued a warrant and organized the SWAT operation.

Deputies said they bought drugs from the house, and came back with a no-knock warrant to arrest a man known to have drugs and weapons.

Texas Feds Dumping Illegals on Tucson, Phoenix

By McCullough Friday May 30, 2014

22 Comments

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Scores of undocumented immigrants are being flown to Arizona and dumped at bus stations in Phoenix and Tucson.

By Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It seems the overwhelmed Texas Border Patrol doesn’t have the manpower to handle the surge in illegal border crossings in south Texas, so they’re exporting immigrants caught trying to sneak into Texas to Arizona, where the immigrants are apparently free to go about their business.

As reported by The Arizona Republic’s Daniel Gonzalez, federal officials in recent days have flown in about 400 people who were caught trying to enter the country illegally through the Rio Grande Valley. The people are then dropped at bus stations in Phoenix and Tucson and told to report to a local ICE office within 15 days.

Never mind the inhumanity in dumping people – many of them women and babies – into a strange city where the temperatures are soaring over 100 degrees and they know no one.

Never mind that it seems just absurd to think they’re actually going to show up at a local ICE office within 15 days, as directed.

So we are deporting illegals to states we don’t like now? Well that’s just awesome.

No Agenda Show
Gun Extremists

By John C Dvorak Thursday May 29, 2014

9 Comments

Executive Producers: Robert Rock, Sir Loek van der Helm Associate Executive Producer: John Carlson Art By: TheFakeSalLizard Listen to show by clicking ►

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Snowden’s Interview

By Uncle Dave Thursday May 29, 2014

27 Comments

“I was trained as a spy in sort of the traditional sense of the word in that I lived and worked undercover overseas, pretending to work in a job that I’m not, and even being assigned a name that was not mine,” Snowden said.

“So when [critics] say I’m a low-level systems administrator, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’d say it’s somewhat misleading,” he added.

National Security Advisor Susan Rice said in a CNN interview Wednesday that Snowden never worked undercover. “No,” she said flatly when asked if he was ever a spy.

Hmmm… If Susan Rice is right (she wouldn’t lie, would she?), then maybe Snowden was a spy in the Maxwell Smart sense — he played one on TV. After all, the TSA would have found the phone in his shoe, assuming they weren’t distracted by a 90 year old’s oversized shampoo bottle.

Here’s more interview stuff.

No Agenda Show
Dead Man Cuffed

By John C Dvorak Monday May 26, 2014

6 Comments

Executive Producers: Sir Paul, Sir David Foley Arch Duke of Silicon Valley, Hyperware Technologies, Dwayne Parker, Sir Dallas Spongberg, Parker Snyder, Sir Gene Naftulyev Earl of Texas, Sir Dr. Sharkey, Anonymous, Ken Chevanu, Sir JD
Associate Executive Producers: Sir Nate Wilson, Dame Monica Lansing, Sir Andrew Largeman, Black Knight Scott Spenser, John Grumling, Christopher & Michelle Hollman, David K, Sir Ara Derderian, James Romano
Art By: MartinJJ
Listen to show by clicking ►

Direct link to mp3 is here.
Direct link to shownotes.

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Pig of the Day

By Eideard Saturday May 24, 2014

37 Comments

Greater Manchester Police arrested a man who put on a pig mask, toy helmet and reflective jacket in order to perform “comical parodies” about the behavior of law enforcement officials.

Treating PTSD with “Hookers and Blow” Therapy

By Uncle Dave Friday May 23, 2014

25 Comments

If this catches on, I can see a whopping spike in reported cases of PTSD coming.

Lt. Col. Stanwick Hardcastle is not just the most popular psychiatrist at Womack Army Hospital because of his strong jaw, jet-black hair and piercing light blue eyes. He also happens to have earned a wide reputation as a strong supporter of prostitutes and hard drugs in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“A lot of [my peers] and my bosses have trouble processing it,” said Hardcastle, in an exclusive interview with Duffel Blog. “But it makes sense if you step back from your initial revulsion and assess it rationally. What do our hurting soldiers, sailors and Marines who have PTSD seek out on their own? Sex and drugs, that’s what.”
[…]
Hardcastle’s professional peers and many senior Army officers have trouble accepting his admittedly outside-the-box form of therapy. Behind his back, detractors derisively refer to it as the “hookers and blow” therapy, and his own performance review for the last year expressed worry at his “rush to embrace untested, socially unpalatable therapies.”

No Agenda Show
Droves of Jihadis

By John C Dvorak Friday May 23, 2014

2 Comments

Executive Producers: Sir Andrew Largeman, Ryan Merritt, Anonymous, Spencer Pearson, Alysha & Scott
Art By: MartinJJ
Listen to show by clicking ►

Direct link to mp3 is here.
Direct link to shownotes.

Why I Dont Watch C-Span…Ewww

By McCullough Wednesday May 21, 2014

11 Comments

Try not to judge, for who amongst us has not enjoyed a little ear wax appetizer now and then…..?

Fed Pot Policy Is Hampering U.S. Cyber Security

By Uncle Dave Tuesday May 20, 2014

62 Comments

So, “winning” the War on Drugs is causing us to lose the cyber battle. Go figure.

FBI Director James B. Comey said Monday that if the FBI hopes to continue to keep pace with cyber criminals, the organization may have to loosen up its no-tolerance policy for hiring those who like to smoke marijuana.

Congress has authorized the FBI to add 2,000 personnel to its rolls this year, and many of those new recruits will be assigned to tackle cyber crimes, a growing priority for the agency. And that’s a problem, Mr. Comey told the White Collar Crime Institute, an annual conference held at the New York City Bar Association in Manhattan. A lot of the nation’s top computer programmers and hacking gurus are also fond of marijuana.

Here in Las Vegas, local government is in the final stages of winnowing down the applications for those wishing to open medical marijuana stores. Should start seeing them open in about a year.