Back in Windows 95 you could click on your country on the world map to set the time zone. A border dispute caused complaints to Microsoft and they removed the feature (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/08/22/54679.aspx). This reminds me of that, only sillier.

You can do the same thing with desktop PCs and well-managed operating systems (fully automated OS installations and application loads, least-privilege users, automated patch deployment, all user state data stored on servers) and come in below the cost of thin-client devices, the associated "big iron" backoffice hardware to handle them, and the inordinately expensive licensing fees associated with all the products that made a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) possible. In large scale installations or installations where PCs aren't well-managed VDI will be a "win", but in smaller environments you'll spend more on licensing than you'd spend on desktops and their associated support.

Being vaccinated is part of being a responsible citizen. There are risks, and some people will be harmed or killed as a result. The net effect to society, though, is better, though. I get flu vaccines, boosters for my childhood vaccination regime, and I'll vaccinate any children I have. I'm willing to take the risk because I love living in a society where these preventable diseases occur infrequently.

Your rant re: vaccine manufacturers is a non sequitur and doesn't speak to the issue we're discussing.

Being a self-righteous asshole doesn't invalidate my premise-- it just makes me a dick.

Anti-vaxers unfairly minimize the risk to their children w/ respect to vaccine reactions yet they receive (freeload) the benefits of herd immunity. They also put herd immunity at risk and place those who are too young or unable to be vaccinated at risk.

Their behavior is anti-social and they have no place in a civilized society and should be shunned (by legal means, in my opinion).

I'll suppose I can be a little more civil in my tone. This "issue" really peeves me, as you probably saw.

Vaccination has risks, but it also has great rewards. Your child might've died if he'd received an egg-based vaccine (or, he might've never developed an egg allergy to begin with... but that's a different debate with different science behind it). The published rates of vaccine reactions, combined with the reward for the individual and society, make me put my money on vaccination.

If your child ends up being unable to receive vaccinations I do hope that he's not horribly disfigured or killed later in life as a result of others not vaccinating their children.

Having a child means accepting risks. Living in a society that receives the benefits of vaccines and herd immunity, to me, means accepting the risks. I find it unfair to parents who accept vaccines (and expose their children to the risks) when anti-vaxers seek to be relieved of the risk by eschewing vaccines. They erode herd immunity and endangering those who legitimately cannot be vaccinated while, at the same time. They receive all the rewards of vaccination (at least, until herd immunity breaks down), are exposed none of the risks, and are actively hurting society. They are anti-social, selfish people who deserve no place in a civilized society.

The benefits to the individual and society outweigh the risks, to me, I accept that the risks are part of having a child. I'd gladly vote for legislation that made freeloading, anti-social anti-vaxers go live somewhere else.

Yes. I want this. I want to live in a society where people are forced to give up this bullshit "freedom" to refuse vaccines. I'll vote for that all day long. If you don't like it then I don't want you living in my society. Go somewhere else. Assuming we have vaccines that are scientifically vetted and tested I'd be happy to live in a society where vaccination is mandatory. Maybe you think my opinion is strong but THE FUCKING IDIOTS WHO REFUSE TO VACCINATE THEIR CHILDREN ARE MAKING THE WORLD LESS SAFE FOR EVERYONE ELSE. They're the selfish bastards...

You're a fucking idiot. You don't understand "herd immunity". Infants can't be vaccinated immediately, but they're susceptible to disease. Some people have health problems that prevent them from being vaccinated. Sometimes the vaccines just don't work. When the vast majority of people (the "herd") are vaccinated then enough immunity exists to prevent the disease from gaining a foothold and spreading. As soon as there are enough people who aren't vaccinated herd immunity breaks down and the world becomes unsafe for infants, those who cannot be vaccinated, or the unlucky few who the vaccine doesn't work on. If my child died as a result of a preventable disease that they contracted while too young to be vaccinated and I found out they were infected by an the child of an anti-vax nutjob I think I'd have little choice but to kill the anti-vax parents. I'm quite sure I'd have a hard time staying my hand. People who are that anti-social and selfish don't deserve to live.

Reminds me of the short-lived Critical Update Notification Tool Microsoft released back in the early 2000's. (Yeah-- they really named it that, though they _quickly_ backpedaled on the name...)

There's some precedent for this in telephony. I've photographed a couple of old Cincinnati Bell central offices in residential neighborhoods in Cincinnati. They were built to match the architecture and landscaping of the houses around them. If you're not looking for them it's easy to mistake them for plain old houses.

I can't tell you about that funny Mac stuff... (thought the idea that a binary is specific to a specific OS release is really, really funny to me as a Windows user).

I didn't compile their app at all. I just found the "location.db" SQLite database on my phone, copied it over to my PC, and dumped it with an SQLite browser. I looked at the source of TFA's app to figure out what the timestamp epoch date was, but other than that I didn't use their app for anything.

Yep-- I resemble that remark.

I just dumped the file from my iPhone and imported it into a Google map. I had to check out the source code to the tool at TFA to figure out that the dates are based on an epoch of 2001-01-01 and not the usual Unix epoch date.

I'm looking forward to using this feature to help me track my location. Since the phone is already doing this "for free" it's not going to "cost" me any more battery power to use this log. It's not as accurate as GPS, but it's accurate enough for my needs.

Once I've got a cron job setup to offload the file from my (jailbroken) iPhone 3GS to a box on my network I'll work out how to wipe the file on the device after each upload (so that the device isn't carrying around weeks or months of my position data).

Without "trusted" hardware the user will always be able to override software "protections" designed to prevent arbitrary code execution. This is just another "leapfrog" in this arms race. Give me "trusted computing" where I control the keys and decide what software is "trusted" and I'd be fine w/ it. Otherwise, I'll take the current situation on personal computers because, at least, I can run arbitrary software. ("Don't turn my PC into an iPhone, bro!")

It's worse than that. The idea is to introduce pervasive and potentially legally-mandated "trusted computing".

NAP / NAC without trusted computing platforms on the client nodes is a stupid, pointless idea. Unless the client can be trusted not to lie about its "health status" there's no guarantee that the client isn't simply infected with something that's smart enough to hide from "health scans".

It seems like most everybody doesn't understand (or notice footnote 14 on page 5) that, in order for this to work, all the subject devices must have trusted processing capability. That means "TPM" chips, signed OS kernels / hypervisors, and the inability to run untrusted root-level code. Take a second to laugh at the idea that anyone will be able to introduce a bug-free hypervisor / TPM environment that can't run unsigned and untrusted code. After you're done laughing at that I'd recommend being angered at the notion of such a thing, since it will effectively eliminate control of the devices owned by consumers.. turning every device with a "clean bill of health" into a walled-garden appliance. As long as consumers own and control their general purpose devices there will never be a way to do what this paper describes. Frankly, I'm alright with that. We'd do a lot better to just assume that every device is untrusted and act accordingly.