Nils Sandin › Comments

"In the course of exploring the properties of a strange subatomic particle, physicists may have stumbled upon something even stranger: a mysterious and exotic new form of matter." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

CloudConvert supports the conversion between more than 100 different audio, video, document, ebook, archive, image, spreadsheet and presentation formats. You can specify advanced options for every conversion type. - Nils Sandin

"If you become aware of any individual degrading another, then show moral courage and take a stand against it. No one has ever explained to me how the exploitation or degradation of others enhances capability or honors the traditions of the Australian army. I will be ruthless in ridding the army of people who cannot live up to its values and I need every one of you to support me in achieving this." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"Estimates of the current size of the body of federal criminal law vary. It has been reported that the Congressional Research Service cannot even count the current number of federal crimes. These laws are scattered in over 50 titles of the United States Code, encompassing roughly 27,000 pages. Worse yet, the statutory code sections often incorporate, by reference, the provisions and sanctions of administrative regulations promulgated by various regulatory agencies under congressional authorization. Estimates of how many such regulations exist are even less well settled, but the ABA thinks there are ”nearly 10,000.”" - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"The federal government has been secretly collecting information on foreigners overseas for nearly six years from the nation’s largest Internet companies like Google, Facebook and, most recently, Apple, in search of national security threats, the director of national intelligence confirmed Thursday night." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"On Thursday, justice ministers from the European Union’s 27 member states agreed to a business-friendly proposal that what companies do with personal data would be scrutinized by regulators only if there were “risks” to individuals, including identity theft or discrimination." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"When the government gathers or analyzes personal information, many people say they're not worried. "I've got nothing to hide," they declare. "Only if you're doing something wrong should you worry, and then you don't deserve to keep it private." The nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy. The data-security expert Bruce Schneier calls it the "most common retort against privacy advocates." The legal scholar Geoffrey Stone refers to it as an "all-too-common refrain." In its most compelling form, it is an argument that the privacy interest is generally minimal, thus making the contest with security concerns a foreordained victory for security." - Nils Sandin

"We know that the NSA has many domestic-surveillance and data-mining programs with codenames like Trailblazer, Stellar Wind, and Ragtime -- deliberately using different codenames for similar programs to stymie oversight and conceal what's really going on." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"Politicians and civil liberties campaigners described the disclosures, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday, as the most sweeping intrusion into private data they had ever seen by the US government. But the Obama administration, while declining to comment on the specific order, said the practice was "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States"." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"He wasn’t trying to play a hero when he pushed the knife-wielding bully away from his classmate. But school officials accused him of exactly that. His mother, Leah O’Donnell, said that the school’s vice-principal told her that the school doesn’t “condone heroics” and a teacher should always be called in such situations. Briar was reprimanded for helping out his fellow student." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"The film, Star Wars, premiered on May 25, 1977. Today, on its 36th anniversary, I’m examining the evolution of the film’s logo." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"Proving that they are not only stupid, but inbred, idiotic, and every other expletive in the book, the league of morons who run the Chicago Sun Times have decided that they don’t need no stink in’ photographers. They can use reporters to take the photos and they are training the reporters to use iPhones to do it. You can’t make this stuff up folks. You really can’t." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"The FBI wants a new law that will make it easier to wiretap the Internet. Although its claim is that the new law will only maintain the status quo, it's really much worse than that. This law will result in less-secure Internet products and create a foreign industry in more-secure alternatives. It will impose costly burdens on affected companies. It will assist totalitarian governments in spying on their own citizens. And it won't do much to hinder actual criminals and terrorists." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

by Miles O'Brien - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"How did investigators solve the case so quickly? In a new NOVA documentary, produced by our partner WGBH, director and producer Miles O’Brien looks at the high tech tools that law enforcement officials used, along with solid detective work, to find the Tsarnaev brothers." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"The company will start testing drones at large rail depots, where vandalism frequently occurs at night. The drones will be nearly silent and will have GPS tracking and sensitive infrared cameras to establish evidence for criminal prosecution." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

Tried to use the bookmarklet for this, but readwrite was apparently blocking it :-( Not cool! - Nils Sandin

"I'm not sure who to blame. His mother, perhaps, or the public school system. But it turns out that my son - days away from graduating from High School- does not know how to send mail through the U.S. Postal Service. I am not making this up." - Nils Sandin

"Überall dort, wo Straßen verlegt sind, könnten auch Solarmodule liegen. Diese erzeugen Strom, der wiederum ins Stromnetz eingespeist wird. Damit kann gleich doppelt Öl gespart werden: Mit der durch die Solarmodule gewonnenen Energie könnten Elektroautos aufgeladen werden. Außerdem kann beim Straßenbau Asphalt gespart werden, für dessen Herstellung Erdöl erforderlich ist." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

Integrating solar panels into roads! - Nils Sandin

In fact, in the book there's one story I just skipped because I couldn't understand anything because of the accent. In the movie it was at least intelligible. I can't say whatever lesson the book is about is worth all the effort, but the movie is at least entertaining. - Todd Hoff

Saw the movie (great!), then bought the book, but haven't read it yet. - Nils Sandin

"It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"Sergei Lavrov said the points had been "stolen" from Russia's Dina Garipova and "this outrageous action will not remain without a response". Azerbaijan says it cannot explain how it awarded no points to Russia, when Garipova came second in its phone poll." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

More ESC nonsense - Nils Sandin

Luckily I am recurring. But one of the Flickr help threads indicated that non-recurring Pro members would get an option to become recurring, to be announced soon. - Nils Sandin

Your move, Flickr. - Stephen Mack #TeamMomo

It's the same thing Microsoft did with their ZuneMusic accounts when they transitioned over to Xbox Music. If you had the old-school Zune Music Pass, where you paid $14.99 for unlimited streaming plus 10 free song credits each month, you could keep that account (and I have). However, if you pre-paid for a year at a time (at that time, it was $149/year or $14.99/month), you would either have to switch to monthly billing, or be automatically knocked down to the new plan. - DAMMIT, MR. NOODLE

"In June 2009, Rosen reported on CIA analysis suggesting that North Korea might respond to new UN sanctions with renewed nuclear tests. In order to determine how Rosen learned of the analysis, which had been issued by the CIA only a few hours prior, FBI investigators used every tool at their disposal: analyzing Rosen's security access card to determine when he entered and left the State Department building, studying his phone records, and subpoenaing his personal email." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

"Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for "soliciting" the disclosure of classified information - is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

New layout is nice, but the map on each photopage has disappeared, and the new cover photo can only be chosen from recent pics, or upload new one. No option to search or choose an older pic from my photostream. - Nils Sandin

I like some things about the iOS app but other things are harder to find/use than in a desktop browser. - Spidra Webster

I thought it was fun. Obviously no high expectations, but entertaining. - Nils Sandin

“Star Wars” despots vs. “Star Trek” populists - Salon - David Brin http://www.salon.com/1999... - Victor Ganata

I knew Star Trek before Star Wars, so now a fan of both (of course only the first trilogy). - Nils Sandin

"Facebook verhandelt laut Medienberichten über den Kauf der Navigations-App Waze - der Preis könnte eine Milliarde Dollar erreichen. Bei Waze informieren die Nutzer einander über Staus, Unfälle oder Radarfallen. Die Unternehmen seien in ersthaften Gesprächen, die aber noch scheitern könnten, schrieben das "Wall Street Journal" und die Finanznachrichtenagentur Bloomberg. Zuvor war davon bereits in israelischen Medienberichten die Rede." - Nils Sandin from Bookmarklet

I liked it, and Jeremy Irons as a somewhat villain worked well. - Nils Sandin