ImgLikeOpera
November 25th, 2012ImgLikeOpera is a great Firefox addon for those of us with limited data capacity Internet connections:
ImgLikeOpera allows load only the images that you want in Firefox browser. This extension is very useful for non broadband users.
Features:
– placeholders for blocked images (hi, LJ treads!);
– (re)load image from context menu or Ctrl+rightMouseClick;
– forced expiration time (5 minutes – 3 months);
– policies for tabs;
– filters.You can set one of policies for each tab:
– don’t load images;
– load cached images only;
– load images for the originating Web site only;
– load all images.Also you can block/allow images with filters. ImgLikeOpera supports two types of filters: simple, and Regular Expression (thanks AdBlock).
Even though I block ads and Flash by default, it seems like more and more sites are going nuts with higher quality images and more of them on their pages. I used View Dependencies to do some quick comparisons of page sizes with image loading turned on and off. The result: Unsurprisingly, most of my bandwidth is going up in smoke to load images that I don’t need to see.
Update on Our Unending Lack-of-Decent-Internet-Access Saga
Every couple of years, the grim Internet situation here gets the better of me and I go looking for a way to deal with it. I had hoped that the Rural Broadband Initiative would finally fix this. *chortle* This is what the Ministry of Economic Development’s widget reports to me when I type in our address:
You may get the following service:
Sorry – you are not in a UFB or RBI zone
HA! UFB is Ultrafast Broadband and RBI is Rural Broadband Initiative. We’re a bit too rural, I guess.
Believe it or not, there’s now a glimmer of hope: Ubergroup.
Ubergroup has made a business out of bringing fast (and relatively affordable) Internet access to the deepest, darkest, broadbandless valleys of Northland New Zealand.
I contacted them a couple of years ago, and the guy on the phone let out a sort of gasp when he looked at our valley on his topographic map. No luck.
But when I emailed them a couple of weeks ago, the situation had changed a bit. It turns out that a tipping point as been reached with the number of people in this area who have been contacting Ubergroup about getting Internet access and Ubergroup is now willing to build a solar powered repeater out here if I can find a hill tall enough to see one of their other repeaters and a land owner willing to host the repeater. (Obviously, our property doesn’t go high enough or we would have done it.)
I’ve found the hill, and the person who owns it is willing to let Ubergroup build the tower up there.
After years of reading about these problems out here, you’re probably thinking, “So now what’s the problem?” And you would be right to be thinking that.
There’s a minor detail related to that site: A steep hike/climb through about 500 meters of dense bush would be required to reach it. I don’t know how much a ten meter tower weighs, but that’s what they need to place up there, along with solar panels, antennas, batteries, etc. (I’ve hiked through bush like that and I was barely able to do it carrying only a rifle.) I half-jokingly suggested dropping a team and the tower up there with a helicopter and the person I’m working with at Ubergroup laughed and said, “It wouldn’t be the first time…”
But they really, really don’t want to use a helicopter, and I don’t blame them.
As it stands now, they’re trying to arrange an easier access path through a neighboring property.
I know. I’m not holding my breath.
Help us Ubergroup-Kenobi. You’re our only hope.
U.N. Wants Drones
November 24th, 2012Via: AFP:
The United Nations wants to use drones for the first time to monitor fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where Rwanda has been accused of aiding rebels, officials said Friday.
U.S. Denies Malware Attack Against France
November 24th, 2012Via: Information Week:
Did the U.S. government launch a “cyberattaque” against French government computers in the run-up to the 2012 French presidential election?
That allegation was leveled at the U.S. government by unnamed French officials, according to a Tuesday report in the weekly French newspaper L’Express. It reported that computers belonging to top advisers to then French president Nicolas Sarkozy had been hacked using the Flame cyberespionage malware, which was designed to be used in highly targeted attacks.
Microsoft Files Patent for Augmented Reality Smart Glasses
November 24th, 2012Via: BBC:
Work on digital glasses that overlay information on top of the user’s view of the world has been carried out by Microsoft.
A patent applied for by the US tech firm describes how the eyewear could be used to bring up statistics over a wearer’s view of a baseball game or details of characters in a play.
The newly-released document was filed in May 2011 and is highly detailed.
If a product comes to market it could challenge Google’s Project Glass.
Google is planning to deliver its augmented reality glasses to developers early next year and then follow with a release to consumers in 2014.
France: The Time-Bomb at the Heart of Europe
November 23rd, 2012If I had to live in Europe, I’d still pick France.
Via: The Economist:
THE threat of the euro’s collapse has abated for the moment, but putting the single currency right will involve years of pain. The pressure for reform and budget cuts is fiercest in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, which all saw mass strikes and clashes with police this week. But ahead looms a bigger problem that could dwarf any of these: France.
…
For years it has been losing competitiveness to Germany and the trend has accelerated as the Germans have cut costs and pushed through big reforms. Without the option of currency devaluation, France has resorted to public spending and debt. Even as other EU countries have curbed the reach of the state, it has grown in France to consume almost 57% of GDP, the highest share in the euro zone. Because of the failure to balance a single budget since 1981, public debt has risen from 22% of GDP then to over 90% now.
The business climate in France has also worsened. French firms are burdened by overly rigid labour- and product-market regulation, exceptionally high taxes and the euro zone’s heaviest social charges on payrolls. Not surprisingly, new companies are rare. France has fewer small and medium-sized enterprises, today’s engines of job growth, than Germany, Italy or Britain. The economy is stagnant, may tip into recession this quarter and will barely grow next year. Over 10% of the workforce, and over 25% of the young, are jobless. The external current-account deficit has swung from a small surplus in 1999 into one of the euro zone’s biggest deficits. In short, too many of France’s firms are uncompetitive and the country’s bloated government is living beyond its means.
LAPD Prepares for Fat Zombie Rampage at Wal-Mart
November 22nd, 2012Update: Fat Zombie Rampage Stories Coming In
Many people are sending in stories about bowling ball shaped zombies running amok. Feel free to post these in comments.
As much as I’d like to watch the videos of these antics, I’ve run out of bandwidth for the month. The cycle turns over in about 12 hours. I’m off until tomorrow.
—End Update—
Via: Los Angeles Times:
Black Friday is a day for burning off those Thanksgiving calories with some intense Christmas shopping. But for the Los Angeles Police Department, it’s become a day of surveillance, crowd control and crime-suppression tactics.
Helicopters will buzz above some shopping centers, and below, a cavalry of LAPD officers will patrol on bikes and horses. From store rooftops, officers will scan the crowds below looking for unruly behavior. Electronic signs near stores will warn customers about becoming victims of theft as they navigate the mass of humanity looking for bargains.
The deployments are part of a new strategy by the LAPD to deal with the retail roller derby that comes after Thanksgiving. In addition to stationing officers around shopping centers, the LAPD has been visiting stores across the city this week, talking to managers about the psychology of the frantic shopper.
Officials said the push was prompted by a series of incidents at Black Friday sales, notably one last year at a Porter Ranch Wal-Mart in which two dozen people were injured when a woman unleashed pepper spray during a frantic battle for some discounted video games.
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions in November
November 22nd, 2012Thanks to the readers who sent contributions in November:
Pookie $75
MH $20
KW $50
SH CA$2
Thanks also go out to the owners of cmediaconcepts.com and myommu.org for signing up for hosting with BlueHost. Cryptogon received a $180 commission as a result.
October Earnings
November 22nd, 2012Total earnings in October came to $1633.73. That’s a great result!
In addition to the other October contributions already acknowledged, TB sent $25 and IK sent CA$8.
Thanks to everyone who sent contributions and conducted business via Cryptogon’s affiliate relationships in October.
Pentagon Wants to Keep Running Its ‘Afghan Drug War’ From Blackwater’s HQ
November 22nd, 2012You’ll love this.
Via: Wired:
The U.S. war in Afghanistan is supposed to be winding down. Its contractor-led drug war? Not so much.
Inside a compound in Kabul called Camp Integrity, the Pentagon stations a small group of officers to oversee the U.S. military’s various operations to curb the spread of Afghanistan’s cash crops of heroin and marijuana, which help line the Taliban’s pockets. Only Camp Integrity isn’t a U.S. military base at all. It’s the 10-acre Afghanistan headquarters of the private security company formerly known as Blackwater.
Those officers work for an obscure Pentagon agency called the Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office, or CNTPO. Quietly, it’s grown into one of the biggest dispensers of cash for private security contractors in the entire U.S. government: One pile of contracts last year from CNTPO was worth more than $3 billion. And it sees a future for itself in Afghanistan over the long haul.
Related:
Blackwater Worldwide Changes Its Name to Xe; Same Mercenaries, but Now with More “Aviation Support”
Afghanistan: Opium Poppy Cultivation Rises Sharply from 2011-2012
Afghanistan: Opium Poppy Cultivation Rises Sharply from 2011-2012
November 22nd, 2012Via: New York Times:
Opium poppy cultivation rose substantially in 2012 in an “alarming” trend, despite a major opium eradication effort by Afghan governors, United Nations officials said Tuesday as they released the organization’s 2012 opium survey, which was undertaken with the Afghan Ministry of Counternarcotics.
The higher cultivation levels were driven by high prices for the crop as well as instability in the main growing areas, which made it easier for farmers and traffickers to operate. Another factor was the lack of a governmentwide commitment to counternarcotics, said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the chief of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for Afghanistan.
Poppy cultivation nationwide increased by 18 percent between 2011 and 2012, with a similar increase in Helmand Province, the biggest opium-producing region, despite an aggressive campaign by the governor to eradicate the crop and promote alternative jobs.
