Posts by Pascal Monett 18239 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
A twelve-year-old would have had more imagination.
And, pray tell, how exactly do you "simplify" a black triangle ? I can't imagine how much time was wasted agonizing over which font to choose, what size the letters should be, and what color they should be in. Then, of course, there's the obligatory writing up the "excitement" that the new logo generates. What a waste.
At least there wasn't too much whalesong, so it could have been worse.
"Facebook has [..] agreed to remove any content considered “anti-state” after telcos in the nation reportedly cut off access to the social network's systems"
And there you go, now you know how to ensure that The Zuck does what you tell him to. No more Congressional hearings where he pretends to give a fuck, just shut off his platform until he does as he's told.
It's nice to see that there are some people that have balls in this world. Shame that none (or very few) of them are in democratic countries.
Facebook is a company. It will parrot whatever people want to hear to polish its image, and it will do whatever it takes to polish its revenue.
I have just one question : why the hell does a switch have that much computing power ?
Seems like a waste to me for something that is supposed to just route packets. Obviously, so much functionality has been added that what was once a simple packet router has become a full-fledged PC in its own right.
Sounds like overkill to me.
Which app are you talking about ?
The European one is at the design stage and already being torpedoed by conflicting views, so you certainly didn't download that, it doesn't exist yet.
The UK app is a pipe dream and will only be available in 2025, after using up £250 million and failing to actually manage BlueTooth to record contacts.
So, are you talking about the Singapour one and, if so, why should we care since we're not going to use that one ?
Location data is not supposed to be harvested, in which case it is not Big Brother - except if you're in the UK which has, curiously, decided it wanted that.
If you can only tell who you've met and not where you met them, then you're doing tracing properly.
If that data gets permanently erased once the crises is over, it is not Big Brother but a serious medical initiative that is justified in these times.
It most definitely is. Time and time again we see our spacecraft outlive their mission plan due not only to well-designed craft, but mostly to the intelligence, ingenuity and dogged determination of the people who are in charge of operating them. This is a testament to the dedication humans are capable of in attaining the goal and going beyond. It is a marvelous asset for our future, and always make for very interesting reading.
Well done boffins, again !
One thing I don't get here : these "neurons" are a programming object, right ? In that case, why did nobody think of including an activity log for each neuron ?
What is keeping that from happening ?
If they included that, there would be no need to guess, the log would be clear. Analyzing the log would be a tedious affair, to be sure, but it would be clear.
Interesting idea, but how do you guarantee that every participant has the same conditions ?
I'm guessing not everyone has the same size living room (or whatever room of their choice), and it is obviously imperative that contestants all have the same distance from the board otherwise there is no tournament, it's just people streaming themselves playing darts.
Now of course, this is darts, so we're not talking about a board 25 meters away, but still, how can anyone guarantee that all contestants are playing in the same conditions ?
So it's a done deal. And with the cretins in all the right places, there will be no opposition. Ask Trump to stop it ? Are there still people who do not understand that Trump will never stop money, especially buddy money, and even more so if he can get a cut ?
So it'll happen. Ligado Networks poisonous 5G technology is going to be implemented, and then what ? People will complain that their GPS doesn't work. People never care about much, but when they are personally inconvenienced, that changes and the dial can get cranked up rather high.
Ligado Networks is going to find itself under fire from the popular opinion, and there's no one to bribe there. GPS is not new tech, it is firmly entrenched. People have been using it for years and know how it works and, more importantly, that it works. To have a 5G antenna and suddenly no more GPS is a coincidence people are going to notice, and people will get mad about it.
You're not going to convince a red-blooded American consumer that his GPS needs to replaced when he bloody well knows that it is not his GPS that has a problem.
I'm beginning to think that Ligado Networks has not thought this whole thing through.
Looks like obstruction is the modern basis of American corporate culture. By simply not doing one's job, the whole process stops and it appears there is nothing anyone can do about it. In a company the person can get fired, but in structures like the IETF there is apparently no one with that kind of authority.
I wonder how our society is going to learn to deal with that ?
"demonstrated the need for governments and their advisers to seek real world insights into mobility, behaviour and human contact networks"
Nope. It has demonstrated the need to know who met who, that's all. You don't need to know where they were when they met.
Including location data into the equation just means you're using this to spy on people.
I am regularly getting emails purporting to be from Amazon telling me that I have been unjustly charged twice and a refund is available if I click the link.
First of all, at this point in time I am not dealing with Amazon. Second, if Amazon had indeed charged me twice, they could reverse the additional charge without me even knowing about it until I checked my bank account.
It is frankly astonishing how little logic people use when confronted with this sort of thing.
If I recall correctly what I've read, the environment at the center of the galaxy is so full of dangerous radiation that life has virtually no chance of existing on any planet in there, unless there is a really thick atmosphere.
Even then, the concentration of stars (and some large ones) means lots of gamma rays, and those guys don't care about atmosphere.
So no, I don't think that there's anything feeling the acceleration. However, I imagine how mind-blowing it is to think of so much mass gaining so much acceleration. If I could understand the equation for inertia and comprehend the result, my head would probably explode.
It seems to me that the EU has once again responded to a situation with the proper attitude and the respect of privacy is visibly paramount in the documentation.
I very much appreciate that the first item in the article is the fact that the app will shut down automatically and the data will be erased at the end of the crisis. It means that the EU very much intends this tool to do one thing and one thing only : help pinpoint actual case contacts, and nothing more.
I have but one question : it took China less than four months to flatten the curve. This app will not be available before June, apparently, and we're already on our second month of containment. It seems to me that, by the time we get the app, we won't be needing it any more.
At least I hope not.
There's another problem : the star is a red dwarf.
Those things are not exactly calm and composed, they can spit a CME at you if you look at them wrong.
And, being that close, if that planet still has an atmosphere it might not be sufficient to sustain human life.
But at least this time, when they say "an Earth-like planet", they're within an acceptable ball park. I'm tired of reading about the discovery of an "Earth-like" that is more than twice the size of ours. That's not Earth-like, that's just another ball of rock.
I'm not going to move to a planet where I weigh twice as much simply by getting there.
Meaning that they should have an account on the Dark Web, a computer that accesses that account, and pay the crims for guidance on they can be compromised.
While I accept that buying a guide would certainly be less expensive than actually having a breach, I would wager that it would be in the best interest of those businesses that deem themselves important enough to do this that the computer they use to access the Dark Web be physically isolated from the company network, with an IP address that cannot be traced to the company and absolutely no company references whatsoever on said computer.
Time to set up the Dark Web Room !
Why is Blighty's ISP past worth bemoaning ?
I'm all for respecting the past, but we're talking about an email address here, from a time when your email practically had to be hosted because having your own domain and managing your own email was a much greater hassle.
Today, you can have a domain in five minutes, with ten mailbox addresses for free, administered with a spam filter, backups and a 24/7 guarantee for a pittance.
Really not worth moaning about.
Again, what is your proof of that, given that the 3rd party was registered as secondary address ?
How can you say that said 3rd party had no right to it and, more importantly, do you really think that there's a lawyer that is going to try that angle when the 3rd party was registered as a secondary address ?
That you think that the 3rd party had no business accessing the data is not supported by fact, is what I'm saying.
Says who ? The secondary address belongs to the old company. There is strong incentive to believe that that is sufficient to prove ownership.
I have trouble feeling sorry for the guy. He gave in to convenience, didn't care about following up when he left the company, and is now complaining that his own complacency is putting him in trouble.
If you think a tool can be used in your company, then you register it in your company identity and use it solely for company stuff. This nitwit mixed personal and private and, more importantly, didn't bother to separate the two when he left. Now he's surprised that there are consequences.
Well, you have to learn one day or another.
I wonder how many other businesses are finding that teleworking works. Obviously, not the supermarkets, but there are a lot of companies who are going to find that they do not need to have so much office space. Sure, there's the bragging rights, the "yes, next month we're moving to our new, 16,000 sq foot headquarters", but when the pandemic is over, I wonder what the impact will be on office meetings and dragging everybody to work at eight-thirty and keeping them cooped up until five.
Obviously, everything is not going to change. It is still very helpful (and efficient) to be able to mosey over to a colleague's desk and ask him a question, something that is more difficult to do when you're at home. Email and chat work, but they are not ideal replacements for a good conversation. And I'm pretty sure that, when the confinement is lifted, people will actually be happy to see their colleagues, for a day or two at least ;).
But long-term ? This crises has demonstrated that being in the office is not a requirement for getting work done. And that is going to have to have some sort of impact on the working environment.
Server rooms are visibly a major pain to manage properly.
For me, the issue was simple : the techs were sent to empty a cabinet that was being decommissioned, and nobody noticed that an essential piece of kit was in it. Result : whoopsie. No surprise there.
And honestly, I'm not convinced that cable labels would have changed much. The techs were told to decommission the entire cabinet and that's what they did.
It's the higher-ups that fouled up on that one, good on them for recognizing it. Now they're going to have the fun of starting a global review of every panel in every cabinet, to ensure that it is properly recorded and what it is used for. That's the only way they will be able to avoid a repeat of this kind of snafu.
Buying stuff from Chinese companies is fine, there is no surveillance and your shirt is not listening to you.
But having a communication partnership with a Chinese telecoms provider ? If you think that Beijing is not going to be listening, you're insane.
Honestly, who at the UN thought that it would be a good idea ? I would have expected the United Nations to be a bit more on the ball concerning China and Internet surveillance.
Of course. We can all trust Microsoft to uphold the least secure protocols of Internet history for as long as possible. Customer feedback ? Please. We all know that that is simply code for Redmond has decided.
I mean, Internet Explorer is still on the radar.
What more proof do you need ?
So there are still people who believe you need to download something to get information and instructions.
We're in the 3rd millennium. Instructions are a URL away, via HTTP. There is no need to download anything.
I was going to rant about people's stupidity, but then I realized that, if people didn't get taken in by such obvious ploys, then scammers would be intelligent and I would be at risk of falling for it.
So my security demands that idiots continue to fall for such obvious ploys.
Yes, that is understandable. Unfortunately, you are the chowder that Bezos is surfing on, and you don't have a say.
Plus, you don't have a choice. Where else are you going to sell your tat ?
Bezos has you by the balls, and he has cut yours down by at least 50%, because he can.
It's called capitalism. The big prey on the small. He's not a billionaire for nothing.
Yeah, we know : he got one call from Bezos. Trump gets tremendous nothing. He gets extraordinary nothing. He just flaps his jaws and states that everything was perfect, exceptional, unbelievably good, without anything to back it up.
And, most often, anything he says is denied - with facts - within the day, and often much less.
And Trump "looking into" the JEDI contract ? Don't make me laugh. He couldn't read a contract to save his worthless life.
It's good to know that the next Hitler will have no shortage of toys with which to impose his will on the people he has authority over.
It is frightening to see just how quickly the totalitarian mindset is adopted. Even if the situation may call for this, I am dismayed that so many people in so many countries are taking up the challenge of giving their leaders more surveillance powers without any guarantee that those powers will be rescinded when the crisis is over.
As much as I am willing to trust Huawei in the utter and complete absence of any proof of spook-enhanced manipulations, I will not trust a Chinese telecoms operator with my phone contract.
Sorry, but if you honestly think that Huawei can be pressured by Beijing, then the last thing you want to do is trust China Mobile. Not to mention that logging on to its services will probably have your phone download some Beijing-approved surveillance app, "for your safety". And that you might find your SMSs filtered because of course they will be.
So no thanks, China. I already have enough surveillance with the NSA illegally hoovering up my calls while I can do nothing about it. I'm not going to subscribe to the Eye-of-the-Middle-Kingdom surveillance service on top of that.
Yes, and that seems to be the sad state of journalism today. They get their article fodder from Twitter and spin useless drivel that, somehow, still gets papers sold.
There's not one of them that could expose a Watergate today and frankly, it wouldn't make much of a difference since we all know about Echelon and the NSA and nobody gives a flying one about it.
But post an image about some celebrity secretly meeting some other celebrity and oh God, the Internet goes into meltdown.
And some people still ask me why I don't follow the news anymore.
Beware. It took Microsoft years to get collaborative edition working in a usable state, and don't get me started on live collaborative.
You are undoubtedly going to find that collaborative editing is an entirely different bag of trouble, and your 1.1 release will likely not contain it at all.
Unless it takes another 16 years, in which case, yeah, maybe.
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