Posts by Pascal Monett

AI finally understands primitive sketches – aka marketing presentations

So it is 1% better than humans, under specific conditions ?

Well then use it in those conditions, or hire an intern that you don't pay.

Oh well, any bit of progress is good, I guess.

Disaster-gawping cam drones to be blasted out of the sky in California

I agree with both of you

There is ample matter to demonstrate that the government is clearly more interested in passing new laws whether or not they are redundant or actually contrary to public interest, for the goal of making themselves look like they're "doing something".

And existing laws which were made for a specific purpose have been repeatedly abused in order to enforce entirely different purposes (journalist coming back from interviewing Snowdon detained under terrorist laws, really ? And those people still have a job ?).

Nonetheless, when discussing Law, one must objectively assess what the law says, not how it will be misinterpreted. Misinterpretation of the Law should be an affair for judges and sentences passed on those who abuse it.

I am convinced that we have way too many laws, and this situation serves only to muddy the waters and provide opportunities for crooked politicians. We need to simplify our Civil and Criminal code to more direct terms, as in If You Have Harmed Someone's Well-Being, You Must Restore It.

But of course, simplification will only be the delight of the cunning and manipulative. And there is no more cunning and manipulative than a successful politician.

What is the answer ? Better education that promotes critical thinking. But no sane government wants that.

We should, but for now it is simple

The issue at hand is firefighting and interfering with rescue operations.

A demonstration does not come anywhere near these terms and there is no way to confuse the two.

Now, it may be that those hovertoys are used in watching a demonstration as well. It may happen that things get out of hand, people start getting unruly, cops start getting shovy and everything goes suddenly very wrong with people running and screaming, cops beating and shooting, and one or more of them deciding that the toys have nothing to do there and start blasting them out of the sky - if they can.

In such a situation the fallout will be nasty anyway, and the toy owners will most likely have TV video to back up their declarations that the police were shooting their property willy-nilly out of the sky. Freedom of speech and all that jazz. I'm pretty sure that a judge will declare that the hoverthingies should not be shot out and the police will have to pay reparations to the toy owners.

One situation is a risk to life and one simply cannot accept that rescue people be stalled or impeded in their honorable job by some nitwit that really wants something spectacular on his feed.

The other situation is a social event that is already largely covered by existing laws and bringing hovertoys (I just can't bring myself to call them drones) into the mix doesn't really change anything significantly.

That said, I am not a lawyer, much less an American one, so I may be wrong. We shall see in the long run.

Keep your stupid drones away from piloted aircraft, rages CAA

One thing I don't get

These drones operate on radio frequencies, right ?

We can detect where radio signals come from, right ?

So why not just line airports with those famous radio goniometers and we have rapid triangulation of unauthorized radio transmissions near an airport.

Cue the sudden bursting in of burly policeman to the utter suprise of some idiot who then finds out the hard way what it's like to be beaten for 15 minutes with a bobby stick.

Confiscation of hovertoy follows, along with 1000 hours of community service.

I think that would put quite a damper on this kind of activity.

Google, Facebook and chums launch web blacklist to nail ad scammers

Halleluia !

Yes, cut them down and smother them in a burning blanket.

I really hope this will become an industry standard. Anything that cuts into malware revenue is a godsend.

Big Blue bafflement: Anyone in IBM Storage know which way is up?

Re: protect profit by sacrificing revenue

That makes absolutely no sense. You cannot profit if you're not making money, unless you are a wizard.

You can protect profit by cutting loss-makers in your revenue stream, but there is a limit to that. At some point or another, your image as a whole will be impacted if you keep cutting revenue-generators. At some point, people will look at your offerings, remember what you had before, and go order from another company that is not shedding constantly.

Stability is a prime quality in business. You appear unstable, you will become unstable because people won't trust in you any more.

Ashley Madison invites red-faced cheats to bolt stable door for free

"Using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act"

The DMCA has generally been (ab)used by megacorps to stifle Free Speech and generally make artists' lives miserable. People have seen videos THEY RECORDED taken down because some twat working for a media corp thought it might have something to do with the crap his company was selling.

The DMCA has also been copiously used as an excuse to shut someone up when said person was justifiably exposing wrongdoings or something that could make a corporation look ridiculous.

How ironic is it that the one good use of this otherwise nefarious piece of trash is to protect cheaters ?

Driverless cars banished to fake Michigan 'town' until they learn to read

Re: another set of tests (fully virtual) checking the behavior of the car given surroundings

How many projects have been signed off on a list of "complete" specifications, only to fail miserably when actually put into production (that was never included in the specs ! that never should have happened !) ?

Enough to validate real world testing. If your simulator says everything is fine, I'm happy for you. I don't want these things in the streets I drive on until they have proven to be actually capable and reliable. By proof, I obviously mean set in a street and made to go from point A to point B without running over anything but actual road.

We have enough trouble with incompetent/distracted drivers, no need to add incompetent autonomous vehicles to the mix.

The Register's resident space boffin: All you need to know about the Pluto mission

Simply wonderful

This is indeed a treasure trove. The data and the conclusions that it will bring are going to entirely change our view of this little planetoid and its history.

Great times.

Arctic ice returns to 1980s levels of cap cover

Re: The climate models actually predicted this

The climate models are bullcrap. We need to refine them, extend them and ensure that they can actually predict something that is then verified by measurement.

We're not there yet.

Very nice of you to reassure us.

Had you actually put your name to your words, it would have been even more reassuring.

SpaceX's blast shock delays world's MOST POWERFUL ROCKET

So, you've time-traveled from a 1980s eco-forum ?

How quaint.

Would you mind to explain just how your outdated diatribe has anything to do with launching rockets ?

That should prove interesting.

Rise of the swimming machines: US sub launches and recovers a drone

To think they cancelled Baa Baa Black Sheep for real combat footage

And here we are learning that submarines now have new drone capabilities. This is on par with the hydrodynamic thrusters of Search for Red October. In the 1980s, this would be classified Ultra Top Secret and any journalist even trying to publish the information would be black-bagged and never seen again.

Ah, the irony of having to justify a budget.

An EPIC picture of Earth, sunny side up, from one million miles out

"As it happens [..] the satellite sensors were at the higher end of the quality spectrum"

So they didn't buy those sensors from the lowest bidder, then ?

Re: all old expired satellites have been moved off the Langrange points

Um, doesn't that make the location a bit dangerous for new satellites with actual work to do ?

Much more Moore's Law, as boffins assemble atom-level transistor

Single-molecule transistors are on the map now

So, in the time they'll take to nail that process down one can hope that the AI crowd will have made sufficient advances to finally start to work on the positronic brain.

Let's get cracking, men.

The US taxman thinks Microsoft owes billions. Prove it, says Microsoft

Re: You cannot defeat death and you cannot stop sickness

You cannot defeat death. True, but you're alive now and you want to stay that way, don't you ? If something can be done to improve your life expectancy, you're going to refuse it then ? I don't think so.

You cannot stop sickness ? Really ? Since when ? We're stopping sickness all the time. Polio has apparently been almost eradicated. Doctors and researchers around the world are working on all the various cancers round the clock and have found cures to some. Real cures, that stop it in its tracks and prevent it from reactivating. What they cannot outright cure now, they have improved the treatment of to lessen the pain and make what life is left more bearable. And they are regularly finding new avenues of research.

As for corporations not having money, please excuse me but it is Microsoft sitting on a 50-billion dollar bank account, not some people on its board - they just manage the money, it is not theirs. Proof of that is that they cannot take the money and spend it on their houses or cars. So it does not belong to them, it belongs to Microsoft.

Don't blame taxes for what you do not like. Taxes are necessary for the State to function, and their amount should depend on what the People want to have available to everyone. And some things should be available to everyone if we are to call ourselves civilized.

You can, however, blame the People for always wanting more and more from the government hand, and the politicians for abusing that in order to get elected.

I hope this will be useful

I think it is shameful that corporations can evade tax. Everyone has it in against tax but without taxes there would be no hospitals, no roads, and no welfare.

Hospitals, people. Is it worth not paying 25% Income Tax to not see your mother die of sickness ?

But hey, corporations don't have mothers, do they ?

Windows 10 Edge: Standards kinda suck yet better than Chrome?

@Charlie Clark

That is such a relief.

On the other hand, when you're starting from nothing, it's not difficult to improve.

Microsoft has lots of room to improve as far as respecting standards is concerned. Has everyone already forgotten the kerfuffle around the OOXML vote ?

Apparently they have.

The king is dead !

"Windows 10, due in two weeks, will use Microsoft's latest browser creation: Edge"

Long live the king !

Microsoft has never bowed before standards before. The lip service it is paying at this point is because it no longer has any choice.

As soon as it can, it will revert to its true nature. And we all know what that is.

Snowden to the IETF: Please make an internet for users, not the spies

Re: we now know [..] that major governments can monitor anyone they choose to

I support that fact and have zero issues with it. Monitoring a person designated as a suspect in an ongoing investigation is perfectly normal when such monitoring is legally and morally justified and when such monitoring is terminated as soon as it is no longer useful (ie suspect is proven innocent or charges can be brought against him).

What I cannot and will never accept is the blanket surveillance of everyone under the excuse that it is legal. It may be legal in some countries, but that does no make it acceptable and the old excuse of "if you have nothing to hide..." is just wool over the eyes.

I have nothing to hide, and it's nobody's business without a warrant.

Comet-invader Philae goes silent, mothership Rosetta forced to retreat

Fuckin' A !

Microsoft: Hey, you. Done patching Windows this month? WRONG

Professional output, bitmap fonts . . .

Why not add in rasterized vectors ?

You spout a lot of tech, but in the end all we're talking about is displaying text on a screen. If Windows was the only OS that could do that, then your argument might work. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other OSes that can do so as well, without endangering the stability of the whole by using kernel operations.

So find some other argument.

Microsoft sets end date on Windows 10 support. Hey, wait, WHAT?

Well since you're so smart, you certainly know that SteamOS is solely destined to games. SteamOS to game, another Linux distro to work.

Anything but Windows at this point, really.

2025, eh ?

By that time I sincerely hope Steam OS will be all I need.

If not, some flavor of Linux should suffice.

Enough with the treadmill already. An operating system is NOT supposed to define what I can do anymore.

Foxconn to hire a million Indian staff in major base shift

Re: You're missing the point

Am I ?

How many industries have suicide nets ?

Go on, if it's so common, give the figures.

I don't care about the national average. Yes there are suicidal people everywhere. They typicall do not congregate in enough numbers in the same company to make nets a requirement.

Exactly how out-of-touch with life are you ?

Here's why Whittingdale kicked a subscription BBC into the future

Well in France the Canal+ encryption scheme used to be easy to get at, but they've cleaned that issue and now, if you don't pay, you don't get Canal+.

I do now know of any hackers that manage to bypass that. Not saying there aren't any, but what little there are are not hurting Canal+ revenue any more for sure.

Ashley Madison hack: Site for people who can't be trusted can't be trusted

"Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible"

Unless they're from North Korea !

Just ask Sony !

<cough>

Spamquake subsides: less than half of email is now processed pork

Re: Sadly, that's not a valid differentiator.

It is for me. The people I know who write me emails know how to write.

But I'm not a tween anymore, far from.

Phishing

I just received a few days ago a mail posing as PayPal urgently advocating that I should do something to my account because it was going to be closed.

I actually like getting those mails : it's always the hunt for the detail that proves it's just horseshit that amuses me. This one had a return address on a russian domain. Come on guys, you can do better than that.

Then there are all the idiots who send me a RE: mail. You fail automatically because I always put a subject in my mail. The ones with RE: and a word are not better off because the word they choose is never one I would choose, plus I have no Eric in my contact list. I might have an [e-mail], but I never enter anyone with just their first name.

Then there's the spam in German. That really kicks my funny bone because I have never written to anyone in Germany and I couldn't read German to save my life.

It seems that just a bit of organization is enough to defeat almost all phishing attempts and reveal spam for what it is : a load of bollocks.

Oh, and spammers, please never learn how to spell. That would make your trash a lot more difficult to filter.

STARS SNUFFED in massive galactic whodunit

@Mr Pott

I always have read your articles with relish, and this response is simply a delight.

Thank you, Sir, for having given me a recognizable construct with which to apprehend the issue of Dark Energy. I do believe I actually get it now - the Universe unfolding and something has to allow it to unfold. I guess I might have been a bit blindsided by the term "Big Bang" (I am generally not altogether dismayed by Michael Bay films, I must humbly admit). Now I understand why much more intelligent people than me didn't like the term.

In any case, your response is also interesting to me because now I understand that there might be a limit to this "unfolding", which means that, at one point in some undetermined future, the Universe will attain a point of equilibrium and stop expanding. Excuse me while I pick my jaw up from the floor. Science is just bewilderingly exciting, isn't it ?

But, even if the Universe does stop expanding, that will not really stop its Heat Death, now will it ? Or is it remotely possible that this Dark Energy I am beginning to see the outline of in the deep London fog (sorry, couldn't resist) will dissipate into some other form of energy and keep the Universe heated ? Or, after having uncoiled the Universe, is it possible that it contracts everything again to give us the Big Crunch that already has been evoked ?

I'm feeling a bit dizzy now, I guess I'll have to lie down my brain a bit. Watch something with explosions to set it back on track again. The Expendables, maybe. Yeah, that should do the trick.

Sincerely, thank you.

Re: Mere mortals, they are not.

Indeed not.

For the life of me I cannot imagine that Dark Matter exists. I'm convinced that it is gaseous particles, or maybe even small asteroids that orbit galaxies and make up for the "missing matter". After all, we can hardly spot asteroids in our very own Kuiper Belt, and spotting them in the next solar system is simply impossible - so a in a galaxy millions of light-years away it is unconcievable.

But a scientist I am not, and these people are. So if they theorize that Dark Matter and Dark Energy exist, and if their theories hold out, who am I to say they're wrong ? Nobody, that's who.

I still don't understand what Dark Energy is, though. Then again, I can't calculate the inertial mass of my car at 50 km/h and understand what the result means, so . . .

North Korea's Red Star Linux inserts sneaky serial content tracker

You forgot the Joke icon . . .

Dwarfworld PLUTO may not have a real DOG on it - but it does have a TAIL

So, Pluto has a waggy tail

And now SWAP is sniffing at it.

That's enough you two ! Somebody get a pail of water !

German police ARREST SQUIRREL for stalking woman

Beware !

They now have the layout of the Police station their scout was detained in. Next step is raiding the arms locker and recovering the taser units. Then the final battle will take place when the notorious Nut Gang assault a supermarket at taserpoint and make off with all the walnuts.

They're organized, I'm telling you ! Like the chickens !

Crims bait phishing hooks with Flash, cast at US Gov agencies

Millions more personal details soon to be released !

Targeting US Gov agencies, eh ?

We'll see if the Government can resist such maneuvers, or if it doesn't need the NSA to hand over critical data unwillingly.

For the sake of the individuals it may concern, I sure hope nothing comes of this attempt.

Your gadget batteries endanger planes, says Boeing

Re: Fuck this...

Cruise ships ?

Oh, you mean the floating bacteria incubators with scores of obnoxious malodorants you just can't seem to get away from ? And who are fully ready to trample over you on the way to the fully overstocked free-for-all sickness distributor called a "buffet" ?

No thanks, I'll pass.

That is a brilliant mcgyver maneuver, sir !

Have an upvote !

Re: Air is for stuff that can't wait.

I've seen in stores quite a few people who can't wait to get their new smartphone, to the point where they actually get aggressive and quite impolite to staff.

Airfreight can be a question of health security for those poor peons.

WHOA! Windows 10 to be sold on USB drives – what a time to be alive

Wondering about that too

Windows on a USB stick. Practical, for sure, better read speeds than a DVD for certain, but a basic USB stick is eminently copyable.

Given that you have to pay for these sticks (instead of downloading it for free on your PC), that has to mean that the USB stick has some form of DRM protection to prevent it being copied, otherwise they won't be selling many and we'll see the ISO on Pirate Bay the day after they start selling them.

Which we probably will see anyway.

Microsoft attaches Xbox stream bait to Windows 10 hook

Re: Utter Tosh

I'm sorry you disagree, but I don't remember seeing ANY Personal Computers before the IBM PC, so I don't know where you get the notion that "there were LOTS of PCs around".

Once IBM sold the PC, and once MS-DOS was the standard OS for it, then it started selling. That article I linked to specifically states that "The IBM PC was the first PC that justified widespread use".

So, in effect, you are saying that there were many models in existence before the IBM PC, which I will not dispute. I am saying that Microsoft heralded the era where everyone has a computer at home, which is why it is Microsoft that is the multi-billion dollar behemoth it is today, and not Atari, BBC Micro, or any other of the dozens of previous companies that failed to survive.

I do agree that there were tinkerers and platforms available. It was not, however, the global market it is today in any sense of the word. That market, like it or not, WAS created by Microsoft. It has now been extended and is in the process of being taken over by others, which is the way of things.

And no, despite your contempt, I do not believe in any way that Microsoft has created the Internet. Check out my post history and you will clearly see that I have repeatedly stated that Microsoft has missed every boat that ever sailed past it once it had Windows and Office.

Re: The Challenge to MS is to keep the hype going for the next 3-6 months

Actually, The Challenge for MS is to find a niche that will keep itself relevant in a post-PC world.

Microsoft has had only one platform since its inception : the PC. Personal Computing started with Microsoft, and that is a Good Thing (TM), but now the types of platforms available for the Personal Computing experience have multiplied and none of the other types are under Microsoft's control.

The PC market is shrinking like a balloon after a race. Users are no longer interested in the big, clunky boxes with the unwieldy interface, and even laptops are getting the stinkeye from people who have no technical knowledge and no inclination to acquire some.

Tablets, Kindle and smartphones are the new future of computing, and Microsoft is not present on those markets. Ergo its desperate attempt to shoehorn its new OS with a tablet interface onto anything that has a screen in order to be able to scream "we're here !" all over the place.

Unfortunately, in the process MS has vertically filed the PC user experience of millions who have gotten used to one way of doing things with keyboard and mouse for the past two decades and do not take kindly to having their private computer filled with ads and notifications that they need to subscribe to this or that to do something they've been doing quite nicely in their own corner since their first computer.

Microsoft has mountains of cash, so it has time to find a new way. Given its current attitude and total lack of logic in presenting the new version and its functions, it seems that it will be a costly wait for Microsoft.

Absolutely in the consumer segment.

But will still contain the enterprise-level white screen that malware writers just love to activate to ensure their blackmail schemes work.

Microsoft to spoofed Skype users: Change your account passwords NOW

Re: Time to beef up the tinfoil hat

Nah, no use. We're boned. The entire species is boned.

Half the planet doesn't get how this Internet thing works yet, the other half doesn't even have computers in the first place. Until such time as our global society has attained a level such as every human being is confronted to the computing experience equally, we are going to be continually plagued by successive waves of clueless users falling into the same traps that were old last millennium.

Hotmail, Facebook, social media milking your personal data for ad money, it's going to go on forever until every single human understands exactly what it is he's giving up and decides not to play along. Of course, at that point humans will vote responsibly, not accepting corrupt liars and demagogues like today. There will be work for everyone because everyone will understand that one must be useful to society and pay one's taxes if we want this civilization to work out for everyone. It'll be strawberries and cream for everyone, and the likes of Zuckerberg will be in rehab centers to socialize them properly. We will be prancing through the stars, bringing responsible management everywhere we go.

In other words : it's never gonna happen.

The Escalating Mobile Security Challenge

Re: the majority have now come to terms with certain types of user

Certain types of user ? Let's be clear : upper management.

The kind that has always been setting rules for the peons and giving themselves great leeway in whatever restrictions they endure. Internet access has always been uncontrolled for those kind anyway, so it follows that BYOD is also their reserved domain.

In other words, nothing new under the sun. IT has always had to deal with their "special permissions" - BYOD is just another headache among the vast amount imposed by the technically incompetent, walking security disasters that happen to be the ones evaluating the security-conscious and determining whether or not the useful ones get a raise.

Happy NukeDay to you! 70 years in the shadow of the bomb post-Trinity

Re: developed in 3 years

Yes, it is quite amazing what a group of truly intelligent people can achieve when the situation calls for it.

However, they did not start from scratch. They started with all the documents that German scientists had brought them, and they had some leading German scientists to continue the work.

Not that that diminishes their achievement in any way.

Having been slammed and embarrassed, ICANN tells the world: We've done nowt wrong

Unbelievable

The staff itself redacted a report without telling the board before presenting it to the board.

Dear God, that is wrong is so many ways I don't even know where to start. If I were on a board and I learned that that happened I guarantee said staff would be out the door with a lawsuit and without a paycheck in the following seconds.

Apparently, the gigantic level of hubris on the board has, like a chemical spill, seeped into the lower layers of hierarchy. It's starting to look like an infestation, actually. One that can only be cleansed by fire.

Yep, world+dog's spies are in our network, says Vodafone as it bares all

No technical implementation in France ?

Really ?

So the French police series which have a suspect placed "sur écoute" are just cheating ?

Ah no, I get it. Vodaphone doesn't have a technical implementation because the French government is bypassing them at the relay stations.

Yeah, that must be it.

Toyota recalls 625,000 hybrids: Software bug kills engines dead with THERMAL OVERLOAD

The count is rising

Last year more than 5 million Toyotas, this year over 1.1 million shared between Toyota, Ford and Land Rover.

Is this a game of Who Can fail The Hardest ?

Seriously though, cars are more and more sophisticated and every single recall seems to be based on software issues affecting the hardware.

I have no doubt that, contrary to Microsoft, Apple, Oracle or even IBM, actual engineers are at work on those software packages. I really would like to find something snarky to say, but somehow I think that these guys are really working their asses off, contrary to the pure software houses (ie the "you're holding it wrong" team).

Vehicles exist in the real world. Phones, tablets and PCs exist in their own world. When you're confronted to actual physics, things aren't so simple.

Hey, Spotify! Why do you internet companies hate competition?

"it is the multibillion-dollar streaming services asking for the handout"

The problem is not that they ask. Anyone is entitled to ask.

The problem is that the government just might give them the money, instead of fostering a proper copyright environment and cleaning out the patent issues.

But nobody likes cleaning the toilets when having a barbecue is so much more fun.