Posts by Pascal Monett

They don't recognise us as HUMAN: Disability groups want CAPTCHAs killed

Re: "it should be quite easy to detect when the system is being abused"

I'd think that if it were quite easy to detect when the system is being abused, then we wouldn't need captchas in the first place.

Chinese Apple suppliers face toxic heavy metal water pollution charges

Indeed, lay off Apple here

The problem is not Apple, it is Foxconn. And Foxconn makes stuff for other companies than Apple.

I have nothing against slagging Apple, but this is a Foxconn problem, not an Apple one.

And yes, I would also like to know what other companies are Foxconn customers.

Paid-for stuff likely to triumph over free – shock report

I'm sorry, but could you please point me to an online music market that has removed DRM ?

I wasn't aware that there were any.

Any legal ones, that is.

Bad timing: New HTML5 trickery lets hackers silently spy on browsers

Re: This is 2013

Yes, and I should now have the power to decide what runs on my machine and what doesn't.

I should be able to block JavaScript until I decide that I wish it to run. Telling me that there are more and more sites that use it is not an excuse. It should still be in my power to decide.

There are sites that are entirely made of Flash animations - I can still decide whether or not I want to see them. If I don't, I am aware that I will not access any site content. My choice.

It's about choice.

Earn £8,000 a MONTH with bogus apps from Russian malware factories

All that intelligence, all that effort

And all that for illegal easy money.

Ah, the dark side is indeed powerful.

I wonder what all those minds could accomplish if they attempted to tackle a problem that could actually be useful to society ?

But enough daydreaming, that'll never happen.

Microsoft loosens strings on Office 365, drops kimono on upgrade options

I can't help but think

that this is the true beginning of the end of Microsoft Office.

Twenty years from now, we just might be looking at MS Office the same way we look at WordPerfect today.

And everyone will use LibreOffice, because Microsoft will have thoroughly disgusted users from its own product with its abusive license techniques.

Oh sure, there will be the Fortune 1000 companies that will do everything with MS products as they always have done. But everyone else will just use the tools that they need and not purchase a gigantic toolbox they don't need.

Of course, I am probably wrong, but I'm convinced MS is not making its life easier with this scheme. You can't beat free for price, and if its good enough for your needs, it will do. LibreOffice is good enough for personal use, and more and more people are starting to realize it. If MS loses the individual demographic, the professional one will follow sooner or later. MS knows that, they did it in reverse (and still do, with their ultra-low-price student licences).

There's a tide of unstructured data coming - start swimming

What a load of bollocks

As said above, it is hardly surprising that a datamining CEO would trumpet the utter indispensability of his company's tools. Fine, it's a good PR piece.

But let's look at the reality of things, hmm ?

"Unstructured data must also be thought of in its textual form of Word documents, emails, social media messages and other as yet undefined data shapes." - sorry, social media has a noise to data ratio that is far too important to make any sort of data mining useless. Yes, you will probably find tweets that say your company is good, and others saying the reverse. You will never be able to map that to a customer having bought something from you unless said customer specifically signs up on your site to tell you that his Twitter account is FancyPants35748 and his credit card name is Jonathan Smith. Sure, some twits will tell you, but most will probably be a bit reluctant to acknowledge that their online persona is GorgeousJunk69.

Just a few paragraphs later, the article quotes "The fact is that context will always rank as ace high".

So let's just write off social media now. You'll never get the context in a 160-char tweet.

Next point : “Those who are still relying on human interpretation will be trying to stay afloat on the unstructured data tsunami with one hand tied behind their back,” dixit Andrew Anderson, CEO of Celaton. What is he saying ? Humans cannot be trusted to manage data in a timely fashion and we must hand over our analysis procedures to computers.

Yeah, sure. Because we know how to teach computers to distinguish between "programmer" and "Oracle developer" and "business analyst". Yeah, let's hand it over to computers, that'll work a lot better. Just like it works fine in Australia, for processing payments. Tell me, if we can still find major companies capable of botching up a comparatively simple job of paying salaries, how can we expect to be able to get relevant information from a tsunami of unstructured data ?

“Having a system in place that can understand a candidate’s CV without the need for human intervention is crucial." Indeed. Too bad we don't have a reliable system that can do that automatically without human intervention.

"correlating point-of-sale transactions with social feeds can provide great insight into how a consumer felt about the company and the product" - yes, except you don't know that that is indeed a consumer of your product, and not some hacker or troll pulling your data leg.

"This estimates that the digital universe of western Europe will grow from 538 exabytes to 5.0 zettabytes between 2012 and 2020" - yup, and 99% of that will be of absolutely no interest to anyone after a week.

"We know that a huge amount of unstructured data is spam" - finally something I can agree with. And you want me to waste my time and money building a system that is going to analyse my spam mail to tell me I'm getting spam ? Get lost.

The reality of data analysis is sort your data first. The bigger the volume of data, the more stringent your data retention criteria must be. The only data worth analysing is the data relevant to your company, the rest is a waste of resources. This article tries to make me believe that I must become the NSA and gather as much data as I can to hoard it and endlessly analyse it. I say bullshit. Recovering every tweet where my company is named is not going to actually give me a proper image of my company. Looking at my sales figures will.

IBM committed 'ethical transgressions' to win botched project

".. to the detriment of ...", my good sir. One does something to the detriment of something else or someone.

Hundreds of UK CSC staff face chop, told to train Indian replacements

@Rob Fisher

You sound like you have a job in management. Maybe at CSC.

Let me ask you one question : if you needed a heart transplant, what would you rather hear ;

"Don't worry sir, we have the most experienced surgeon in the country waiting for you, he's done six thousand operations just like yours, you'll be fine. Of course, your insurance is going to pay a hefty sum, but good health is priceless, is it not ?"

or

"Don't worry about your insurance premiums sir, we have a new surgeon fresh in from Tzeckoslowhateveria. He used to be a programmer but he passed an online certification and now he's itching to get some experience for only £1/hour. Of course, we'll need you to sign this waiver..."

Well CSC is going for option #2, do you know why ? Because the people who make the decision will be up & out as soon as they've cashed their bonus checks and won't have to deal with the fallout.

Now you tell me just how that is rational.

Or rather, don't bother. You are part of those who believe that money is the only criteria, so obviously you cannot understand just how wrong you are. Until the day comes when YOU are made redundant, of course. That day it'll be a whole other story, I'm sure.

Google scientists rebel over company's support for 'climate-hoax' Senator

Re:"Let's just say that global warming is a fact"

Let's say it's not.

Climate change, on the other hand, is.

Whether it is warming or cooling is something that we simply do not have either the experience or the knowledge to determine at this point in time.

It is the refusal of that last fact that gives room for lunatics on either side of the fence to rock the boat, so to speak.

Re: "you're not a real scientist"

For fuck's sake, a real scientist is sceptical of ANYTHING that is not proven.

That is a job requirement.

Oh, and proven in a Twitter feed or a fucking blog is NOT scientific proof.

'Mm, we do love tweeters' private info, we'll take 40% more,' say world's g-men

Secret courts, secret mandates, secret demands

Are soon followed by secret kidnappings and secret executions.

Any country using those methods has lost the right to declare itself a bastion of freedom and a place of democracy.

Highway from HELL: Volcano tears through 35km of crust in WEEKS

A high-speed connection ?

The Earth has already upgraded to USB 3.1 ? Cool !

Murdoch machinations mean Microsoft must rename SkyDrive

I have it : EasyDrive !

That way we can have Round 2 of lawyer spats when EasyJet, who thinks it owns the word "easy", comes a'knocking.

Come on, I like popcorn.

New NSA tool exposed: XKeyscore sees 'nearly EVERYTHING you do online'

I think it's due to the education.

Or lack thereof.

And I'm not talking about schools.

Re: "its about time inept Congress and SCOTUS grow a pair and do their damn jobs"

But they ARE doing their jobs. Make no mistake, your Senator is well aware of this program and has no intent of stopping it.

Oh, sorry, you thought they were there to represent YOUR rights ? That is soo last century.

Get with the program ! This is Government 2.0 ! The Constitution is a PR tool to make you feel good, it's not something that is supposed to hamstring WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE.

Now be a good drone and go work for your retirement. Oh, and this time, tie your shoelaces correctly. Your laces were really shabby yesterday, you want the surveillance footage to prove it ? I could show it to you, but then I'd have to shoot you.

You're 30 years old and your PIN is '1983'. DAMMIT, biz mobe user

All be it does not exist

The word you're looking for is albeit.

Please upgrade your personal dictionary accordingly.

Wall St 'Likes' Facebook again: Shares edge up to pre-IPOcalypse price

It's not the tech stock

It's you misusing the stock market. The stock market is supposed to allow people to INVEST in companies, not speculate on them.

INVESTMENT : long-term placement showing belief and support of a company in hope of increased returns over the years

SPECULATION : fucking bastardisation of the system in hope of short-term benefit, economy and consequences be damned

Scalpers gouge China's fanbois for Genius Bar appointments

Well that's it for Communism then

One thing you have to admit, the Chinese are just about as capitalistic as it is possible to be. There is apparently nothing they will not latch on to and transform for profit, whatever the domain, and consequences be damned.

I'd keep that in mind the next time you hear somebody complaining about how the Government is preventing free enterprise.

China's army releases FPS trainer game

Glorius Mission, eh ?

Isn't that the one where Chinese pirates had got their hands on a beta copy and were selling it for an impressive amount of money ? A game that is supposed to be free ?

Ah, I love the smell of irony in the morning.

First burger made of TEST-TUBE MEAT to be eaten on August 5

Don't worry, there are insect farms springing up left and right, and pundits punditing away that insect meat is the new Gold Rush opportunity.

McGrasshoppers ? We'll get there.

Russia's post-Snowden spooks have not reverted to type

Re: "record the sound of a typewriter and analyse it afterwards"

If there is any other ambient noise in the room (radio, phones ringing, people talking, other typewriters) then it will most probably make that process extremely difficult.

Not to say that the process would be easy under the best of circumstances.

Listening in to an electronic keyboard and analyzing the voltage differences, yeah, that I can buy. Listening to an audio recording of a busy office to single out a specific typewriter ? Not convincing at all.

Microsoft to Google: Please remove us from internet

Torch and pitchforks

Patience, my pretties. Your time is coming.

Bank of Thailand bans Bitcoin

Drug dealers ?

I seriously doubt that drug dealers waste their time with a few Bitcoins. There aren't enough of those virtual coins and drugs are a multi-billion-dollar business.

Of course, not being a drug dealer, I may be wrong.

Robot cop called in after MAD BONGER blown up in LIQUID MARIJUANA EXPLOSION

What a shame

A failed Darwin award, that is.

Dumpsters begone! App matches diners with leftovers to broke, hungry

"their concern is environmental"

Yeah, a bunch of people cruising around in their cars to go leftover-hopping is going to be real environmental.

And I don't think the poor are going to benefit all that much from this thing either, because they are generally surrounded by other poor people, not people sufficiently well off to have a full fridge and not enough appetite to finish their meal.

I cannot fault the idea in itself, but in truth I find it the perfect demonstration of pie-in-sky, hippy thinking. It's a rather sad thing that our society has to resort to encouraging poor people to eat other people's leftovers, rather than finding ways of making them not poor any more.

On top of that, I'm pretty sure that there will be people who will spit in their leftovers just out of spite.

Symantec slams Web Gateway back door on would-be corporate spies

What a list

"SEC Consult identified six vulnerabilities with the technology in total, including: cross-site scripting; OS command injection; security misconfiguration; SQL Injection; and cross-site request forgery flaws"

If I'm not mistaken, OS command injection and SQL injection are simply due to the absence of input sanitization. If that is indeed the case, then BOOOOO !

NASA gets red-hot shots of Sun in action as IRIS goes online

Re: "The latest analysis of a possible Carrington level event ..."

Thank you for an interesting post.

I think I would need a checklist of things to do to prepare for a major EMP event. Looks like unplugging absolutely everything would be a Step 1. But would that be enough ?

I have all my household electronics on lightning mitigators, but that is visibly not enough for that kind of event. Thanks for the heads-up ! Now I'm off to scour the 'Net and find out what really needs to be done.

Assange™ names a Senatorial stand-in

"ethicist and commentator"

Ah, so now we have a new title for people with no actual skills who find themselves in the limelight.

No doubt this lady will have a brilliant career doing nothing useful whatsoever beyond blabbering on talk shows.

Man who pulled gun during chess game surrenders to robot cop

Not very impressed

If all that was done in the end was chuck in a few flashbangs then I have a hard time imagining why a robot was needed.

But I guess the SWAT teams were otherwise occupied, what with all the horrible, horrible filesharing going on.

One month on, Edward Snowden cleared to leave Moscow airport

Funny how there is this obsession with one guy at a certain address.

If you want to go arrest those responsible for the current state of the USA, you would do better to go to

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

[phone]

round up the scum that voted for all this secret court nonsense and total world surveillance plans and have them shot behind the shed.

Funny, I hear a helicopter - never been this close before. What's that banging at my door ? Hey ! <connection failed>

Boffins DREAMING of a WHITE CHRISTMAS ... on MARS!

Re: "> The surface of the planet is young"

Yeah, probably thinks Mars is "only" 2,500 years old.

Village-swallowing MUDCANO was no accident, say boffins

Finally !

But You Shall Not Pass is way after. You should have stayed with "You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum".

MYSTERY of 19th-century DEAD WALRUS found in London graveyard

Wait, what ?

"... some Lovecraftian tale of a horrific walrusoid abomination - created perhaps in the lab of some insane experimenter, only to break free and terrorise the foggy streets of old London town in a bloody campaign of tusky or red-flippered slaughter, then later to be buried along with its victims' remains ..."

I want to see that film !!!

Senator: Surveillance state based on secret law 'has no place in America'

Finally one of them has the balls to stand up and disagree

I don't know this senator's political history is and I don't care. This is the true America, the one with the strength to acknowledge its mistakes and correct them.

It will take time, it won't be easy, but the road has now changed. Snowden was the first step, Wyden is now the second. The ball is rolling and we can hope that true Freedom will once again be had by all.

Plus, we can now finally lay to rest that argument about whether or not Snowden was a traitor. He was not.

Divers nearly DEVOURED by HUNGRY SEA BEASTS

Whale finds humans in his food, leaves disgusted

In other news, Johnny Blubber was disagreeably surprised to find a pair of humans polluting his sardine sammy this morning.

"There were just floating there, right in the middle of my plate" Johnny declared after the incident. "It's like they were doing it on purpose."

As we all know, humans ruin the taste of sardines with their rubbery smell. Johnny tried to eat anyway, but the stench was just too much.

"I couldn't take it, I had to leave." Johnny said, disgusted. "What a waste." he added.

Yahoooo! - Activist! investor! leaps! overboard! jingling! with! cash!

Doubled since last spring, eh ?

Let's see what the numbers say.

Last Spring was around March, if I'm not mistaken, but it's obvious that February is the reference. February value was 19.77.

Double that is 39.54.

Current price as of July 1st was 25.26, so there is 14.28 missing, which makes more than a third (36%) less than what he states.

For his claim to be valid, you have to go back to September 2012, and I don't remember Spring ever happening in September, even with the crazy weather we're having these days.

Conclusion : the numbers say his claim is bullshit.

Secondary conclusion : he's probably so full of it that he actually believes the bull he spouts.

SanDisk starts beating path to 3D NAND flash

This is true 3D computing

Kudos to the development team, who have managed to implement "real" 3D in design, not just by stacking chips. Kudos also to the management who did not squash the idea to go do like everybody else.

I hope this tech will prove itself indeed better than stacking chips, which somehow feels like cheating. If it does, I wonder what the financial impact will be on the cost of foundries. They already cost a few billion to build - if this tech really takes off will that change significantly ?

SkyDrive on par with C: Drive in Windows 8.1

"skydrive, that so far has had zero downtime "

Don't worry, that WILL change.

Troll loses 'we own the Web' patent appeal

Interesting ideas here

But I still prefer my idea that, in order to sue someone about a patent of any sort, you have to be actually producing something with that patent and thus, demonstrate that others are damaging your sales.

If you're not selling, I don't care how many people are infringing your patent, your right to sue is null and void and you're wasting the time of the courts.

100-metre asteroid 2013 NE19 zipped past Earth today

Re: "one to go down it and shatter it"

I read somewhere an article about how scientists had rather discredited the idea of shattering an asteroid of any size and prefer to push it into another orbit (or "move it away").

That would be because shattering the asteroid would not significantly change its trajectory, so it would be a case of getting hit with buckshot instead of one single bullet. Oh, and the buckshot would be radioactive too.

I understand the reasoning, but I still can't help being a bit disappointed the in lack of any Earth-shattering kabooms in the future of preserving Earth from . . . Earth-shattering kabooms.

Planetary paparazzi snap candid pics of Earth, Moon from space

Re: "This is better than we thought!"

I cannot agree more.

The Universe created less than 10,000 years ago ? Pah ! The God I believe in can count beyond 10,000. The God I believe in knows that His glory is much better served by a Universe that is older and more mind-boggingly vast than the human mind can comprehend. The God I believe in has given us Intelligence to percieve His greatness, and a language with which to formulate it. That language is Science (mathematics+physics).

And the beauty of it all is that you don't even have to believe in God to improve our understanding of His creation.

I will start paying attention to Creationist theories when :

1) a Creationist gets a Nobel Prize in Physics

2) a Creationist can explain why God would tell us "Thou Shalt Not Lie", yet create a 10,000 year-old Universe that LOOKS like it is billions of years old (believe in a Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do god ? No thank you !)

Texas school strikes devil's bargain, drops RFID student tracking

Re: Unreal

Yes, absolutely ! Let us add yet another layer of Political Correctness to our sad, sad world.

Oh, and call Hollywood too, so that they can find a new word for all those photos candidates are supposed to include in their CVs when looking for a job in Kahlifoniyaa !

UK gov's smart meter dream unplugged: A 'colossal waste of cash'

"fewer disconnections" and "manage payment problems earlier" don't mix

"Slade adds that their introduction should lead to fewer disconnections, as the improved data will make it possible to spot and manage payment problems earlier."

I think that's bollocks. I think that "managing payment problems earlier" means disconnection when payment is getting close to overdue, and if you don't pay you freeze in the dark until you pay again.

After all, a payment problem is only a problem for the power companies if they distribute power and don't get paid. If they have the power to selectively shut down bad payers, in today's NSA-watched society I can't for the life of me imagine why they wouldn't do it and blame it on some malfunction until payment has resumed. They probably already have a chart outlining how many "involuntary interruptions of service" are necessary before pretending to "fix" the "affected" unit becomes economically acceptable for them.

Curiosity team: Massive collision may have killed Red Planet

Uh, the moon is 1/6th of Earth's mass - maybe that has something to do with its absence of atmosphere, don't you think ?

As in : doesn't have enough mass to keep one ?

It's not because YOU don't understand something that it's nonsense.

Ex-prez Carter: 'America has no functioning democracy' with PRISM

Dubya : "it's going to take awhile for the objective historians to show up"

And when they do, they will objectively tear you a new one. You are going down as the hinging point that turned the USA from a democratic state to a police state.

Your conscience is clear ? A Muppet doesn't have a conscience !

Russian mobile operators say 'nyet!' to Apple, 'da!' to Samsung

I agree with Richard 12. Although I have personally bought one or two handsets outside of carrier shops, I can vouch for my friends and most people I know in France who typically go to their carrier shop when they want to change phones.

And if they want to change carrier, they go to the new carrier shop and make the deal, getting a new phone out of it as well.

Buying a phone without a carrier contract is not all that common in my relations, although it is not unheard of, given the number of prepaid phone refills on sale next to cashiers desks in every supermarket/gas station.

So I'm guessing that, in France at least, there is a substantial share of people who go to their carrier for their handset model replacement, and a non-negligeable share of people who buy outside of carrier shops (maybe secondhand as well) and use prepaid SIMMs or something like that.

Another point that is gaining in importance is the online secondhand market (Ebay, I guess, but Leboncoin is seriously gaining in activity as well). That has to have an impact on carrier sales.

Re: "fashion/fads tend not to cross language barriers as efficiently"

Well, given that the Iphone is selling for almost a thousand bucks on the retail market (and more on the black market, apparently), I'd say that's one fad that has had no problem with either the language barrier or the country's borders.

Dell warns stockholders that Icahn's plan would 'hamstring' company

Company founder on one hand, vultures on the other

I don't really see that there is a choice in the matter. Shareholders are obviously much better off with the man who founded the company, given that the alternative is a person who has the history of a financial vulture.

Besides, I must admit that I'd rather see Michael Dell at the head of Dell Enterprise. That way, whether failure or success, it will be his legacy.

If Icahn gets his hands on Dell, the company is sure to go the HP way (i.e. to shame and ridicule).

Psssst: If you wanna be rich, make the next privacy Robocop app

I totally agree with you. Any solution will have to Open Source by nature, so that multiple eyes can guarantee the absence of any backdoor, given that government guarantees in this domain are totally not credible (hey NSA, remember that little thing called the Constitution ?).

It will also have to be idiot-proof, which is a major stumbling block right there. Finally, all operators will have to agree to use it, which will mean setting aside their own solution - and that will be another major issue.

Since AVG has brought this issue to light after having purchased a company dealing in securing privacy, it seems obvious that this is a ploy to trumpet their own horn and it will be that more difficult for them to abandon the investment and adopt an Open Source solution.

So, right from the start this whole issue seems practically moot already.

Although I do agree that privacy is going to become a more important concern than it is now, but given that it's level of concern is currently nil (otherwise Facebook, Google and the US government would be facing quite stiffer resistence), that doesn't seem to mean much.