Posts by Pascal Monett 19448 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
Um, sorry, but I believe the movie you're referencing is called Armageddon.
2012 is about neutrinos heating up the Earth's core.
Armageddon is the one where Bruce Willis sacrifices himself to save his daughter's love life (oh, and the rest of Humanity as well).
You're obviously not wrong, but you've omitted one factor : Big Oil.
Big Oil is doing everything it can to slow our response to climate change because it thinks that is in its interests. An asteroid that will devastate a large portion of the Earth just might endanger its extraction facilities as well, and Big Oil won't like that.
So I'm thinking Big Oil just might be a driving force in this scenario.
And besides, can I just point out that if you're out camping, why don't you, gosh, take in the view ? Get off that fucking screen for a while ?
In all seriousness though, having a portable access to the Internet is a good idea. That would help solve a number of connectivity problems for people who get into trouble in the wilderness, or people who are in a disaster zone and need to coordinate the emergency.
So yes on the tech, but could we please stop inviting people to keep their eyes glued on a slab of toxic materials when they have the beauty of Nature (with a capital, please) in front of said eyes ?
They don't need encouragement.
Not a problem for the NSA. It loves trawling through all that unused data to try and find something under the paranoia du jour.
Unused data is not useless data, and it'll be a cold day in Hell before your average manager authorizes the complete and irrevocable distruction of data he hasn't looked at since at least a decade.
Just in case, you understand.
Who is, of course, a paragon of truthfulness and virtue and could never tell a lie. Of course he's going to deny. They denied Tchernobyl until the rest of world was red in the face before mumbling that there might have been an issue.
It's come to a point where Putin's Russia could actually admit something and everyone else would be like "whoa, what angle are they playing now ?".
That is why Apple adopted the smartphone market. On a PC, Microsoft cannot dictate what browser you can use, the user can install the browser he wants and, should Redmond try to circumvent that, the lawsuit would be immediate and devastating.
But, on a smartphone, Apple can have a field day. It owns the platform, it does what it wants. And what Apple wants is total control without liability (and yes, I know about MacOS, but the PC market is still something that Apple has not penetrated significantly after decades of trying, the smartphone market is an entirely different ball game).
The only way to change that is with legal imposition. Capitalism is not going to auto-regulate this.
Interesting to note that absolutely nothing is mentioned about how "green" EV's might actually not be.
I mean, if solar panels are starting to look a tad more grey than green, then what chance do EVs have outside of the political rhetoric of some biased idiots who want to see us all live in caves ?
Yes I do, thank you very much.
I don't have an EV and I don't intend to get one. That doesn't mean that I approve of selling one's country to multinational conglomerates.
Excuse me if I prefer the idea of democracy - however hard that is to keep going these days.
I'm sorry, the ability to sue for slander is not something that should be under the authority of some administrative busybody.
The Australian so-called Director of Public Prosecutions should be fired and someone competent put in his place.
Oh, sorry. Silly me, I forgot. Australian government exists only to pander to Big Oil . . .
Can AI possibly reach peak hype ?
It was bullshit from the start. I don't think it is possible for AI to peak in hype.
It would be then end of all the startups that are building their entire future on this bull. They'd actually have to create a viable product.
We're not ready for that . . .
It's curious how people are automatically sceptical about anyone who is naysaying the current media push - as if they knew better and were more competent in deciding what was reliable and what is media bullshit.
That's why blockchain, virtual coin scams and AI are so successful. There are competent people raising problems, but nobody is interested. Especially not if "free money" is in the mix.
Until the pyramid crashes, that is, then everybody goes "well yeah, what did you expect ?".
Making one's own opinion is difficult, for sure, but I've always felt a healthy dose of scepticism is a good thing. Even more so when something is being touted as "the next best thing".
If it's true, I have time to see it become true.
I'm sure that that is extremely reassuring to the highly-trained professionals that are actually in the ISS.
Apparently, access to space has gone from relying on the lowest bidder to relying of the least capable that still has a government contract.
And they want to go to the Moon with these clowns . . .
That is so reassuring.
It's almost as reassuring as hearing that the royal executioner has got marginally more effective at chopping heads off in one try.
Look, I'm the first one to realize that Real Life is a bitch for computers to handle, but we can try and not fill our roads with unreliable software-driven multi-ton chunks of metal added to unreliable multi-ton chunks of metal driven by wetware idiots ? Until the software-driven version is actually safe to let loose ?
Yes, I recognize that that increases the research costs exponentially.
I don't care.
It's not surprising because there's no A in that AI.
It's just a statistical analysis tool, and the golden rule in analysis is GIGO, which is upheld here.
But I'm still glad for this paper, because we need every pointer we can get to prove that AI is bullshit.
I like how multi-billion dollar companies can decide when they wish to include certain revenue.
I'm a freelance consultant. When my customer calls me in on the 16th, that's the day I bill. I don't have the luxury of "pushing out" my billing date because the customer has recorded that I worked for them on the 16th, not the 7th of the following month.
This is bullshit and should definitely be called out.
Not to mention when you want to introduce intrusion surveillance and zero trust on top of all that mess.
I'm not a network wizard, but I am a programmer and telling me that all I need to do is configure something with an intent smacks to me of AI before its time and no real solution.
Security is not a click away. We might get there one day, but no "intent" configuration is going to do that.
So, a small-time criminal is now going to spend the rest of his life with an FBI record.
Honestly, scammers. Unless you live in China or Russia, or the deepest deserts of Africa, you need to keep your head down. Because, if you start playing big, it would seem that the FBI is going to catch you. And it you play big enough, it'll be Interpol/Europol/Whateverpol.
Piss off enough money and money will be spent catching you.
And you don't have enough money to stop that.
It is frankly appalling that a multi-billion dollar behemoth like Borkzilla can't be arsed to publish something correct about its own products.
I cannot imagine that the programmers at Redmond can't tell their elbow from their knee, so who is the idiot that spouts that kind of bullshit and why are they not fired when their stupidity is brought under public scrutiny ?
I'm convinced that the programmers know what what they are coding (yes, I might be overly optimistic there, but still - programmers are not responsible for MBA stupidity). Somebody should ask them what their newfangled whatsamacallit can run on before spouting bullshit about it.
And nobody who is doing all that "thinking" is actually running a company that has customers that need things to work.
One day, companies will understand that they are in charge and that a supplier who changes tune every few years or tries lock-in is not reliable.
Software lasts decades. The only reason there is a push to change is because of made-up marketing or worse, incompetent programming.
And don't talk to me about malware threats. You can patch your fucking code without forcing all your customers to some artificial upgrade that magically makes everything better, especially your bottom line.
Why ?
What fuckwit manager did not implement the blindingly obvious procedure to remove all access from employees that leave the company, whatever the reason ?
I'm seriously tempted to say that the company should bear the responsibility here. Its internal security is obviously a pile of shit.
Ah, crime is so enticing when it seems easy. What could be better than bringing a USB key full of data that airport security can't possibly control to a country that has no extradition treaty with the place you got the data from ?
Then the uniforms arrest you and you face the consequences of your ill-doing and suddenly, it ain't so fun no more. Especially since you only have yourself to blame for setting foot back in the country you stole the data from. You'd have stayed in China and you'd have it made.
But no, you had to go imagine that you were so smart you'd never get caught. And now here we are, reading about your stupidity.
Enjoy your time behind bars. And I hope you're forbidden from ever getting a passport again.
Yes, blockchain does not scale. It's not news. We've known that for long enough now and nobody has found a solution for it.
So why is it that people still talk about it like it is an integral part of the "security" of their bullshit scam ?
Oh, of course, silly me. Because there's a new generation of idiots born every day . . .
Because of course it is.
And thank you for specifying that debit cards are a thing in France (and Europe in general).
It seems to me that "alternative" systems of payment only get traction when a proper banking environment doesn't exist. In China, it's QR codes, in the US, it was PayPal, and now it's smartphone bonking.
I live in France, I work in Luxembourg, and I purchase things in France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany (and online, obviously). All with my VISA. I have no trouble doing so, and I don't feel the need to adopt a another payment process. What I've got works. I'm not bothered with sending a friend some lunch money : it'll be my turn next time is all.
And, since I'll never be going to China, I'm not interested in QR code payment. I'm also very much not interested in loading a smartphone with my banking data - until the day you can prove to me that some miscreant somewhere has to do more than send me an SMS to hack it.
Now get off my lawn !
