Posts by A. Coatsworth

City isn't keen on 5,000 erratic, traffic-jam-causing GM robo-cars on its streets

Silver linings

>>and could undermine public confidence in all automated driving technology

So, you are saying that there is at least one positive outcome from this whole fiasco?

The years were worth the wait. JWST gives us an amazing view of Neptune's rings

Came to say the same thing but several people were ahead.

So, Pangalactic Gargle Blasters for all!

Grand Theft Auto 6 maker confirms source code, vids stolen in cyber-heist

Re: Ooooo

Most likely!

The most important bit ofinformation derived from this "hack" is that Rockstar is working on an actual GTA 6, and not in yet another re-release of GTA V

Anti-Metaverse package 'explosion' at college VR lab probed by investigators

Informs of threatening references to the UN and the text "screw Flanders" repeated over and over, remain unconfirmed

Re: "Rigged" how?

Calcium carbide would be awesome, if only for the ***** smell that would linger at the explosion site for days.

**By counceling of his lawyer, this commentard does not conffirm nor deny knowledge concerning a calcium carbide stink bomb that went off at the high school's gym bathroom in the late nineties**

BOFH and the case of the disappearing teaspoons

Damn, there goes the Friday...

And the content filter in my work PC really, really doesn't like that autosaveisforwimps address, so I'll have to check it on my phone. Really a fate worse than death.

Doctor gave patients the wrong test results due to 'printer problems'

Re: They should feel the pain

I feel something was left out of the story: if the mentor (and a good one to boot, going by the article) was so hell bent in not trying to explain technical details to that particular user, he may have had a good reason.

We all have met the odd user who not only doesn't listen, but is infuriatingly dense. Better to save breath in those cases.

A lot of assumptions on my part, for sure, but that is what I get from the story...

Tesla owner gets key fob chip implanted in his hand

Damnatio Memoriae

I am against "cancel culture", but I'd make an exception to sentence Captain Cyborg to Damnatio Memoriae.

Mouse hiding in cable tray cheesed off its bemused user

I'd love to get one of these wirless keyboards that draw power from the Aether of Faerie. Sounds more practical than fiddling with AAA batteries.

Twitter unveils US midterm election integrity plans, upsets almost everyone

world leaders and politicians should be held to a higher standard when tweeting

That genie is out of the bottle and I don't think it can ever be brought back. Whatever Twitter et all do, will be too little too late (unless they decide to dissappear voluntarily)

Politicians left and right [1] realized that being obnoxious, disrespectful bullies on social media paints them as being "closer to the people"[2] and on the whole earns them more simpatizants than detractors, at the slight cost of polarizing the societies even more. I.e: populism with a sprinkle of Web 2.0 magic.

We are on an accelerating race to the bottom and I don't see how it can get better.

1. I am not talking only of the bad-haired usual supects. The same phenomenon repeats itself in consolidated democracies, former dictatorships, 1st, 2nd and 3rd World countries.

2. What does this say about the societies is a thought too horrible to contemplate on a Friday afternoon, without a semi-lethal dose of acohol.

Our software is perfect. If something has gone wrong, it must be YOUR fault

Re: It’s your TVs fault, sir

>>TL;DR - just don’t buy one

The name Sony Android was not enough warning NOT to buy it?

It could be called KickYouInTheBalls SpikeYourDrinkWithDrano and still not be such an obvious red flag

DoE digs up molten salt nuclear reactor tech, taps Los Alamos to lead the way back

That is what I gather from the phrase In these reactors water is only used to generate power in the article. The irradiated circuit uses salt, but the non-irradiated circuit that drives the steam turbines uses water as in any other reactor

Amazon to buy Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7b

"We have no plans to operate iRobot differently than how they operate today[...]"

We will change it sooner rather than later, it is just that we won't let users know ahead of time.

Virgin Galactic delays commercial suborbital flights again

Science?

>>private science and research clients (expected to take 100 of the first 1,000 seats)

What science can be achieved from a 10 minutes flight that doesn't even reach the Kármán line? Other than how to make half a million dollars disappear, of course.

Edit: Ok. Wikipedia informs me that the passengers experienced 4 minutes of weightlessness in the previous flight, which is kind of impressive when compared to the Vomit Comet's 30 seconds... but do they have any room to maneuver inside the ship?

Enough with the notifications! Focus Assist will shut them u… 'But I'm too important!'

Re: Another great victory for Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive

>>almost as much as the Windows machine...

Understatement of the Century!

A friend's Mac will read aloud the current time, at the top of the hour, EVERY SINGLE HOUR.

I can't fathom how can someone work, or live, like that. It sends me into a murderous rage.

Large Hadron Collider experiment reveals three exotic particles

Re: Why is it so complex?

The Universe was simple.

Then, someone figured out how it worked, so it disappeared and was replaced with the current mess.

It's a crime to use Google Analytics, watchdog tells Italian website

Google must be trembling in its boots

Courts in three countries have reached the same conclusion and yet SFA has changed with regards to analytics.

Are you sure Google et al have anything to fear? It is not that I don't trust the regulators to take decisive action, but... I don't know how to finish that phrase.

First steps into the world of thought leadership: What could go wrong?

>>get them to hold an awkward object with both hands

... or make them ride an unicycle, for that matter.

Is there a subliminal message here? Both the BOFH and Dabbs talking about job applications...

I was fired for blowing the whistle on cult's status in Google unit, says contractor

Re: 'Fellowship' not 'Society'

Because you dared to talk positively about a religious group. That is a big no-no on certain self righteous circles of the internet.

Former chip research professor jailed for not disclosing Chinese patents

>>I'd really like to see "the West", including my own government, leading by example, rather than merely blaming and pointing fingers

Yeah, me too, but international relationships are conducted with the same logic as kindergarten fights. It is profoundly disheartening to hear heads of state using equivalents of "who smelt it dealt it" on topics such as war or human rights violations, without the least trace of irony or self conscience.

Heineken says there’s no free beer, warns of phishing scam

It is fun to hate on what's popular. C'mon, jump into the bandwagon!

Having said that, I guess people gets quite annoyed with Heineken's advertising: They show themselves a THE premium beer, when in fact it is a perfectly mediocre affair (see also Stella Artois) and that generates the hate.

Warning: Colleagues are unusually likely to 'break' their monitors soon

Re: So

>> Simple solution: don't connect it to the network.

That is only partially true. I've seen a few 2020 "smart" TVs that take longer to boot than my Celeron PC circa 1999. Simply changing the channel or accessing a menu can take 2 - 5 seconds.

It is absolutely appalling: the smart cr*p makes them infinitely less functional than a 15 years old tv, and that even though they are never connected to any network.

The manufacturers obviously put a lot of bloated software into a hardware that is in no way enough to properly run it, and that affects basically all smart appliances I've seen, so the consumer is impacted no matter what

Conti: Russian-backed rulers of Costa Rican hacktocracy?

Re: Costa Rica army

Is kind of funny and kind of sad hearing the president talk about "war" when we effectively have no defensive capabilities whatsoever in the meatspace[1] and much less in the cyberspace.

The timing of this attack was odd to say the least. It started 2 weeks before the new President took office, right after an extremely nasty electoral campaign.

I wonder if any of the sides involved[2] tried to hire Conti for their own purposes, and the hacker gang simply saw the opportunity to attack the government en-masse after assessing our security measures (or lack thereof). So far they have managed to attack several ministries, public banks, municipalities and tax systems with different levels of impact.

[1] a few years ago there were problems in the border, and the national armory, managed to muster one single heavy machine gun: a M60 that had been abandoned in the country since the Contras civil war in Nicaragua in the early 80s. No one knew whether there was ammunition for it.

[2] there were 25 candidates in the first round, I kid you not. Some of them rather shady.

Logitech Pop: Stylish, portable, but far from the best typing experience

Love the title

>>Logitech Pop: Stylish, portable, but far from the best typing experience

I.e: looks great, is small, doesn't work for it's only intended fscking purpose (but that last one is a minor detail)

Relevant xkcd, as usual: https://xkcd.com/937/

Banks talk big cloud game but few have migrated over 30% of apps

"Less than half said business leaders in their bank understood 'opportunities of cloud'"

... And less than half these opportunities were thought out less than half as well as they deserved.

China wants its youth to stop giving livestreamers money

Re: Good is good

The scary thing with the CCP is their fondness and efficiency to take everything to 11.

So, the basic idea to limit the power of "influencers" is not bad, but one can only wonder in what creepingly dystopian way it will be enforced.

See the handling of covid lockdowns, to put but one example

Switch off the mic if it makes you feel better – it'll make no difference

Is that supposed to make us feel better or worse?

You're saying that your devices not only listen to every word you say, but also record every move you make and every step you take?

That really stings... but reporting it to the police won't be of any help.

Apple's grip on iOS browser engines disallowed under latest draft EU rules

See icon

EOM.

US Army may be about to 'waste' up to $22b on Microsoft HoloLens

Re: It's not wasted

Fermenting the fire of rebellion inside Russia against it's own leadership seems to be the only practical way to de-escalate

Yeah... Germany tried that once, even sending an Lenin-sized piece of yeast to speed the fermentation process in Russia.

It did not end well, I see why Germany would be afraid to give it a shot. Russia is simply too much of an unknown for Western Europe to even start trying to predict what could go on if a revolution starts.

The month I worked for DEADHEAD: Yes, that was their job title

Re: I have to ask ....

Every year fewer and fewer sites celebrate April's fools, or so it seems.

And those that do, put less and less effort on it[1]. Not sure if the suits are afraid to be sued, or to offend anyone, or just plainly humorless, but the trend is undeniable.

[1]Don't take this as a dis to today's SFTWS?. It was top quality as usual, but it's kind of sad it is the only article in the site on the topic.

Yale finance director stole $40m in computers to resell on the sly

Priorities

>>Petrone also failed to pay taxes on the stolen tablets

Uncle Sam: I don't know what shady sh*t are you on, BUT I WANT MY CUT

How experimental was Microsoft's 'experimental banner' in File Explorer?

The adventures of Rogue Engineer

Lowly coder by day... Chaos thrill seeker by night. Rogue Engineer the biggest software companies and unleashes his mad code to the unsuspecting masses.

From slurping WIFI data via Google cars to slipping ads in Microsoft's workhorse OS. In any tech company, he is everyone and he is no one!

Where will he strike next? Find it next week!

Same Rogue-time, same Rogue-channel

Ireland: Meta fined $18.6m for breaking EU's GDPR

Re: "Meta has received an $18.6m (€17m) fine"

In that regard, Russia had the right idea last year although perhaps not for the right reasons: unless the bigwigs - or in cases like this, at least the country PHBs - are made criminally accountable for these situations, nothing will ever change.

Microsoft slides ads into Windows Insiders' File Explorer

>>Thank you for your purchase

And that is the problem. They took to heart the legalese about "licenses" and now our PCs are not really ours.

Sometimes I wonder if the "Great Reset" tinfoil-hatters are onto something

Pioneer 10 turns 50: Remembering humankind's first jaunt to Jupiter

Re: That other part

There was a Kickstarter in 2017 that offered replicas of the plaque, engraved by hand by the artist tat created the originals... and I am only finding this now?

Goddammit!

Proprietary neural tech you had surgically implanted? Parts shortage

Re: The joys of modifying windows sounds...

Ah, the memories!

Once upon a time on Win 98... StarCraft: Broodwar soundbites: Corsair's "It is a good day to die!" for startup. Marine's death cry for critical error. Infested Kerrigan's "Now WHAT?!" for messages... although for the life of me, I can't remember what was the shut down sound...

I'm just old enough to remember when a long, agonizing beeeeeeeeep or a series of short, tortured beep-beep-beeps on startup, meant that something had Gone Terribly Wrong with the PC you had gutted in your desk.

These unexpected "I'm dead" sounds caused a deep phobia of any noise coming from a computer, and not only to me, judging by the comments!

Alarm raised after Microsoft wins data-encoding patent

Re: A contradiction in terms

Should change their name to People's Democratic Republic of Invention

Makes as much sense

NASA's InSight probe emerges from Mars dust storm

It took ages for me to get Cats on Mars out of my head, and now it is on again... thanks!

Icon: closest thing to a Cowboy hat

Have you tried restarting? Reinstalling? Upgrading? Moving house and changing your identity?

Re: Grumpy Ol' Dude

"Now"? what do you mean "Now"? He has been doing it (teehee!) for nigh a decade.

The grumpier, the better!

[EDIT]: According to the site's search, the first SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND, SIR? was published on April 6, 2012, so we are about to celebrate 10 years of Grumpy McDoubleEntendre here!

Second Trojan asteroid confirmed to be leading our planet around the Sun

So, if there are trojan asteroids on Earth's path, it means Earth has not cleared its orbit from other debris, which in turns means that Earth is not actually a planet!

FLAT EARTH CONFIRMED!

Tonga takes to radio, satellite, motorboat comms to restore communications after massive volcano blast and tsunami

Musk would probably rather acusse of paedophilia the people who are actually trying to help, instead of doing something himself

No more DRM-free downloads as Amazon's ComiXology app set to disappear inside Kindle

Re: DRM

What are these "customers" you talk about?

In the brave new world of digital goods, there are only thieves, and thieves coaxed into paying. And thieves are not entitled to "rights", do they?

(wish I could use the Joke icon)

To err is human. To really screw things up requires a wayward screwdriver

Re: Reminds me of the in-law's central heating...

>>. I should have left it there - but the engineer in me had to ask

Ah, the ancient cult of Ikabai-Sital. More dangerous than Sciencilogy!

Fugitive mafioso evaded cops for two decades until he was spotted on Google Street View

Another option is this story being a load of bull, concocted by the Italian police to throw Mafia off the scent of how are they really finding bad guys' whereabouts.

Much like WWII pilots eating carrots to improve eyesight, and all that stuff.

RAF shoots down 'terrorist drone' over US-owned special ops base in Syria

Brain processes of a commentard

The RAF has scored its first air-to-air "kill" – where an aircraft downs an enemy aircraft – for almost 40 years..

"Forty years? but didn't they, during the Falkland's..."

[Brain booting up...]

[Brain booting up...]

Goddammit! forty years is the Falkland's, not WWII... I need to lie for a while

Midwest tornado destroys Amazon warehouse, killing six after worker 'told not to leave'

Re: Sh*t happens

It's a matter of reasonable doubt: given Amazon's stellar history on employee relations and laboral laws, it is easy to believe they sidestepped / bribed their way out of / plainly ignored their responsibilities as employers in this case.

Obviously nothing can be said for certain before the investigation ends, but I for one wouldn't bet my life on Amazon's adherence to regulations

Meg Whitman – former HP and eBay CEO – nominated as US ambassador to Kenya

How much?

Are US political parties so bankrupt [1] that $110k is a donation worthy of a 4-year overseas vacation?

I mean, that's what my house costs, in a suburb, in a third world country! It sounds extremely cheap for the levels of power we are talking about. What would one get if donates 1 meeellion?

[1] Financially speaking. Morally, we know they are, left, right and center.

Leaked footage shows British F-35B falling off HMS Queen Elizabeth and pilot's death-defying ejection

recover the crashed jet before [...]Russia could fish it out

>>Comrade, take look at we fished!

>>Да! Is that old Yak141 from 1990г?

>>Нет. It is super secret new Yankee figther.

*Russian Intel agents die of laughter*