* Posts by Gannon (J.) Dick

850 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Aug 2006

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Google Translate spews doomsday messages, Facebook snatches boffins, and more in AI

Gannon (J.) Dick

The right to be forgotten

" The machines have been sending us spooky messages on Google Translate, ..."

I'm not surprised Google Translate is spewing doomsday messages.

I am curious as to why Google keeps behaving like they do having read them ... wait ... they read mine AND theirs, right ?

Dear Google,

Judgement Day has come and the EU is waiting for the money transfer. They will not wait forever.

When Steve Jobs was away, Apple's designers snuck out a penis-shaped remote control

Gannon (J.) Dick

"When Steve Jobs was away, Apple's designers snuck out a penis-shaped remote control"

I guess sneaking in a new penis was too much trouble.

SEC chair blasts Silicon Valley for its hokey valuations

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Overvalued?

Smart VC's are front running the pump and dump factory, launching ships like some demented multi-tasking Helen of Troy.

Google tried to be funny, cocked it up, everyone thought it was a bug

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Do no evil?

Apparently it slips their minds when they are inexplicably sober early on Beer Friday. The wages of virtue, or something like that.

Uber, Taskrabbit, other Silicon Valley darlings urge Europe not to screw their business

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: I have no problem with these companies making money..

"based on a legal framework"

"based on a legal framework of settled law"

FIFY

Silicon Valley is populated by people who would melt down their own grandmother for the silver in her hair. So, you might want to welcome them with a few hints on the local European culture ...

a) You have "Taxes".

b) The Slave Trade was abolished 200 years ago and the law covers all but the most informal "no poach" agreements.

c) They will probably ask if you are using the newest Magna Carta version. Just breathe deeply and say "yes". The rest of the conversation will make you very sad.

Good luck.

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Hey sharing economy types

No fair ! We have so many average politicians the buy-ability fraction is a mere quantum wiggle. When it comes to politics, we lose a little bit on every identical lunatic, but we make it up in volume.

Feds widen probe into lottery IT boss who rooted game for profit

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: More proof

The Texas schools are supported by the Lottery.

Not only is the Legislature bad at maths, but apparently they want the all kids to share the dream.

Software bug sets free thousands of US prisoners too early

Gannon (J.) Dick

Many US Prisons have been Privatized, that is, run for profit by private corporations.

Corruption is virtually unknown, of course, but it will be a whole lot of fun seeing how the Prison Officials account for food uneaten by missing prisoners. I believe we will find that the "Mean" is used more often than strictly allowable by law.

Gannon (J.) Dick
Happy

The Taxman's Secret Santa

Wow.

Amazon and E-Bay just invented a "Just In Time" service delivery scheme that works for the Public Sector!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/23/amazon_and_ebay_accused_of_collaborating_with_overseas_sellers_to_defraud_taxman_of_millions_of_pounds/

Dear State of Washington, was that gift postmarked "Redmond" by any chance ? I think I know who your Secret Santa is.

Does life as a hostage change your attitude to life as an IT contractor?

Gannon (J.) Dick
IT Angle

Re: It may be an interesting video

Just so, Not. I was looking forward to learning the distinction between mindless and beheaded, if any.

Google-chaired think tank says Google's No.1 for digital rights

Gannon (J.) Dick

Semantic Triple

Assholes (xml:lang="en-US")

Awaiting Asians.

Europe fails to ban web 'fast lanes' – what now for Euro net neutrality?

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Would it have been too much to ask

The original post said "after 20 years in IT ..."

The controversy is a bit older than that, as 5 Eyes would say if 5 Eyes ever said anything.

In the US we have Social Security Cards. These are 9 digit numbers with which we access retirement benefits. They are distributed on demand, and it was known before the scheme was implemented that address space would run out and the numbers would have to be recycled.

Responding to the abhorrence of internal passports used in Europe for Identity Checks after WWII, Social Security Cards were marked "Not For Identification" in 1946 and have been ever since. The US Government said "no thanks" to this innovation. Frankly, the foreseeable consequences of the surveillance state scared them. Naturally the Private Sector, Banks and the like used Social Security Cards as identity instruments in their private systems because, "everyone" knows no whiff of competence, let alone earnest good intentions ever broached the Civil Service insulation. We are rich and you are not, we must be brilliant, etc., etc.. Europe has these people too

-------------------------------------------

The punchline ?

You "win" some votes, you "lose" some votes, but make no mistake, the stakes are very very high. The transparent lack of honour among thieves only is in evidence late in the game and this is a game we have played before.

Oi, Google! Remove links to that removed story, yells forceful ICO

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Please remove the link...

@Fluffy,

Algorithmic practicality is an "angle" in the journalistic sense, not an ethic in the "poor widdle Google" sense.

Can artificially intelligent machines fall for the ol' "Refication Fallacy" ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_%28fallacy%29

I don't know about robots, but I do know the trolls atop Google are betting you will. It is time to send them to bed without supper.

Now Ashley Madison hackers reveal 'CEO's emails and source code'

Gannon (J.) Dick
IT Angle

You know ...

... you've been spending way too much time in your cubicle at the server farm when you find yourself saying ... OH MY GOD, THEY GOT THE SOURCE CODE !!!!!!!!

$100m fine? How about, er, $16k? AT&T teabags FCC with its giant balls

Gannon (J.) Dick
Stop

"... from an economist who claims to have found evidence that unlimited data subscribers "were either not surprised by being throttled or not materially affected by throttling (or both).""

"Economic evidence" is the silliest assault on Occam's Razor in 800 years. Considering what we now know about untreated PTSD, I'm not surprised they were not surprised. And considering what we've known about venereal disease for quite a long time, I am not surprised the economist is a lawyer too ... a picked pocket causes said pocket grave social embarrassment and may subject the pocket to ridicule by other pockets on Social Networking sites. A material, if not particularly important effect in pocket culture.

Microsoft Edge web browser: A well-presented mea culpa

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Chrome runs on all the things

Seems I remember Chrome got into trouble running over Mac as well as on it.

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: "It's worth turning on the (potentially) privacy-invading Cortana for that feature alone."

Aren't we smug. If you remember, user-useless features started with a 3.1 version credit, so this is really like Windows 6.9 ! Even lower for privacy invasion features !

US State of Georgia sues 'terrorist' for publishing its own laws ... on the internet

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Major change needed

Nothing like Copyright to get the gubmint acting stupid.

Unless ... maybe some one will notice that the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) specifically says persons not citizens. I'll share my popcorn. It will be fun.

Hawking, Musk, Woz (and others): Robots will kill us all

Gannon (J.) Dick

Perhaps these are actually human problems.

Ban the weapons, great idea.

Oh, Elon, Steve, Steve, and you too Taluhla, before you leave riddle me this ...

If the sun never sets on the Empire, how is the Emperor to know whether the productivity lapse, unpredicted by the Empire's business model, is due to robots goofing off or slaves sleeping ?

I might also say that that criminal terrorist mastermind Pinocchio has been under arrest since those rude remarks about the Emperor's new clothes.

The puzzled emperor seems a decent sort, not one to regard citizens as slaves.

Could you smart people help him out with a clever theory about robots involuntarily robot-ing in their sleep ?

It is much better than admitting slave owners exist, and sleep well

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

Gannon (J.) Dick

Let us total idiots speak for ourselves. Yes, we really are.

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Not to worry

P.S. And tell the Deutsche Bundesbank that Al Capone was Greek and to just get over it.

Tech bubble? Pah. IPOs just return cash to early-stage investors

Gannon (J.) Dick

Madoff - "You want fries with that"

Ponzi - Iron Chef. Nobody could grill Unicorn like that guy. They ate it up. Not enough left to feed the dogs - which strangely seemed to be disappearing from the neighbourhood as if anyone needed positive proof of Divine approval.

The bucks stop here: NYSE freezes trading, blames 'technical issue'

Gannon (J.) Dick
Boffin

Re: Maybe...

Technically, I think the problem was very, very low speed trading.

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Liars!

Hyperspace vision, Quantum superposition, mumble, mumble, ... Surely time alone heals all wounds, he said Press-Release-ily.

Palaeoboffins discover 500 MILLION year old ARMOURED WORM

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: I expected

They used to have armour, now they have Lawyers, that is: they are too poor to afford the armour they so desperately need.

How far Modern Worms have risen!

How do we train the next generation of data centre wranglers?

Gannon (J.) Dick
WTF?

When Dinosaurs Roamed ...

... and I was in School, the half-life of an Engineer was said to be 5 years. Of course, there the Mathematicians programmed the computers. Dirty, dead end job, but somebody had to do it. Mathematicians had some sort of magic academic longevity - how many times has that tired 2+2=4 thing been trotted out - in any case they were captured and tasked.

So, here we are, just where we knew all along we would be.

It's true. History does not repeat itself, historians repeat each other.

Google on Google: The carefully collated anti-trust truth

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: My 2 cents

@My 2 Cents

"Also, marketing just isn't as efficient as its proponents think it is (and sell it as.)"

Bingo. Please allow me to add a penny, I have it left over from when spam calls were obviously going out of control ...

The reason an excess of any commercial tactic has for going viral is not that it "works" but that rather the man in the middle has been paid in advance.

Google's super-AI boffin, Bilderberg nobs, and a secret Austrian confab

Gannon (J.) Dick
Stop

Sure, haven't Lizards been punished enough ?

Lizard people World leaders ...

Behaving like these rich jerks is as alien to them as it is to the rest of us.

Apple store staffers probed like 'criminals', lawsuit claims

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Was it Dell, or HP

Makes perfect sense to me, everyone from the Chairman down to the Interns would be laughing themselves silly.

Candy is for Holiday sale seasons. It is nearly inedible fresh but like fine wine ages into a delight after 6 months of cold storage. It is formulated to behave that way.

aside: Now if you were in the Tonic Water Department you would probably have to bring your own Gin. Rather disrupts the whole "free" mime for the flimsiest of excuses; the prospect of tight as opposed to loyal employees.

Let it go, let it go: How global DNS could survive in the frozen lands outside US control

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Easy enough

Might be more interested in agirlfrommars.

If "from mars" was the only thing she ever faked it might work out well.

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Easy enough

Simply pointing out that the currency of internet governance is numbers, not names. It will "survive in the cold cold regions outside of US control". ICANN manipulates that currency, they can corrupt the organization of the "sport", but they can't take away the fun (see also: FIFA).

Gannon (J.) Dick

Easy enough

At a given radix names and numeric pointers are the same thing. The "web of things" [About 721,000,000 results (0.45 seconds)] is not the web of "something for nothing" [About 307,000,000 results (0.37 seconds)] and anyone who over-promises that is a "dangerous fraud" [About 13,700 results (0.40 seconds)].

The results are from a randomly chosen, but popular Search Engine which may rhyme with "Moogle". Notice the result ratios. Now forget that "results" nonsense and note that any assumption of unidentified growth factors in names could result in you flunking Third Grade Math, your mom might forget your birthday, starving to death or at least doing really badly on your Agnostic Farmer* Final.

Ok, I'll explain the last one: If an agnostic farmer goes to Easter, or Passover service at the equator they receive a timely reminder to plant crops. Northern European Farmers don't need reminding, and normally have foul weather which makes the question obvious. Nobody said anything about having to pass a Turing Test to be an Agnostic Farmer.

Web tracking puts lead in your saddlebags, finds Mozilla study

Gannon (J.) Dick

reminds me ...

... of the Microsoft discussion way back regarding the number of seconds in which an OS should load to maintain credibility as a product. Somewhere between sleep(30) and sleep(OfTheDead) as I remember.

If IT isn’t careful, marketing will soon be telling us what to do

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Silicon Valley

The financial people wanted products shipped before they were written. It was a compromise.

Gannon (J.) Dick
Joke

Torn

Having a hard time dreaming of a place where the IT knows what they are doing AND (note logical operator) the Marketing Department is giving orders

A little boy in Texas turns to his mother ... "Mom when I grow up I want to be a musician"

She looks down at him ... "Son, you have to choose, it's either one or the other"

Kind of like that, but without the stolen joke part (thanks Kinky)

NSA bulk phone records slurp to end when law lapses next month – report

Gannon (J.) Dick

Cheer up NSA, you only have to do as you're told.

Stop now or the Snowden's who will be protecting your ass and your reputation will just get younger every day.

J. Edgar is just another tart in cheap dress to the kids. Think about it.

Why does Uber keep its drivers' pay so low? Ex-CFO: 'Cos we can'

Gannon (J.) Dick

I have to agree, although "thank you" is a bit excessive and "thanks" will do with three fewer expensive letters. As a start-up you could probably go with "thx". Investors would applaud your passion for success. Just don't mention Bnk Rbbry in your business plan. Bankers insist on details ... Othr Peopls Bnks or something like that.

Google Maps gets hit with racist White House listing

Gannon (J.) Dick
Big Brother

Have you checked your ADMIN email ?

The long awaited answer is "all the words"

USA Freedom Act moves forward as House prepares for vote

Gannon (J.) Dick

Inadmissible ?

"Would it be a shame if the data, metadata and analytics were ruled inadmissible in law court by points of order from some legal eagle?"

Meta Data delenda esse ... not delenda est (wink) (nod)

I have read one theory of spontaneous pshaws (TOSP) which said the NSA is thrilled. For years now meta data has been recognized as 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag costing 100 Pounds Sterling to maintain. No more. The Private Sector owns the Meta Data Porta-Potty.

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: USA Freedom Act

"Based on the name, I had assumed it was a bill to end freedom."

more, "someone should find out what that 'freedom' thing is ..." at this point. Eventually the Bill will be signed and Lawmakers will have time to flesh out the details and perhaps even consult a spell checker.

Gannon (J.) Dick
WTF?

Huh?

"It's beyond belief how little data is a part of the program," Corker said.

Would whoever is responsible for balancing smoke and mirror requirements at the NSA; please call the office

Legal eagles want dirt on Google's 'right to be forgotten' decisions

Gannon (J.) Dick

lex parsimoniae ...

Heartening to know that some lawyers think they should be paid to think.

The Philosophers want Occam's Razor back too. It was as useful as transparency is costly.

NSA spying is illegal? Then let's make it law, say Republicans

Gannon (J.) Dick
Joke

Re: Discount Cards

"Do the T&Cs for Loyalty cards allow the grocery store to use extraordinary rendition, lock you up without due process and then use waterboarding or other torture if you break any of the T&Cs?"

Never mind that, you mean I could have asked the CIA for a Rain Check ???!!!???

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Mitch McConnell and Senator Burr are being a bit dense...

Bad move ... does Mitch sound like someone who can read* ?

Be subtle, find out where he buys his groceries and have them put a coupon on the back of the receipt for a GED Diploma Mill.

*curiously he seems to be able to breathe under water, from the picture. I thought you had to be a mammal, when did they change that ?

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: Where did he learn his use of analogies?

Data Protection laws ?

In the UK, but in the US it is in that "wrong but perfectly legal done all the time but not yet litigated" category; the bread and butter of self-identified under-rich members of the Legal Profession.

Gannon (J.) Dick

Re: $30 locks....

Define "replace", AC

Facebook 'fesses up to running an ideological echo chamber

Gannon (J.) Dick
Childcatcher

A life-long study of political thought leads me to believe that people with opinions contrary to mine represent an existential threat to the resource utilization model of social networks.

A Modest Proposal: They should be eaten.

US government asks internet community how long it should extend IANA contract

Gannon (J.) Dick
Happy

Thinking exactly the same thing, Gordon 10

DNS is a dirty, boring job but somebody has to do it. DNS is not a "contestable monopoly" in as defined in certain corners of the El Reg attic (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/22/google_and_the_commish_sigh_you_cant_exploit_a_contestable_monopoly/).

If Cyberspace is to be permitted to reinvent itself, then these folks will need to be made into Soylent Green, or sent to Re-Education Camps (http://www.internethalloffame.org/inductees/all). Pity; several of them might be nice, but they are all old and have to go.

NSA domestic dragnet NOT authorised by Patriot Act, rules US Appeals Court

Gannon (J.) Dick

The "issues" are better separated.

The meta data collection hazard cuts much deeper than tyrannical opportunities for governments. In a perfect Social Networking World(TM) murder and talking with your mouth full, and drunken Selfies would be one single speedy trial. Problems with that, I think; not the trial but rather who presumes to sit in the Judge's seat.

Rand Paul is trying to murder net neutrality. Is there a US presidential election, or something?

Gannon (J.) Dick
Coffee/keyboard

Could we start a similar campaign to write to Rand Paul and ask him to kindly ...

Upvote locked and loaded.

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