Posts by JHD

A thump with the pointy end of a screwdriver will fix this server! What could possibly go wrong?

Many years ago I dropped a screwdriver into a client's machine. Too much damage to fix in the time frame allowed. I told them I owed them a new computer, got one, and installed it. They stayed a client for over 20 years and were my best reference for all that time.

SonicWall breach hits every cloud backup customer after 5% claim goes up in smoke

Re: Mind blown!!!

Toilet wall, being analog, is perhaps a nit more secure initially.

If they were actually taking actions out of an "abundance of caution" (a phrase I have grown to hate), the actions would have included telling users to change all saved passwords and trash the existing config backups.

"Abundance" my ass. It is PR minimization. Such statements should never be trusted.

Tesla bets on bot smoke screen as political and market realities bite

Re: "Special K"

But it makes musk *feel* special...

Re: To be fair

"Mein Fürher!" (Desperately pulls right arm down)

Re: A vision of the Glorious Future

Perhaps a chorus of Optimus robots could take over the tedious human task of praising musk, admiring his genius, and enduring his abuse. Put faces on them, hint that they have families that could be destroyed, and musk would be in paradise. Add a pleasant -sperm extraction module- and he'd be ecstatic.

He could have one dedicated to carrying and administereing his recreational chemicals.

Optimus is likely to be like FSD, endlessly promised by musk to the credulous but never quite there in fact. Eventually, getting paid for promises that are then broken will catch up with Tesla (and musk).

I utterly fail to understand why musk's fanbois think he is a visionary or technical genius. He is an astonishing master of hype, marketing, and self-promotion but seems to have no other skills of any value.

SpaceX's Starship explodes again ... while still on the ground

The minimum requirement would be when honest, competent government is restored. So, maybe never.

Re: Morale/enthusiasm problem?

How about, SpaceX worked until musk's promises and influence became dominant? These failures are not really on the engineers, who are doing their best to deliver on the hype and lies musk has forced on them.

musk's only real skill seems to be hype, so "Starship" for a piece of dangerously bungled engineering tracks, right along with the endlessly announcede full self driving and its variants (car will earn you money while you sleep, weird "truck" will make you cool).

"Once they go up

Who cares where they come down!

That's not my problem,

Says Werner von Braun."

Also, "We aim for the stars, sometime we hit London."

They've learned what the engineers already knew: the design parameters needed for Starship to do what musk promised can't work. The attempt to improve the lift to payload ratio by dropping weight in the vehicle makes it too unstable. Oh, and we learn that musk does not care how many US taxpayer dollars he immolates.

Perhaps musk should find a way to raise payloads into near earth orbit using the power of full self driving hype. That has sustained ridiculous "lift" in Tesla's valuation and musk's reputation.

Uncle Sam seeks time in tower dump data grab case after judge calls it 'unconstitutional'

This is just another example of the "drug dealer exception" to the US constitution, as tortured by the Supreme Court.

Back online after 'catastrophic' attack, 4chan says it's too broke for good IT

Re: Usurped

That would cover fascism, racism, misogyny, white supremacy, antisemitism, and US based bigotry but probably does not have enough child porn.

Odds of city-killer asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth creep upward

musk would regard this as an opportunity to claim to be earth's savior while making a huge amount of money. All he has to do is break a few space agencies.

And don't tell trump it would hit Africa or India; he'd demand space fortresses to protect the bolide from diversion.

NHS would be hit by 'significant' costs if UK loses EU data status, warn Lords

Re: Surely this cannot be true

As a nerve-wracked citizen of the US I must protest! Brexit is but one set of lies based on fantasy economics, ethnophobia, and fascist longings for an imaginary past. trump has created entire universes so vast that Farage wants to live in one of them. I will admit that the combination of Brexit and inept governance seems to be bringing the NHS into rough parity with the US southern states (but with abortion), but trump's lies are much biglier. They are the bigliest, though I sincerely wish Britain was winning the contest.

Maker of ATM bombing tutorials blew himself up – Euro cops

Bombing, like arson, should always be regarded as premeditated attempt at murder. Both demonstrate utter indifference to the lives of others.

Software fraudster 'fooled CIA' into terror alert

Bombing of al Jazeera

The US military bombed al Jazeera facilities twice that I recall, “accidentally.” It is not hard to believe that idiots convinced by this nonsense ordered these bombings.

This is what happens when people who do not believe in logic or proof or science control the government.

'CRU cherrypicked Russian climate data', says Russian

Ah, Science

The CRU apparently (and in my opinion, stupidly) wanted to keep data out of the hands of the idiot denier industry to avoid more of the fake controversies that are ginned up out of anything these folks either don’t understand (a lot of it, it seems) or are willing to misrepresent (all the rest).

Remember the kerfluffle that temperatures are decreasing because if you pick the (rather recent) warmest year and then the subsequent few the “trend” is down? Demonstrates a rather childish confusion between weather and climate, but it gets headlines--and confuses folks, halting action of any kind.

Which datasets are included in any analysis is a matter of judgment. There are many legitimate reasons to decide not to include data--suspect collection or incompatible metrics, for a start. A free market economist from Cato, or the Viscount of Fiddlesticks, are unlikely to be able to make informed judgments about this sort of thing, and certainly not without study.

I fall on the warming is real, human caused, and a problem side of the question. One of the things I find curious is that many of the mitigating measures are desirable ithout considering warming but are opposed anyway--you’d think the US right wing would be all for decreasing their cash transfers to the non-christian middle east, but it seems the invisible hand outranks the god of the scriptures.

MS store staff in spontaneous electric boogie

Welcome to the matrix (dance)

Am I the only one waiting for the remix with the chorus “Developers, Developers?” I once saw a balding fat guy who could chant that ...perhaps they could get him. He could rush all madcap through the matix, bouncing pinball style off of various happy dancers, vaulting tables of product.

I saw a bunch of kids dancing at the local Wendy’s years back; perhaps this is them, grown up and desperate--but I seem to remember the Wendy’s kids having better moves.

A viral campaign for the textbooks.

FBI sets out case against anthrax 'rogue scientist'

Unproven, unreliable

All that is presented is what the FBI thinks most favorable. Given the other high profile cases in which the FBI has acted shamefully and incompetently (Richard Jewell, Wen Ho Lee, Hatfill, and others across the years) I do not believe they are worthy of trust.

The FBI has a history and policy of applying maximum pressure against anyone they target, even casually (remember all the 60’s folk whose workplaces were visited by “Special Agents” who made ominous claims that often cost people their jobs); in this case the pressure may have been enourmous--and enough on its own to cause suicide, even absent guilt.

The tactics so far described should be curbed even if Ivins was guilty. They are a stain on the US, as is the FBI’s near-legendary arrogance and incompetence.