Posts by Bruno de Florence

Did I or did I not ask you to double-check that the socket was on? Now I've driven 15 miles, what have we found?

A very similar story, whereby I saved the day. I was attending a musicology lecture at a prestigious UK university. The lecturer had his synth all plugged in but, alas, it would not switch on, so no sound could be produced. The duty engineer was called, gave the set up a look, said "I'll be back" & disappeared. 15 mins later, no engineer, no nothing. So I got up, go & looked carefully at the synth, followed the synth cable to the wall plug and...realised the wall plug is not switched on. I switched it on & voilà, the lecture could start. Nothing more was heard from the engineer throughout the 90 mins lecture.

Google may have taken this whole 'serverless' thing too far: Outage caused by bandwidth-killing config blunder

Meanwhile, Huawei is LOLing its head off at the Google paper tiger-

Truth, Justice, and the American Huawei: Chinese tech giant tries to convince US court ban is unconstitutional

Enlightened by Mao's thought, Huawei will vanquish the Trump capitalist roader paper tigers.

Uncle Sam to its friends around the world: You can buy technology the easy way, or the Huawei

Re: Its economic

Same with European players re G5.

Also, remember that in current communist China, The Party=The Government. and Huawey could not have reached its current dominance without full approval & support from The Party. Therefore the boss of Huawey is part of The Party's inner circle & all its various departments. It's that closeness which makes the U.S. jittery. Who knows what all those motherboards might contain!!!

Zip it! 3 more reasons to be glad you didn't jump on Windows 10 1809

Re: Regressions

If there is an inter-generational issue, and I don't doubt that there is one, it's more of the side of a generation who grew up with their noses stuck on a screen, as opposed to a generation who grew up using Meccano or Legos, i.e. who learnt how to build things.

In Windows 10 Update land, nobody can hear you scream

Re: Rigorously Tested

Sounds like what's happening with the Universal Credit software in the UK. By the way, anybody knows which company did the coding for Universal Misery?

Facebook: Up to 90 million addicts' accounts slurped by hackers, no thanks to crappy code

It's I.T., but not as we know it, Jim.

Re: They've had so many cockups, this is not news.

Sounds like you're talking about the Universal Credit software, which even DWP staff have difficulties using :-)

Beam me up, PM: Digital secretary expected to give Tory conference speech as hologram

Cultural Appropriation

An idea taken from Jean-Luc Mélanchon, leader of the La France Insoumise party, a bit more to the left than Jeremy Corbyn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCbkE8sG0c8

Here's why AI can't make a catchier tune than the worst pop song in the charts right now

Re: Not pop

Both Western pop & Western classical music (aka the common practice) use the same structure, which was developed by fiddling about over a period of 400 years. Strictly speaking, there is no difference between a Mozart symphony and a Madonna song. Note the "Western" i added to "music".

Which Schoenberg do you refer to? Schoenberg of the Gurre Lieder or the atonal Schoenberg? Schonberg himself was very aware of the limitations of his atonal system, that is why, when using it, he composed very short pieces. His pupils, e.g. Alban Berg, were more audacious (Cf. Berg's Lulu).

"sounds better": Western music sounds, it does not sound "better" or "worst". However, the effect it has on your psychical system is another matter.

What those experimenters could have done is work with composers trained in the common practice, or read Schoenberg's Structural Functions of Harmony, or get acquainted with Schenkerian analysis.

Re: All known public AI algorithms are just a trick.. that is why!

Very Freudian :-)

Government calls for ideas on how to splash £400m on fibre

Really?

"Currently 91 per cent of the population has access to 24Mbps".

Where does that figure comes from? Which jobsworth verified it? How was "access" defined: constant, intermittent, one-third constant?

Despite best efforts, fewer and fewer women are working in tech

Men & women do not have the same relationship to knowledge. There is no symmetry or correspondence. They approach it each in very specific ways.

BT Openreach boss wants you to know that deep down, they care

Deep Down

Openreach engineer claimed he could not access the cabinet in my street in order to connect me for FTTC (with Sky) owing to works and various impediments. My street is a small crescent in central London, and having surveyed it, I could not see what he claimed to have seen. Result: no Net for me since 14 Sept 2016 (old ADSL disconnected, new fibre NOT connected).

I want the engineer's privates parts to stuff them deep down his throat !!!

Watch SpaceX's rocket dramatically detonate, destroying a $200m Facebook satellite

"We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone"

Really? Nobody asked you to connect everyone, so go connect and multiply yourself, monsieur Zucki.

MPs tell BT: Lay more fibre or face split with Openreach

What would have happened if BT had been in charge of the moon landing?

The Great Brain Scan Scandal: It isn’t just boffins who should be ashamed

Re: Proustian neuroscience

The Proustian madeleine episode is well known in French culture. From eating a small cake, the Proustian character remembers all kinds of things from his youth. What is overlooked is the decision to eat a madeleine at that moment. Was it contingent, or directed? Another episode in the Proustian saga is the main character stumbling on a stone, which makes him remember all kinds of things from his past. The same question applies.

There is a curious aspect to Proust's novel Time Remembered: nowhere in the text is the narrator named.

Freud started by studying neurons, but quickly realised it was not there that the ghost in the machine could be found, but in its effects, pretty much in the way the existence of a black hole is inferred from the effects it has on the region of space where it resides.He called the aporia present in each subject Unbewusst, improperly translated in English as Unconscious.

For those interested in pursuing those matters further, I recommend Eric Laurent's "Lost In Cognition: Psychoanalysis And Neurosciences".

Cracking Android's full-disk encryption is easy on millions of phones – with a little patience

They, whoever they are, are welcome to peek at the bits pics I exchange with other gay males. If you got it, flaunt it :-)

Orlando shootings bring Facebook's safety check to US soil

i have composed a lament for all those affected by the shootings:

https://youtu.be/uxF19_zSJEA

Facebook Messenger: All your numbers are belong to us

Zuck Alors!!!

Resistance is NOT futile. Zuk that, Zuck!!!

In France, Facebook is known as "fesse de bouc". Google Translate will give you an accurate translation. :-)

JetBlue blames Verizon after data center outage cripples flights

Re: Windows 10: It will be so incredibly funny...

This idea of "solutionism" by "THE Deity" is explored in depth in an interesting book: To Save Everything Click Here, Evgeny Morozov, Public Affairs (Perseus Books Group), New York, 2013.

Furious Easyspace customers moan about 'random' site outages

In web space no one can hear you scream

El Reg ought to look at a Gradwell, a UK based outfit, which used to provide a 1st rate quality web shared hosting service. I have had 8 to 12 sites with them since 2008. Then they put in a new hosting system called Cloud Hosting. Since then, it's all gone downhill: intermittent unavailability of sites, billing errors, FTP space "thinking" it's full so you can no longer upload files, up to 2 weeks response time from technical support by email (used to be same day), the error ticketing system itself going tits up, a client control panel (from Parallels) not updating or showing inaccurate information, no acknowledgement of downtime, etc...

It does matter to an individual when your site is not available AND you had planned to do some work on it.

El Reg is welcome to get in touch if it wants more info, as I have it all documented, including a letter of apology from the Chief Exec of Gradwell.

Tottenham MP calls for BlackBerry Messenging suspension

Lenine

In 1917, Lenine didn't have a Blackberry, an Android or an Iphone. Yet...

Facebook reviews smut policy after slave site uprising

Much ado about nothing

Collared is the Women Institute equivalent of the UK BDSM scene.

3D printers, one-dimensional enemies

Beware the...

...dark forces, which will likely seek to criminalise the creation of such parts as replicas of your love muscle or that of your hubby.

O2 dithers over Apple iPhone 4 refund pledge

Job IS the law

Job being a law unto himself, he can do whatever he wants wherever and whenever he wants to, and that includes giving the finger to the duly elected law makers in Westminster and everywhere else in the world where there is a parliamentary democracy.

'Draw Mohammed' page removed from Facebook

HJ

How about a Draw His Jobsiness Facebook campaign?

Shock! Facebook cycle-slut smutvid is adware front

a woman wearing a short skirt

So glad am gay! Btw El Reg: can we have the gay equivalent to the Paris Hilton icon?

iPad users are young, rich geeks

chat roulette

You should see what them fan boy geeks do with their ipads on chat roulette!!!

Ridley Scott talks up 'nasty' Alien prequel

Jog on

Rather than rehash the same thing over and over again, how about tackling some new material, such as Frederick Pohl's Heechee saga or Franck Herbert's Dune saga (Lynch's film was a complete disaster, Graham Norton would make an excellent Benet Gesserit queen bitch)?

'Negatively strange' antihypermatter made out of gold

Joyce

what do you expect from an object named after the content of James Joyce's literary output?

How chavvy is your town? Find out with the ASBOrometer

Actually

British gay men are very found of chavs (aka scallies) because of their bad boys attitude. Dress up as a chav and your Gaydar (a well known UK gay dating site) inbox will be flowing with invitations. There are even Gay scallies nights in various gay clubs up and down this country. So it seems this app kills 2 birds with 1 stone. If I could morally convince myself to give my cash to Apple and get an iJesusPhone, I would immediately get this app and go happy hunting!

Written material saved from censor's big black pen - for now

Yes but...

Written material may have been saved from censorship, but what about the visual or sound material which arise inside my head while reading the written material?

Met warns officers off photographers

click click

ok, good move, but let's see how those guidelines are acted upon by mr+mrs plod on the ground. i am one of the hobbyist photographers who participated to the demo outside scotland yard in feb 2009. my pics of the event are on http://www.deflorence.com/?p=205

Beeb invites net comments from unconnected

Confessing

..."CONFESSING to never having used a computer".

So not having ever used a computer is a crime/sin then?

Catch 22: if u use a computer and the Internet then you're a pedo, fraudster, terrorist, etc... If you don't you're a criminal or a sinner.

Go figure, init!

Daydreaming? You're actually solving complex problems

No escaping Freud-init!

"The division of the psychical into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise of psychoanalysis. Very powerful mental processes or ideas exist in the unconscious which can produce all the effects in mental life that ordinary ideas do though they themselves do not become conscious."

Sigmund Freud, The Ego & the Id, 1923

DHS trials musical brainscan wellness tech on US firemen

Dorémi

Any phenomena can be translated into or mapped onto any other phenomena. It all depends on the translating algorhithm. In this case, it could easly be tweaked to produce some Monteverdi (consonant) or Feyrnehough (dissonant). As such, I do not find this experiment to have any value whatsoever. Very hippie alltogether, but well done if you can get research money out of it.

French adhesive workers stick it to Brit boss

Dismissed as rubbish

"Current anti-Sarkozy protestors are wearing badges or T-shirts which refer to a 17th Century romantic novel that the president dismissed as rubbish"

For the literary type among you, the novel in question is "La princesse de Clèves", by Mme de Lafayette, which describes a very steamy and illicit affair between two married aristocrats. Beautifully written, this work is regarded as the first novel in the history of French literature, i.e. a written work of an imaginary nature.

Sex crime 'lie detector' pilot could prompt wider use

Who is lying/telling the truth

As Roman Jackobson would say, who exactly is lying or telling the truth? The subject of the utterance (the grammatical I), or the subject making the utterance?

Yahoo! lobs! Briefcase! into! rubbish! bin!

History

When the online drive service initially appeared, it was primarily used for file sharing, of the illegal variety in most instances. Then Napster was invented. No contest reallly.

The HTML that says no - Joi Ito's pitch for a theft-free web

The European Directive

EU law is quite clear about the copyright aspects of creation: as soon as something is created, it is considered copyrighted to its creator. So whether you put your creations on the wicked wacki web or display them in your front window, they are automatically protected from a legal standpoint. Putting some kind of nanny tag which will tell you "oh oh naughty boy" is not going to help, even if it's technically feasible. Should this proposal be ever introduced, soon after you'll have kids in playgrounds comparing who has collected the most "oh oh naughty boy" web stuff. Human desire is not predictable, something those techno positivist goddies-two-shoes seem to forget.

Librarians redubbed 'audience development officers'

Traces of the French revolution

I believe all this "renaming" has its root in what happened under the French revolution, under the guidance of Robespierre & St Just. The purpose was to eradicate all traces of the hated Ancien Regime, hence the creation of a new vocabulary, which did not smell of the monarchy. The fact is that the first thing each new dictature does once in power is to remould language. This is akin to the infantile belief in the power of thought, that thinking something will actually make it happen.

Starlust: love, hate and celebrity fantasies

Clarifications on Freud

"Freud called it “ambivalence: love bordering on hatred".

For Freud, ambivalence is the experiencing of two contradictory feelings at the same time (or in rapid succession.) Love does not border on hatred, they both are different sides of the same coin. When narcissism is frustrated in its aim (I can't have him), hatred immediately succeeds love (I hate him). Hatred can also be unconscious. You are not aware of it, while it still motivates your conscious thoughts and actions. Sheakspeare's Romeo & Juliet is a good exemple of the unconscious hatred which always accompanies love.

The legislator can regulate all he wants, it will not stop unconscious thoughst to exist. A great deal of unconscious thoughts are "criminal", as anyone who has been in analysis can testify.

With the positivist slant to govening inherited from his nip Mr Blair Tony, I would not be surprised if the current attempts at regulating the psychonalytic profession made a provision for psychoanalysts being obliged to report any such "criminal" thoughts as expressed on the analytic couch!

The will for governements to regulate even more each and every aspect of citizens behaviour can be seen as the outpouring of the Death drive (Thanatos), in its inscription on the social body. The predicted disasters by the climate change lobby are nothing compared to what such a large outpouring of hatred (disguised at law) can do to our psychological and physical survival. Freud's imagery for such a phenomenon was that of a tyranic father who'd reserved for himself all the pleasures, the sons being strictly forbidden any kind of gratification.

As for "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", that's Voltaire.

Fake site punts Trojanised WordPress

In that case

Doesn't The Register use WordPress? So should I stop reading The Register online? Na, joking.

Internet searches stimulate brain more than books

One moment

Hold on chaps, who said quantity equalled quality? Were Turner, Gainsborough or Van Gogh surfing the net when they were painting?

Today is not Hadron Collider Day

Actually

The black hole may have already occured when they switched that big Mamma on, and we are now all in a parallel universe. It's just that, like a Phlip K. Dick hero, we have not yet realised it. Can someone check what the history books say about who won WWII? In the event that we have jumped into a parallel reality, hopefully nu labour, traffic wardens and health & safety officials will have been left behind.

Glasgow tube gets phone coverage

When in London...

The Paris tube network has had cell phone coverage for ages. Parisians are always surprised when finding out that they cannot use their mobiles in the London underground. After all, London has been chosen to organise the next Olympic games, hasn't it?

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard: Further poster outrage

Hold on

Dont those pictures fall foul of the "extreme porn" law, whereby performing certain kind of adult sexual acts is legal, but taking, dysplaying, distributing, possessing or looking at pictorial or photographic representations of them is illegal?

Facebook summarily denies undeniable user-menacing security hole

Good

Well, if this vulnerability allows allows for profiles to be deleted, I am all for it. I had a FB account for a few weeks, thought it was utterly useless, and tried to close it down. I found out that you could only make it "dormant", as opposed to be able to dlelete the whole thing. So I hope someone will inject the malicious code into my "dormant" profile.

As for PHP & MySQL, if it's good enough for EL REG to run WordPress, then it's good enough for me :-)