Posts by Fred Flintstone

How Wi-Fi spy drones snooped on financial firm

Re: ah, Wifi....

That is actually the very idea, and I saw this already applied when WiFi was still something shiny and new.

Micro molten salt reactor can fit on a truck, power 1k homes. When it's built

The trick is never to patent the entire thing. Just enough that the missing parts only work if the patented things are used

In that context I can only admire Singer who invented the sewing machine. All he patented was the hole in the needle. Pure genius.

FYI: TikTok tracking pixels can be found all over the web – just like Meta, Google

Oh, so that's an excuse?

Also, she said TikTok's "publicly available advertising policies" that transparently and openly define the kind of advertising data it collects.

Apart from that sentence being a mess, that argument reminds me very much of this:

“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

Text-to-image models are so last month, text-to-video is here

I think we'll end up with the bum print authentication as premiered in Monsters vs Aliens.

As a matter of fact, the whole scene is shockingly close to reality :).

Musk tries to stall Twitter takeover trial following whistleblower claims

Re: Found some of the money

He may also find himself on the hook for the massive loss in value of Twitter shares since his shenanigans began if he doesn't buy Twitter at the contractually agreed share price.

I think he truly has bitten off more than he can chew here, so it'll be interesting to see how the US legal system will deal with this as it's über rich guy versus shareholders.

I suspect that it will at least stimulate popcorn sales :)

The internet's edge routers are all so different. What if we unified them with software?

Re: Rules of the game:

In answer to 8: IPv6

:)

Google, Oracle cloud servers wilt in UK heatwave, take down websites

Re: The times they are a changin’

Even better from a cooling perspective ;)

Russia fines Google $374 million for letting the truth about Ukraine be told

Re: The court also claimed some material promoted extremism and/or terrorism

I would suggest that your moral compass is defective

I'd go for 'absent'.

BOFH: HR's gold mine gambit – they get the gold and we get the shaft

I'm rather past the "could" part already. What a find, right before the weekend..

:)

Leave that sentient AI alone a mo and fix those racist chatbots first

Re: Do androids dream of electric sheep again?

Yes, but you still need people to buy things. Or maybe that's the idea behind Alexa: getting AIs to buy from AIs so the whole human element is removed.

I think we have just discovered how SkyNet really started. Arnie was wrong, rescuing John Connor is clearly far too late in the game. But hey, it kept the franchise going :).

512 disk drives later, Floppotron computer hardware orchestra hits v3.0

That is IMHO just about the best combination to get me interested in the first place :).

Open source 'Office' options keep Microsoft running faster than ever

There needs to be a cloud version of Libre office

There is.

Researchers claim quantum device performs 9,000-year calculation in microseconds

Re: This isn't a quantum computer

It being or not being a quantum computer is in context perfectly applicable.

:)

Cops' Killer Bee stings credential-stealing scammer

Nice cartoon

I had to look for it again, but enjoy this one in context.

Your data's auctioned off up to 987 times a day, NGO reports

Re: Free Internet

.. nor the mobile data wasted downloading all this junk with phone users..

September 16, 1992, was not a good day to be overly enthusiastic about your job

Re: The work is its own reward ;)

Applicable Dilbert right here.

Samsung unveils hardened SD card that can last 16 years if you treat it right

Re: capable of surviving a five-meter fall

I think it will just be velocity, not so much terminal. Even if you add a sheep.

:)

Atlassian comes clean on what data-deleting script behind outage actually did

Re: Ch11 calling

I agree 100%.

As an aside, I would also commend you for the term cloudybollocks :).

Elon Musk's latest launch: An unsolicited Twitter takeover

his first act would be to declare war on Earth and start slingshotting asteroids at us

Doing that from Mars is a tad more complicated than in the story I think you got that idea from :).

Wing launches drone deliveries in the US where people actually live

Re: Helsinki (FI)?

Well, they definitely would be shaken :)

(been binge watching James Bond movies :) )

Microsoft datacenter to heat homes in Finland

Re: Not a first for Finland

So they've incentivised the local scientific population to keep coming up with complex problems lest the population gets cold?

:)

The right to repairable broadband befits a supposedly critical utility

Re: Human factor

I'm personally more in awe of the packets of nuts that show a warning "may contain nuts".

That's just .. bonkers :)

Just two die for: Apple reveals M1 Ultra chip in Mac Studio

Re: Threadripper? Deadripper more like.

Not if they have any former Starbucks executives in marketing..

:)

If you're a founder and hungry for cloud credits, Microsoft has a hub for you

As with drugs and Microsoft Office..

.. the first hits are either free or heavily discounted.

What astonishes me most is that this ploy is so old that the first instances of it must have come chiseled into stone tablets, yet people still fall for it..

Europe's largest nuclear plant on fire after Russian attack

Re: I know it can't be done

40mile line of Russia military vehicles at 3 trucks wide all close together, they are asking to be bombed.

No need. It appears they're screwed already. Waiting for the Winter Olympics to finish has moved them into the mud season, and with the low standard of maintenance of the Russian army the consequences were predictable.

In short, as soon as anything on the road itself got stuck they had a 40 mile long problem. Given that they're already having major supply line issues this will not have helped, and I fully expect the Ukrainians to exploit that to the fullest.

Backblaze report finds SSDs as reliable as HDDs

Kudos to Backblaze

This is IMHO about the best marketing: practical, pragmatic numbers from their business, made available for everyone.

What a fantastic idea.

Comparing the descendants of Mandrake and Mandriva Linux

Re: If Only ...

Oh no, we first to finish vi vs emacs. The rest is easy.

:)

In an arms race with criminals to protect our privacy, it's too early to admit defeat

I note this is a very secure vote

.. in that I can't vote because apparently I have already.

Duh.

This data center will be Europe’s first with hydrogen backup power

A more fun measurement re. Dutch people

Why go for "number of kilometers a Dutch person drives per day" when you can go for "how fast a Dutch person can cycle in a proper headwind"?. That is vaguely measured on an annual basis.

I know the answer is, er, blowing in the wind..

:)

Reality check: We should not expect our communications to remain private

Re: Should we not have a poll about this?

Epic :)

Have one of these ==>

Re: Before someone starts to talk about Orwell again ..

Facebook has access to almost everything and people are giving it freely.

Not entirely true. Zuck has my phone number because OTHERS installed WhatsApp and so shipped my personal data to Zuck without me ever having given permission to do so (because I wouldn't trust me on that). This is why commercial use of WhatsApp in my opinion is a straightforward breach of the GDPR unless you have the permission of every single person in your address book.

Unfortunately, not much can be done about private users doing this which is what Zuck is taking to the bank on a daily basis.

LG promises to make home appliance software upgradeable to take on new tasks

Indeed, because the people who attempt this clearly aren't..

Privacy is for paedophiles, UK government seems to be saying while spending £500k demonising online chat encryption

Re: Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide....

I must admit I kinda like the irony that the first thing that pops up when trying to read the Schneier article on Wired is a box that tells you that someone cares about your privacy and you should really, really allow them to track your every move (indicated by the fact that "accept" is one button and the other "show purposes" is phrased that way because it makes it appear you have no alternatives (whereas in reality they're hiding behind that button) - and, of course, there is no "f*ck off" button which allows you to reject it all, including the (il)legitimate purpose bypass. Oh, and the "neccesary-and-you-can't-switch-it-off" functionality encompasses fun things such as "Data from offline data sources can be combined with your online activity in support of one or more purposes".

Bloody criminals - that's exactly why I use a locked down browser, it's really no longer optional.

Privacy remains a fight :(.

Planning for power cuts? That's strictly for the birds

Re: Another bird poop story

OMG, that clip is fantastic. Now I know how they came up with the crispy fried duck idea :).

Signal CEO Moxie Marlinspike resigns, leaves WhatsApp co-founder to run things until a successor is named

Re: Bloat?

I think it's the revised version of chaos theory..

Canon: Chip supplies are so bad that our ink cartridges will look as though they're fakes

Re: A similar cartoon dialogue, but with the reverse problem

But what about the cyan, yellow and magenta markets?

.. aaand there goes my coffee.

Well done :)

SlimPay fined €180k after 12 million customers' bank data publicly accessible for 5 years

Re: Another useless fine.

That's not a fine, that's an encouragement.

On Christmas night, a computer logs a call to say his user has stopped working…

"Double-tapping on my bollocks"

On that lovely reminder, Merry Christmas to all :)

There's no Huawei back now: Biden signs law that forbids US buyers acquiring kit on naughty list

Re: Hope I'm not being a grammar pedant.

I agree. I think that's egregious enough to warrant a stab at the "corrections" button, don't prevaricate around the bush (evil grin).

But hey, cut them some slack. it's Friday :)

Epic battle latest: Judge reminds Apple it has 30 days to let apps link out to non-Apple payment systems

Applecalypse?

:)

Zuck didn't invent the metaverse, but he's started a fight to control it

Wel written article

Pretty excoriating for Zuck, but I can't say he doesn't deserve it, richly so.

Remember when you thought fax machines were dead-matter teleporters? Ah, just me, then

Re: coworking

It appears you're heading for a whole new bit of fun knowledge. Gary Larson is a now retired cartoonist who drew fantastic cartoons under the title The Far Side which can still be admired at his website, including some of his experiments with more modern tech.

What the Cow Orking refers to is the "cow" period he had where all his cartoons were about cows.

Look it up, you'll enjoy it - the majority of his work was timeless. Search, for instance, for "Midvale, school for the gifted" or "Custer's last view" :)

Assange psychiatrist misled judge over parentage of his kids, US tells High Court

Re: I see that the system works

some sort of turkey-baster-artificial-insemination

Thanks for that visual, on a Friday.

Has anyone seen the mind bleach?

:)

Uncle Sam to clip wings of Pegasus-like spyware – sorry, 'intrusion software' – with proposed export controls

Ah yes, export controls.

Because that worked oh so well in the past., surely.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it..

Acer expands its antimicrobial PC offerings – with caveat they may not offer any protection

Re: Use copper

Steampunk people got there a mite earlier :)

Computer shuts down when foreman leaves the room: Ghost in the machine? Or an all-too-human bit of silliness?

Re: Fuel pumps

That was implied ..

Unpatched flaw 'weaponises' Apple AirTags to turn them into the phisherman's friend

Re: "We did not copy Tile"

Yup, it's in the exact same place in iOS 15.1 (downloaded that yesterday).

Nothing works any more. Who decided that redundant systems should become redundant?

Maybe he's just very thorough?

:)