Posts by John Smith 19

Anger grows over the death of Aaron Swartz

Re: John Smith 19 @Matt Bryant

"I don't think that option works too well on humans!"

Well your powers of observation are certainly better developed than your empathy.

Re: @Matt Bryant

"Should be pretty good for them, cut down their phone bills immensely!"

You do know people dial in to them, right?

And BTW that's a very old joke.

Re: @Matt Bryant

" I would have thought you would have guessed by now that I am probably not the best choice of someone to be answering the phones when the suicidal call. Like many (male) techies, I have a bad habit of brusquely assuming everything is simply a problem that, if examined properly, will produce a correct and workable solution."

Indeed. Your sense of humor is very nearly as well developed as your empathy.

Would it help to think of it as "fault finding for humans"? Except the faults can be difficult to detect and actively hide.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone.

That includes your life.

Something to think about.

@Matt Bryant

BTW

How's the volunteering for the Samaritans going?

Re: Comparing Turing to Swartz? Complete FAIL!

"Still, suicide is an incredibly selfish act that leaves a lot of family and friends utterly bereft."

That's certainly one point of view.

But let me suggest that for those who do it is is a) A form of communication b) The last move they can make.

They feel that their is no effective way to express themselves even to those closest to them. For some even having a twin sibling is not a close enough person to know or trust to confide in.

For others they feel their life has not not worked out (no that has nothing to do with objective reality) and they cannot see a way forward, only a way out.

BTW for those of you thinking "I'm too tough/smart/successful/rich" to ever feel this way perhaps you should also add lucky. Some people have never had a bad patch and it's under those kinds of stress they find out if they will stay afloat or go under. That's when Mr "I'm the master of the universe, everyone loves me" gets found in their million dollar apartment having added some aircon to their skull.

So please tell me that you can't understand this behavior and they're all selfish cowards with no balls and you'd never do such a thing.

But tell me it when it's 3am in your place and you've been fired from your job, you long term partner has walked out on you, the cops are closing in with a maximum jail term measured in centuries and the person you feel closest to you in the whole world just died.

I'd suggest your understanding may have improved somewhat although you'll wish it hadn't.

Security audit finds dev outsourced his job to China to goof off at work

Re: The only reason anyone is angry at Bob...

"So while Bob rakes it in, he puts the jobs of all his co-workers in jeopardy."

Bob's attitude is that of the people described in "Snakes in suits."

He's probably a psychopath. He'll tell you whatever you want to hear in order to get what he wants.

The real question (apart from BS) does he have any real skills at all?

The difference is he's not in management.

This stuff makes a great setup for a film comedy. IRL they create havoc for those around them. And note that "His bosses loved him." I'll be the people who supported work he wrote didn't.

Soot forces temperatures more than thought: AGU

Re: Only solution...

Brilliant.

Perhaps we should appoint a "population Tsar" to mange the process.

I've hear of a fellow called Kodos whose meant to have been very effective at matters of population control.

He should be available for the job.

NASA snaps pics of China's 'Airpocalypse' pollution disaster

So the take away for America is "Don't worry about China"

They'll take care of themselves.

I especially liked the part where they sold off a load of irradiated concrete for road hard core.

Perfect if you have a Geiger counter and want to build a car autopilot.

But insane otherwise.

Re: natural sources would be classified as polluting

1/4 of this is apparently from the cremation of bodies with Mercury amalgam fillings.

Weird.

@Rampant Spaniel

"he plan is simple, ban the EPA, abolish the department of education and have all the schools become little christian 'madrasa' style schools. Once everyone has forgotten all that pesky, heretical science stuff the world will be a much better place!"

I see you've got your hands on the secret barking mad Republican party agenda.

You'd better starting running.

Empire says ‘primitive’ Earth not ready for Death Star

Re: When

"When some weird tentacled thing turns up and demands humans hand themselves over to be eaten we will wish we'd built a Death Star."

I never worry about the dangers of the arms race.

I worry about the dangers of the human race.

Hooking offshore wind farms into UK grid will HIKE bills, MPs warn

Treasury defense "did not want to introduce any limitations on investors"

Now is this a defense from real career civil servants in the Treasury.

Or "consultants" hired from the sort of companies who will be advising the companies on how to play the system?

That's what happened with PFI was applied to hospitals and schools. The didn't think any claw back if the deal was re-financed (SOP for these companies) was "fair" either.

But note this is not a PFI deal. It's equally f**ked up but it's not a PFI.

Re: @AC 09:07

"but when it dawned on them that they'd signed up to use renewals for 20% of all energy usage and that a large chunk of energy usage (e.g. home gas central heating) was not able to be switched to renewables then they'd need to switch a huge proportion of electricity generation to renewables."

Not true. Tony Blairs office was asked about this and they stated that Blair wanted it to include all energy.

He wanted a "legacy" people wanted and (I'd suggest) g**k Gordon Brown big time, because he was leaving anyway.

Looks like he got his wish in both cases. Never underestimate the spite of outgoing politicians.

Re: Yup, and in other news, water is wet

What is their operating cycle? How much of the year are they generating?

What's the backup? When they are not generating, what takes over?

Re: Let the madness begin!!!

"FWIW, while I agree with the sentiment, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. "

A "10-15%" return. (I think you'll find typicall ROI's on infrastructure schemes are <5%)

Does not matter how much electricity is actually transmitted.

Heads I win, tails you loose payments from customers.

I think you'll find this is a get rich quick that runs twenty years.

So it's a get-rich-quick-and-keep-on-getting-richer scheme.

Re: Let the madness begin!!!

"If it makes a profit let them keep it, if it costs them more let them pay it or let them lose money. "

An admirable sentiment.

"This should absolutely not be yet another burden to the British people. "

Read the article.

That is exactly what this.

Re: We don't want any real competition say gas fueled electricity sector lobby?

Well that's handy.

With actual running times of <30% of all the hours in a year (and the need for backup generation if that does not work I guarantee they will have none.

Brit robojet ‘Taranis’ set for Oz test flight

Re: The Serbs managed that in 1999

That may have had something to do with the stealth coating breaking down in the "high" humidity of the European continent, unlike the that of the Middle East (or the parts of the California desert where they were developed).

An oversight which I think has been corrected at a modes additional cost (IE < $1B)

It must have been quite a surprise to the crew that their "invisible" aircraft was not quite as invisible as they thought.

A BAe aricraft project barely 3 years overdue

Which is very impressive by their standards.

CIOs: Don't listen to tech vendors on ICT skills, listen to US

"IT user companies have a need for employees who are digitally literate"

So MS software for the next decade as well then.

Joy.

Re: Computer Science - be careful what you ask for

"By getting a job at a company that does these things, but most aren't hiring unless you can do all these things already with 3-5 years experience."

Which of course you will have gotten in your after school job.

Otherwise they'd have to pay for it.

Bubble baron treats Space Station crew to blowup model

"Current rigid space habitats are very susceptible to orbital hits and when an object the size of a small marble is travelling at 10-30k kph it really doesn't make much difference what the structure is made of"

Marble? I think you're looking at something often the size of shotgun pellets and smaller.

British armed forces get first new pistol since World War II

Better a plastic gun..

Than a rubber gun.

Re: a note on calibres and stuff

"Not any more - BAe sold HK off a few years back."

I'm actually shocked at this.

I guess it had too much involvement with civilians for their liking.

Sounds like good news for H&K.

a note on calibres and stuff

As someone once observed amateurs talk weapons and tactics. Professionals talk strategy and logistics.

Guns and ammo are kind of like Gillete and razors.

The ammo mfgs would almost give the guns away for free.

Changing calibres is a really big deal. Imagine changing the standard connector for Ethernet and implementing it globally.

As for the Desert Eagle how many know what the recoil on that lump is? This weapon has to be carried and fired IRL by ordinary soldiers. Fit, yes. Vinnie Jones. No.

It's important to remember that the weapon of choice for hostage rescue remains the SMG with 3 round burst despite most action taking place at <10m. Quantity really does trump quality. Above a fairly minimum calibre does it really matter how big a bullet you put in someones head?

I'm also slightly surprised that the UK govt didn't go with something from H&K. After all they are owned by the UK Gov's favorite armsdefense company BAe.

IIRC the Broomhandle Mauser was a beautiful example of German precision craftsmanship with no screws and an all interlocking design. So quite prone to jamming when dirt (or sand) was ingested. Fairly probable in a desert I should imagine. Not good news given the fact that if you have to pull it at all things have gone fairly sideways.

Re: Having owned 9s and 44s

Real nice work on your daughters laptop.

Re: Where and by whom?

"P90 is also used heavily by USAF Stargate Command."

You beat me to it.

TBH it wasn't till I saw it on CSI and googled it I realized it was real.

Re: 9mm?

"Simpler to invade Belgium again."

Careful we don't want to remind people of the unpleasantness during the middle of the last century, do we?

I think you'll find 2 years is *quick* by the standards of this sort of thing.

"No idea why it took 2 years to pick the exact gun almost everyone would have suggested in the first 2 mins of them saying "Let's replace our Brownings"."

When the US chose a new handgun I think it took most of a decade before going with the Beretta.

I did not know until recently that the Desert Eagle came from Israeli Defense Industries

Has any one thought "Small guys try harder?"

Robo-baby Diego-san shows creepy mimicry

Re: For some reason

"t reminds me of Steve Grand and Growing Up With Lucy"

Always wondered what happened to that.

Inside the new climate row as Mystic Met Office goes cool on warming

Re: What a surprise...

"Researchers giving their paymasters the results they paid for and hiding the results when it cannot make them meet what's expected."

Then they are not "researchers." They are doing PR for their employers.

Re: Another ignorant MP

"We don't yet know if they got the old forecast wrong or if the new forecast will be right or wrong "

It's not the model. It's the way the results were announced.

Press conference to announce "Global temperatures rising. We're doomed" Vs (emailed in) "We're changing the climate models a bit as they may have been a bit high."

Improving the models Good. Announcing the results Good. Way they were given. Bad.

So perhaps they might be recovering a bit more IDK "objectivity."

Just a thought.

Silly Rabbit! Like Trix, color e-readers are for kids

Re: 4096 colours

"Careful choice of base palette could minimise HAM edge artifacts."

This is OT but did anyone produce a tool to optimize the HAM palette changes?

It seems like one of those tasks which would be tedious to do by hand but which could give significantly faster (fewer pallet changes) and better rendering, especially for non computer generated images (IE photos).

The days when PC main memory came in <1MB.

New tool jailbreaks Microsoft Surface slabs in 20 SECONDS

2 issues here.

Requiring crypto signature from reputable (uncompromised) source good.

Making source the only place you can get those apps (which have to paid for) bad.

Yes figuring out how how to safeguard your customers while granting access to all valid suppliers (IE potential competitors) in a fair way is a tough problem.

Isn't that what MS executives get paid humougous amounts of cash and stock options to solve?

Unless you run your slate permanently once broken this does not seem a practical jailbreak.

But this is Jailbreak 0.1. The goalposts have only started to move. Thumbs up for 1st effort.

Re: The bootnote was in my opinion the most interesting part of the article

"The trouble is now Microsoft has lost its stranglehold like they had with PCs on hardware manufacturers."

Many have said this.

Regularly.

And yet in in 2013 what OS is running on most desktops in the world?

Re: Oh, how I love pearoasting this...

http://fwd.im/WinRG (needs Flash, of course)

Delightful

Why mergers LOSE money, but are GOOD for the economy

Re: Problem with mergers

"The only thing small corp hasn't got is the capital and resources to take advantage of the market, which of course Megacorp can provide"

This suggests that a viable strategy for a megacorp would be to operate as an inhouse investment bank that lends (at below market rates) to their in house partnerships.

Coupled with a "hands off" management approach.

Might work.

there *is* one case I know of where "Megacorp" seems to have left well enough alone.

That is Northrup Grumman's ownership of Scaled Composites.

They seem to operate a pretty hands off policy and it seems to work.

Perhaps there are other examples, but I don't know any.

Re: Slow or violent death?

"Once the company lost it's future purpose, every competent employee will jump ship, thereby violently accellerating the demise of said company. "

Actually no.

Once companies rise to a certain size and with a certain number of competent staff it can survive almost any level of incompetence by senior management.

Why staff continue to stay is not solely limited to their skills but other personal factors.

Senior management usually are completely ignorant of this.

"auction them off and get them working again. "

Excellent idea.

Funny how that option never gets a look in when banks are in trouble.

"They must be rescued at (damm near) all costs" was the cry across the Atlantic.

And so they were.

For now.

No shake out to find out what all those CDO's were really worth and no censure for the people who caused it. Who said "Capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without Hell?"

Razzies set to torpedo Rihanna's Battleship

Re: Surprised Prometheus.....

"...didnt scrape in there for a nomination."

It probably had far too high expectations on it.

But the effects were good, the plot did not always go in the direction you expected (a plus, but there are some major plot holes, given how long its been chewed on) and Nooni Rapace (barely used) remains my favorite short angry ginger women actress.

I was an early supporter of Battleship for razzies but it could be close.

Glad to know the early buzz (that it was s**t) has been amply fulfilled.

But I'd reckoned without the legendary Adam Sandler's ability (to produce s**t).

I figured after he'd dropped the great steaming brown one that was "Jack & Jill" he might take a break for a while (in shame?). Somehow I'd completely blocked any thought of "That's My Boy" from my mind.

How does he do it?

Chooses all his own scripts and has head lodged firmly in the rectal cavity?

Phenomenally bad agent?

Studio puts him in anything they want and he never complains?

For some reason I tend to compare him Ben Stiller. On that basis he does not come off well.

Thumbs up to all the cast and crew of Battleship for making so much worse than it needed to be.

Re: Battleshit

"Independance-Day-on-Sea"

That's a bit mild from what I've heard of it.

Raise a beer: Titans of tech fill out 'Worst CEOs' list

If stock price, profits and market share are rising who cares about anything else? But...

In these firms that is not happening. Plus they are selling their own stock.

I think Ballmer gets a pass because MS stock is rising

As for suits I can see both arguments. I'm used to putting a suit on and getting into "work mode" but I never wear one working from home. Plenty of Wall Street banksters would not be seen without one. They still tended to snort Coke by the pound and p**s it away on $1400/hr escort services.

Drop that can of sweet pop and grab a coffee - for your sanity's sake

Downvoted because?

As for why any mfg of any product would deny its product if used properly was bad for you the huge lawsuits that would result might have something to do with it.

This being a US company I'd go with the examples of the Ford Pinto and the Tobacco industries suppression of a)the addictive properties of Nicotine b)the fact they were controlling levels of it in cigarettes running over decades suggests such corporate behavior is not entirely unknown.

But note for most non-depressive people it's probably no more dangerous in large quantities than anything else.

All your audio, video kit is about to become OBSOLETE

1000 fps. Why?

Title & icon says it all.

Re: I remember 30years ago

"Was it that long ago that Stock, Aiken and Waterman was making wankmusak?"

Yes. But now you'll be able to hear every note of the wankness.

How exciting is that?