Posts by Allan George Dyer 2547 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
@DougS - "it doesn't fit the definition of "firearm""
Well, it has an arm, that shoots fire, so it must be a fire-arm.
Also, the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution refers to, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms", no need for the arms to be flaming at all. But maybe the amendment was simply referring to heraldic insignia?
@BrownishMonstr - 'you just need a smart person to have an "Ohfuck" moment'
I totally agree. I think it's useful to look at the junk that didn't fool you, and actually think about who it's likely to fool. For example, from my own inbox:
'[Linkedln Notification]: Order Proposal sent to XXX@XXX, -Message ID Ref: UD93013A03].': Sales
'Shipping 顺丰电子发票通知': Purchasing
'View Share Document 6547839': Marketing, Management
'您的包裹无法送达': Shipping
'Re: Proforma Invoice No.10677 ~ Pending Confirmation': Accounts
Phishers intentionally craft messages to mimic genuine important messages, who would have guessed? The tricky part is remembering that when your tired and under pressure.
@ibmalone - "Does "emblem or device" actually mean a badge of arms?"
Checking the dictionary and context, "device" means "emblematic design" and emblem means "a heraldic device or symbolic object" (a device is an emblem is a device... see recursion), so unless Mr. Darragh changes his name to something like "Mr. Skullandtwoswords" I guess he needs to show it is his heraldic... thing. I'd interpret the College of Arms' statement as, "we'll tell you who owns a device, but we have no authority over whether you can fly a flag".
I was going by the plain English guide, but looking at the actual regulations, the problem with Schedule 3, class 2 A is that the size is limited to 0.3 square metres, Mr. Darragh's flag looks larger. Flags, under class 7 A are not limited in area.
Sorry to everyone who suggested that a Nazi or ISIS flag would be permitted, if you read the guide, the only military flags that don't need consent are, "Any flag of Her Majesty’s forces;". Those who suggested claiming it was a House flag, that must be "the name, emblem, device or trademark of the company (or person) occupying the building".
So, he could avoid asking for consent by:
1) Applying to Her Majesty for a Letter of marque, making him a privateer, i.e., leagalised pirate.
or
2) Registering a company, and making the flag the trademark of the company
or
3) Asking the College of Arms to grant a new Coat of Arms or Badge
Frankly, planning permission seems like the cheapest and easiest option, followed by (2). Elizabeth II doesn't seem to agree with Elizabeth I on the subject of privateers.
So the system gives 4 false positives for every success, but it's OK because the Police will politely apologise.
However, in daily use those false positives won't be evenly distributed. There will be some people who look sufficiently similar to a suspect that they get stopped ALL THE TIME! Fortunately, sooner or later they will get so annoyed they will swear at or hit an officer, so they can then be safely arrested. Job Done, another dangerous person off the streets.
New crime: Impersonating a Criminal.
As a member if the human race that migrated from Africa, with Anglo-Saxon culture, living in East Asia, I think we're all one species. Nations are an artificial construct, and prejudice, especially prejudice based on superficial visible features, is unjustifiable.
You haven't been in IT long. Soon you will understand: if it runs on electricity and has buttons, it is IT's problem. It doesn't matter if it doesn't have paper, or the food won't reheat, or the machine has been dropped in the ocean, every user knows that it is IT's responsibility to fix it so that they can complete their report, or print off their child's homework. Every part of IT is utterly incomprehensible to users, smoke and flames in their minds are probably just something that happens when you give the wrong response to messages like 'PC LOAD LETTER'.
Now I understand why I'm not raking in the commission... I couldn't keep a straight face when explaining that this new VTOL aircraft I was selling for $billions was sooo powerful that it needed special ground to take off from, but don't worry, we've got a whole department that can install special ground in all those hard-to-reach places you might want to fly from, it only costs more $billions (plus delivery).
@Claverhouse "Had I been a Chinese worker then or now I'd take all the opium I could get."
According to the most recent report on traditional industries released by the HK Government, Heroin remains the most popular, but Cannabis is rising fast in the younger age group.
@georgezilla
Then they find it doesn't work, because the instructions are for a different version, or worse, it appears to work, but problems crop up weeks later and it's not clear which set of instructions are to blame. And that is just when the instruction authors are well-meaning but out-of-date or inexact.
By they way, I have some new security instructions from your bank for you to follow... don't worry about what or why...
While "pots and pans" can be used for food storage, they are not a refrigerator, so why expect an AI or person to classify them as one when they are being used to store food?
Then there's the difference between a "bed" and a "guest bed"... any guesses? (does Rule 43 apply?)
Personally, I'm now developing a strategy of storing spare batteries in the library and sleeping in a hammock so the robots run out of power and can't find me to murder me in my sleep.
@Dog11 - "one of the Gitmo prisoners claimed to have Microsoft certifications"
I can see two major problems with using this to suggest terrorists might be technically competent:
1. being a prisoner in Gitmo is not evidence of being a terrorist https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/detention/guantanamo-numbers
2. Holding a Microsoft certification is not evidence of technical competence in bomb making
"Our data shows that, when used properly by an attentive driver who is prepared to take control at all times, drivers supported by Autopilot are safer than those operating without assistance,"
Shouldn't they be comparing to attentive drivers operating without assistance - fortunately, they are quite easy to identify, they're the ones who have fewer accidents.
@jake - "Out of curiosity, where did you find farmers who only work 5am-7pm during harvest? Slackers like that are going to lose crop!"
Be fair jake, not every farmer moonlights as a sysadmin for half the western world while holding down a full-time commentard job here!
@veti - Go back and read XKCD 936 again, carefully.
A completely random 8 character password might have about 52 bits of entropy, but people use a small number of schemes to construct a password that deliberately meets character variety rules, thus creating passwords with much lower effective entropy.
There is also a danger of mis-using the XKCD scheme, by choosing the mnemonic (e.g. I mustn't reuse "correcthorsebatterystaple", so I'll use... wrong... donkey...) instead of generating the words and only then coming up with the mnemonic.
Think of it another way, first, generate an n bits random number, and then either encode it as a base-92 number ("characters I can easily type from my keyboard") or a base-2048 number ("list if 2048 common 6-10 letter words"). If you want to remember it, the base-2048 number is easier, if you are storing it in a password manager, there's no difference.
@AC - 'a loose mouthed army general commented that "targetting the Taliban was simple - we just wait till a phone using a Mint SIM is turned on and send in the drone"'
This might explain why the US has so much trouble winning over the 'hearts and minds' in these countries. Unless Mint actually had a policy of only selling to people with Taliban membership cards, that sort of policy would cause a lot of collateral damage (translation: indiscriminate murder).
See also: bombing Ben Tre, Vietnam.
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