Posts by Swarthy

Ashley Madison hack miscreants may have earned $6,400 from leak

Re: What?!?

This is more like another guy walks into the gas station and, upon finding the corpse of the clerk, rummages through their pockets for loose change.

Samsung’s consumer IoT vision – stupid, desperate, creepy

Where they've gone Wrong

The first problem of IoT is that they want to sell us an Internet of Things. I want (at most) an intranet of Things. I would like a deadbolt on my door that I can lock/unlock with a car-like key fob that would cause the porch lights to indicate activity(the chirp would be nice, but let's not get over-ambitious), but I don't want a door lock that some APT in China/Russia/Nigeria can use to lock me out of my house. Or a baby monitor that allows World+Dog to watch my kids.

A refrigerator that can send an SMS when the internal temp gets above a certain point could be nice, but I don't want one that sends my grocery list to Kazakhstan, or bleeds my google account settings over HTTP to anyone listening.

Watch this cartoon on proposed new EU data rules – or you’re DOOMED. Maybe

Good Enough for me!

If the spammersDirect and Interactive Marketers dislike the data protection, it can't help but be a step in the right direction.

Mate S: Huawei 'beats' Apple to force-touch phone launch

Re: it's useful kit

Mostly I was thinking of using it for European/British recipes with grams of flour, etc., and adding caffeine to the recipe, which requires 10mg resolution.

My American measuring set doesn't have a 100g measuring scoop.

Re: it's useful kit

That does raise a good question, how accurate is the scale? I'm guessing gram resolution at a minimum, but can it do milligrams, or at least centigrams? I doubt very much that it can handle more than a kilo or so...

I want a pharmaceutical grade scale that is accurate to no less than 10mg built into my phone.

It's MediaTek v Qualcomm in the motherboard of all battles

Shades of the mid-90's

Only instead of Intel, AMD, and Cyrix; we have Qualcomm, MediaTek and Exynos.

I love it!

Telstra helped scupper new competition laws: report

In other words, the Turkeys voted against Christmas - Shocker!

Ecuador and Sweden in 'constructive talks' – just don't mention Assange™ by name

<facepalm>

Dammit! Now you've gone and ruined it. Ecuador was hoping that by telling their less-welcome-than-before flatmate that Sweden had agreed to play nice he'd finally get off of their couch. If he remembers that the UK Rozzers will still grab him, he'll never leave!

Drum roll, please .... Results are in for the collective noun for security vulns

Re: Goosed geese

"Why is a shepherd called a shepherd and not a flocker?"

Because sheep herder morphed into shepherd.. Any guesses on what a sheep flocker would morph into? Rare insight on those raising sheep to chose herder, rather than flocker.

Vodafone: Dammit Britain, your emergency services need 4G!

Re: So just where in the country do criminals go to avoid the police :)

But if they got the emergency services to sign up for 4G, Voda could promise provide nation wide coverage. The Emergency Services could foot the bill assist with the infrastructure costs of the empty promise roll-out and everyone would pay more for naught win.

Fiery old geysers FOUND ON MOON: Volcanic past explained

Re: Huff post has a cracking debunk of lunar conspiracy

The best foil for Lunar Landing Conspiracies is that "If NASA faked the landings, why haven't they done more of them?"

Oblig. XKCD

3D-printed robot hand grabs Dyson award for UK

Re: "affordable prosthetics for all”

And it would really help out my ski-boxing.

Get whimsical and win a Western Digital Black 6TB hard drive

"Full of bugs" those liars! I can't find a single termite in this thing.

Just shows you can't believe everything on the internet.

One more thing: Swatch trademarks dead Steve Jobs' catchphrase

I'd be a bit concerend it I were Apple

The Swiss have some form in taking the fight to Apple.

Has anyone lost 37 dope plants, Bolton cops nonchalantly ask on Facebook

Re: They do look like males

I'll bet he was never the same. Tomatoes are a member of the Nightshade family, and their leaves have some "Interesting" alkalies in them.

Florida cops cuff open-carry, balls-out pirate packing 'operational' flintlocks

Re: Not a "firearm" @ Vic

There you go applying logic and reason to laws...

Teaching people to speak English? You just need Chatroulette without the dick pics

Re: I have my doubts....

Sadly, I can feel your pain. I'm not sure which is worse, the "txtspeek"/twitter-mails, or the 20 paragraph, buzzword compliant, admixture of literary diarrhea and legalese.

On the bright side, whilst those who should be more literate seem to be falling into decline, the people that this program is intended to help are rising, I think the median literacy rate in the US will soon hover around txtspeek, and the standard deviations will be smaller.

All Hail the meteoric rise of mediocrity.

Incentives and pre-school inspiration

As Doctor Syntax stated above, a good place to start would be looking at how small children learn to read, and perhaps update the content for adults; combined with BobRocket's suggestion for prizes, or gamification. I think an excellent place to stealseek inspiration from would be ABCMouse.com. Both of my kids have used that site to begin their path towards literacy and to supplement what is taught in formal education. It's a flash-based (I know, but our theoretical one could be HTML5) site that takes them through varied lessons (puzzles, sing-a-longs, games, listening to/reading a story) and for each lesson they get a number of tickets. They can then spend the tickets on in-game outfits, pets, pet accessories, classroom furniture, and classroom decorations.

So maybe one could try building an adult-themed version, with more "mature" subject matter (celebrity gossip, pro athletes, popular TV shows, etc) and issue tickets to furnish a second-life style digital abode, or maybe partner up with King and get vouchers for extra lives in Candy Crush.

It's the hottest day of the year. So check out John Lewis' Xmas tech range!

Re: Food processors...

Domino's has gotten better less bad over the past few years. The last one I had was edible, it was even almost tasty.

Samsung/Cheil merger goes on: Soz Elliot, not this time, says court

One thing I don't understand about these "Activist investors"...

If these guys know how these companies should be run so much better than the companies they are trying to push around, why don't they just start their own corporation and run it "right"? It's not like they don't have the capital, and they swear they have all of the business acumen...

Okay, I get it but I don't like it... I understand that they are trying to massively inflate the company value in the short term, and then let it implode later. Whereas with their own corp, the implosion would hurt them.

These guys believe that thinking "long term" is to plan to short the stocks when the implosion, that they caused, happens.

Uber execs charged, will stand trial in France

Re: About time (@ boltar)

Untested in court?! This is the same UberPop that was found unlawful in court, and then again on appeal. I don't see how Khodorkovsky is related: that was a witch hunt to separate a man from the wealth that the state wanted to acquire, and the charges were against the man himself for things the state said he did.

Charging Executives for illegal business practice/policy that they decide and implement, even after being aware that it is illegal, is nothing like the above, it is implementing some accountability.

Also, did you miss the part where Uber was taken to court, told to stop running UberPop in France, appealed, were told to stop again, and have continued operating UberPop in France (by continuing to have France as a service area)?

Re: About time (@ boltar)

Errm, there's a bit of a difference between "employee" and "General Manager".

When a company's business model is illegal in the country, and the GM continues to implement it, then, yes they should face jail time. By your logic, had Silk Road incorporated, Ulbricht would be a free man.

'This ruling does nothing to change the facts' thunders Apple in latest price-fix appeal blow

Re: You didn't publish the best part of the decision...

I Upvoted this the first time, because it is an interesting bit, and you presented it well. I ignored the second posting because, well, I've done that (usually back-to-back, though). I had to downvote (and comment) on the third one, because it seems like intentional repetition. It seems like intentional repetition. It seems like intentional repetition.

And that is really annoying.

Gates: Renewable energy can't do the job. Gov should switch green subsidies into R&D

Re: In addition(@Hans 1)

First: 3bn, what? 3bn Euro, Pounds, Dollars?

Second: As to where the money may come from for building and decommissioning, in the UK 'leccy is about 10 pence per kWh (US is $0.12-0.15, so similar). Lets assume a medium-small plant: 1500MW, That is 1,500,000kW*£0.1/kWh=£150,000/hr, run that for 20 years and you have earned £26.29bn. I think £3bn could be affordable.

On the point of my original comment: The last nuke plant in the US to break ground, broke said ground in the late 70s. 40 years of pointless (and almost always stricken down) lawsuits have caused the plant to not be built, because the lawyers are too expensive.

In addition

Could we do something about the interminable lawsuits and injunctions that stop nuclear plants from being built? The US could drastically cut it's carbon emissions (and electricity prices) if it weren't more difficult to build a nuke plant than it is to put a man on the moon. Actually, I guess they are about the same - we haven't done either since the 70's.

Britain beats back Argies over Falklands online land grab

Re: Argies are too late

Agreed! I'll even have the video (click-to-play, none of that auto-start crap) on the front page of the domain.

Re: Argies are too late

If you do get .mf, could I purchase bad.mf from you, or would Samuel L. Jackson have first dibs on that one?

Abort, abort! Metal-on-metal VIOLENCE as Google's robo-car nearly CRASHES

Re: Road Network (LACP)

That's the plan written in my will for my funeral procession.

Cambridge boffins: STOP the rush to 5G. We just don't need it

I'm of two minds here

On the one hand, stalling 5G to enable/force the providers to roll out more 4G coverage would be a Good Thing™; however, speaking as a left-pondian, large-scale roll-outs of current tech can preclude large-scale roll-outs of new tech. One thing that set US data coverage way back (we never really had 2G, we pretty much went from 1G directly to 3G) was the prevalence of analog (1G) coverage, and it was "too expensive" to roll out 2G.

What I would encourage would be to emphasize the "LT" part of 4G LTE - Long Term. Rather than a new standard, how about just working on getting the existing 4G up to where it was promised. On that note: Does anyone know what happened to VoLTE? Has that actually been sorted?

Warning flags were raised over GDS farm payments system – yet it still failed

Here's a thought

Maybe it should be made part of the contract that any contract for a payments system can only be paid via the system they are developing.

I know it's not feasible, owing to numerous laws and business practices, but it's still a nice day-dream.

Vegan eats BeEf, gets hooked

Re: Hmm something that stops BeEf from looking at your system...

This tool doesn't stop BeEF, it merely turns up its nose and objects loudly that there is BeEF near it. - Vegan is the perfect name.

Apple pulls Civil War games in Confederate flag takedown

Re: confederate flags

I hate to agree with you, but this is one of the better points in the comments.

I am in favor of having the "Confederate Flag" (as mentioned above, it really isn't) available to whomsoever wants to display it. It should not be displayed by state governments, excepting in an historical context; but individuals should be free to let everyone else know their stance. Displaying the Stars and Bars allows others to recognize that you are ignorant and/or bigoted, and ignore/avoid you as appropriate.

But let's see a redneck with a shotgun hit a drone...

Ohh, Yes please. That should be fun to watch.

Ex-Microsoft chief rolls elastic-SQL challenge to Amazon Redshift

Re: Data anal?

As opposed to anal data, which is where a lot of data seems to be pulled from.

What is this river nonsense? Give .amazon to Bezos, says US Congress

Re: Use the market

Make the rent inversely proportionate to the number of trees left

TFTFY

Amazon enrages authors as it switches to 'pay-per-page' model

Re: As a writer publishing on Amazon

If I understand you correctly, What you mean by "It won't just hurt my income, it is going to hurt everyone income large writers and small" Is that by changing how they divide the monthly pool of royalties, Amazon is going to pay everyone less?

Amazon is not shrinking the pool of royalties they are paying out. They are simply changing how they calculate each writer's share.

The reasoning behind my interpretation of your first post, IE that you pulled a Ratner, is as follows:

>The pool of royalties is consistent, and Amazon are now paying per page rather than per book

>IF this hurts your income then your "books" are very short (and you were gaming the system), and/or you don't expect people to read all of the pages (and you were gaming the system).

I have no quibbles with short stories, I quite enjoy a lot of them. If you are writing shorts, and are relying on them for income, then you need to be more prolific; bitching this change will hurt your income from 15 pages...

Re: As a writer publishing on Amazon

If you know that this policy shift will hurt the income from your books, than I appreciate you sharing that information.You have just told me that it's not worth reading your books, as you believe them to be crap.

Or (at 4 and 9 pages, respectively) you were banking on the ADD audience to download them repeatedly.

Re: re: Price-per-page is a lot fairer for everybody.

It IS applied to every book. That is: every book gotten under the subscription model.

This has nothing to do with buying an e-book from No Starch Press, or the like where you buy the book for $25. This applies to the programs where you pay $10/month for access to an entire catalog.

How it used to work: Amazon collected all the subscription fees into a pool, and divvied them out by how many times your book(s) got downloaded (and read past 10%).

How it will work: Amazon will collect all the subscription fees into a pool, and divvie them out by how many pages are read.

Before: Say Amazon had 1000 downloads in a month; if Writer A had 100 downloads of their 20-page pamphlet short story and people read past page 2, but not past page 3, they got 10% of the pool. Writer B, with 10 downloads of their very interesting and captivating 300 page book would get 1% of the pot.

Now: If Amazon Unlimited subscribers read 10000 pages this month, 200 of those pages (0.02%) are from Writer A, and 3000 pages (30%) are from Writer B.

The same pool is being distributed, but now it encourages good books, and does not penalize long books. This really could only be considered unfair if you are Writer A, pumping out crap with an interesting title and/or premise but not wasting time with spell checking, punctuation, or making it readable after the 10% mark.

Even writing short serials a la Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will still get you pages read, so would not be impacted by this.

Uber app will soon maybe track you 24/7, cry privacy warriors

Thanks

Thanks, you saved me some typing.

Oz goes mad with the ban-hammer

WTF?!

Can someone explain what dastardly evil is propagated by "New Little Horse Puzzle" and "TicTacpinky"?

One is a 'My Little Pony'-esque puzzle game for kids, the other is a freakin' tic-tac-toe game! I can see why they might not want 'Sniper 3D Assault Zombie' or some of the pot-themed games, and I guess some of them didn't have a classification banned, so much as it was not worth the time to give it a classification (EG: Measure Bra Size Prank)

But really, they banned a tic-tac-toe game. What the hell? Unless it was RC because of Quality issues (It would crash all devices used to evaluate it) or it was a cover for malware or unscrupulous charging, then seriously, WTF? And if that were the case, could they at least put something for the justification other than "For further information regarding the reason for this decision, please contact us."

Why is it that women are consistently paid less than men?

Re: Statistics, etc.

>> The division into household (ie, unpaid) and market (paid) labour is a whole 'nother kettle of fish

> Exactly. So what do the numbers look like when taking the full picture into account?

It looks like a field where someone has been dragging goalposts around.

Brace yourself, planet Earth, says Nokia CEO – our phones ARE coming back from mid-2016

Optimum Solution:

Licence the Nokia brand to Jolla. Maybe with Nokia's help they could actually get their products into stores/into the US.

Vicious vandals violate voluminous Versailles vagina

Re: 19 June! Celebrate!

You are all incorrect.. a horrible travesty on this glorious day of pedantry: It's National Pedants' Day.

National Pedant's Day would be a day in honour of the National Pedant.

National Pedants Day would be a day concerning all of the pedants in the nation (possibly the one day they are in-season).

National Pedants' Day is a day in honour of all of the pedants in the Nation.

Client-attorney privilege up for grabs in Google fishing trip

Re: Pot, kettle, black

In short: "Stop the world, I want to get off."

..And I agree.

The insidious danger of the lone wolf control freak sysadmin

Re: Lone Wolf..

In my experience, the guy who walks in and thinks he is so above everyone else that nothing can be explained is either not as good as he thinks he is or he is posturing to overcome his own shortcomings.

To paraphrase Feynman, "If you can't explain it to a complete newbie, you don't understand it."

Did climate change scare off vegan dinos for millions of years? 'Yes'

No, no we're not.

As omnivores with a significant capability to adapt out environment to our needs (eg: build houses, run irrigation, farm animals, etc) we do not require much in the way of stability.

Creationist: The Flintstones was an accurate portrayal of Dino-human coexistence

Re: @"AC 3hrs" (whatever that means, ElReg)

Evidence-based, repeatable experiments in favor of evolution (Wikipedia, so that small words are more favored)

Many more articles on the experiment.

Ready to go again, soldier? Final Fantasy VII remake revealed

I fear this

I fear a re-release of FFVII - for two reasons.

Reason the First: As said above "Square could quite easily polish this one with a turd-smeared cloth if they're not very careful." It would be an utter travesty if Square mucked about too much and destroyed the things that made this game great.

Reason the Second: I fear that Square won't muck it up, and I will lose days/weeks/months to playing it.

Either way, I'll be paying my money and taking my chances.

Cinnamon 2.6 – a Linux desktop for Windows XP refugees

Cinnamon and XFCE

I used to be a huge fan of KDE, but I have found that Cinnamon offers most of what I liked about KDE, minus a huge amount of overhead. XFCE offers a bit less; but it is functional and easy to use, and even more light weight.

Really the only things I miss about KDE are the games and Kate.

Cortana threatens to blow away ESC key

A viable, albeit less convenient alternative to the menu key is SHIFT+F10, although it does not seem to work in Chrome, it works everywhere else I've tried.