Posts by Rattus Rattus

Sir Tim Berners-Lee refuses to be King Canute, approves DRM as Web standard

@ Charles 9

*cough*

"Beaucoup"

Frustrated by reboot-happy Windows 10? Creators Update hopes to take away the pain

Re: @MD Rackham

ARM isn't up to the games use case, either. Hell, an Xbone isn't, for that matter.

Re: "only 16 years ago"

You mean forty ni-

Ohhhhh...

nbn™ is installing new hybrid-fibre coax cables

@borkbork

My 50mbit FTTP Velocity connection is around 1mbit or less during evening peak times (I say "evening", it's actually until almost midnight every night), primarily because Telstra are a bunch of cheap pricks who won't provision anywhere near what is actually required. And the NBN rollout map says my area is "adequately serviced". Oh, and we get the privilege of paying around 150% of NBN pricing for even worse service. "Adequately serviced" my arse.

Move over, Bernie Ecclestone. Scientists unearth Earth's oldest fossil yet: 4bn years old

Re: "breed with lithe, attractive cat-like aliens"

Or be eaten by them. Potayto, potahto, right?

Centrelink needed 370 extra staff to automate data matching

Saving money was only a secondary goal

The primary objective was achieved, though - putting the boot in to the poor and struggling. After all, that is one of the Coalition's primary reasons for existence.

Microsoft slaps Apple Gatekeeper-like controls on Windows 10: Install only apps from store

Re: "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that"

Dave's not here, man.

Can we set it to block app installs from the store and allow install from other sources only? The last thing I want is to mistakenly install a Store app when an external one would have sufficed.

Engineer who blew lid on Uber's toxic sexist culture now menaced by creepy 'smear campaign'

Re: critical infrastructure

So really, the sensible way to approach it is that "critical infrastructure" simply cannot be privately owned. Water, power, possibly banking, ALL should be 100% government provided.

Ad men hope blocking has stalled as sites guilt users into switching off

Re: integrated marketing

I feel fortunate that almost all live action shows or movies are worthless shite these days. I never have to encounter integrated marketing when watching anime and TBH that's pretty much the only thing I watch any more. The rest of my time is spent reading, learning, gaming, and doing various other activities.

Radioactive leak riddle: Now Team America sniffs Europe's skies for iodine isotope source

Re: "Constant Phoenix"

Precise Penguin, that sounds like a great character for a kids' TV show, done in claymation.

"Constant Phoenix"

If it's "constant", doesn't that prevent the very thing that makes it a phoenix? That is, dying, bursting into flame, and being reborn from the ashes? Stupid name, trying too hard to be cool.

Probe President Trump and his crappy Samsung Twitter-o-phone, demand angry congressfolk

@Big John

Decades of damage, yes. Though I wasn't aware neoliberalism was a "left" phenomenon. I am amazed to hear that Ronald Reagan was a "leftie", just like those other well known neoliberal "lefties" - Margaret Thatcher, George Bush, and John Howard.

Incidentally, the Democrats are nearly as out of touch with the world outside your borders as the Republicans are. It's more like the entire US political establishment on one side, and the entire rest of the world on the other.

New Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters can't transmit vital data

@sawatts

"shouldn't be allowed to fly in a warzone"

It probably isn't allowed to fly in a warzone. If its carrier is ever deployed, it will probably have to offload all helicopters first. After all, why would you need those?

Competition and wholesale costs, not lack of fibre, crimp broadband in Australia

On average a customer may still only use 5% of the bandwidth they are paying for, but with the rise of Netflix nearly all of them are using it at the same time. I have a blindingly fast connection in the middle of the night and during the day until about 6pm. Then it drops to a mere trickle until almost midnight. ISPs need to realise that the old days of intermittent use for general web browsing and other applications that aren't too bandwidth-intensive are over, and they need to provision better for peak times with much higher and wider peaks than they ever were in the past.

nbn™ to cut the charges ISPs pay for traffic

@trashsilo

We were originally going to have 1) and 2). Then the gullible bogans elected Tony Abbott. The irony is that the original design was also going to be much closer to 3) than the current one is proving to be.

US visitors must hand over Twitter, Facebook handles by law – newbie Rep starts ball rolling

Re: Sooooo

"The US is now crazy-cuckoo-land"

Now? It has been for a long, long time.

Nul points for Ukraine's Eurovision ticket site fail

Re: Everyone's resigned anyway...

Rick Santorum?

No crypto backdoors, more immigration ... says Republican head of House Committee on Homeland Security

Re: These aren't the Republicans you're looking for

"Their instincts to protect Democrats" xD

John's either trolling us magnificently, or is dangerously deluded.

John, mate, the world's not all about "my team vs yours".

Re: "Something tells me you are not an American"

That's right, and I am extremely thankful for that. That's why I said the wider world - screwed up as politics can be everywhere, from the outsire we can all clearly see the US is its own special brand of political insanity.

@Big John - "would have preferred you respond to my points": You had no points to respond to, why would I address a series of strawman nonsense remarks?

Re: These aren't the Republicans you're looking for

Big John, buddy, not sure what you're on but it seems to be pretty strong stuff. Nonetheless, it is true that by world standards, BOTH US parties are rightwing nutters. The rest of your dribble... That's between you and whatever you're drinking.

Re: These aren't the Republicans you're looking for

"Some are normal folks camped near the "middle of the road""

There is nothing remotely "middle-of-the-road" about anyone with the slightest connection to the Republican Party. In fact, that's almost the same for the Democrats, too. By the standards of the wider western world they're both parties of right-wing nutjobs, it's just the Republicans are further over the insanity event horizon.

Finally, a use for your mobile phone: Snapping ALIEN signal blurts

Re: "we are in fact super slow"

To judge by most of the people I have met, I think you might be on to something there.

The Mail vs Wikipedia: They're more alike than they'd ever admit

Re: "in economic matters I'm very socialist, but in social matters I'm pretty libertarian"

Lol, sorry, got a well paying job and own my own house. Perhaps you ought to do some genuine research on socialism before trying again.

Re: "in economic matters I'm very socialist, but in social matters I'm pretty libertarian"

"Oh no, the S-word came out and therefore I must make a kneejerk reaction post without even understanding what it means." Can't even post it under his own name. Golf clap for trying, at least.

@Big John

Seriously, just what is "the left", anyway? Would I be considered "left"? I mean, in economic matters I'm very socialist, bordering on communist, but in social matters I'm pretty libertarian in outlook. I despise religion of all stripes and am against both Muslim and Christian world views (which actually aren't that far apart, anyway), and I also think the identity-politics crowd are a bunch of idiots who want to wrap the world in cotton wool. Where does that come on your single-dimension scale?

Samsung's Chromebook Pro: Overpriced vanilla PC with a stylus. 'Wow'

2,400 by 1,600 pixel touchscreen?

On a twelve inch screen, WHY? Drop that down to a standard 1080p and you can probably knock a hundred off the price.

All of Blighty's attack submarines are out of action – report

Re: Buy the German U-boats

@Primus Secundus Tertius

Now you're just winding us up.

Prepare your popcorn: Wikipedia deems the Daily Mail unreliable

@Kernel

Re: "You disagreeing with something does not, nor ever will, make it fraudulent - nor will it make the opposite irrefutably true"

So, have you thought to mention that to any climate change deniers?

nbn™ tops AU$400 million half-year revenue

Re: 83% selecting 25Mbps or slower

That's one way of interpreting the data. Another way, which is implied by all the anecdotal evidence I've heard, is that 13% of Australians (and falling) still believe that they will get a connection speed remotely approaching the one they've paid for. Though yes, Labor shouldn't have planned speed tiers in the first place, it should have been gigabit from the start.

You're right about Telstra though. They KNOW everybody would buy their cheapest plan because they fail spectacularly at delivering the service they advertise. I'm paying for a 50mbit plan at the moment - FTTP, though not yet nbn. It might approach 50mbit at 3AM, perhaps. During the times I'm awake and home, though, I get speeds ranging from 0.5mbit to sometimes as high as 3mbit. And this is all because Telstra haven't provisioned nearly enough capacity for peak times, in order to save a few pennies.

All the reports I'm hearing indicate that many (most?) people on nbn can't even get half the speeds they currently pay for, and often enough not even close to the speeds they did have on their previous service at the same premises. So why would they pay for a higher speed tier?

Who's behind the Kodi TV streaming stick crackdown?

Re: Be reasonable

"Commerce flows better". Well so freakin' what? All that means is that the contents of the trough can be hoovered up faster by the executive snouts. Fuck 'em all, I hope streaming kills their businesses.

@Charles 9

Free commerce certainly doesn't care about me, why should I care about it? Markets need to be constrained to serve the public good by regulation because they have proved repeatedly that unless forced they will only serve themselves.

@MK_E

Yup, me for one. Piracy was pretty much my only source of games when I was a kid, and when I entered adulthood and had an income I found continuing to pirate was still the easiest way to get any game that wasn't on the shelf at my local game store... so almost all of them. Since discovering Steam a number of years back I haven't pirated a single game, simply because Steam makes it so convenient. Automatic patches and updates, back catalogue of damn near everything I care to look for, reviews, recommendations, frequent sales, communities for games, etc. If I think a game is too expensive for what it is I don't pirate it these days, I just wait for Steam to have another sale.

I'd only consider pirating a game now if it simply doesn't exist on Steam. So I guess it's lucky for EA that most of the junk on their own store is too shite to even be worth pirating, otherwise their exclusivity would make their games the few I actually pirate.

Re: "Spoilt self-entitled brat"

Yes, that is an incredibly accurate description of film and TV distributors. Which is why they're still shooting themselves in the foot clinging to an obsolete business model.

RAF pilot sent jet into 4,000ft plummet by playing with camera, court martial hears

Re: “teapots”

And what's wrong with teapots? Don't tell me you'd use tea bags, now that's the REAL travesty!

What's the difference between you and a sea slug? When it comes to IT security, nothing

Re: has anyone ever

It's not losing the advertisers money, it's losing their clients money. Another reason the advertisers need to both cut their fees and to tone things down.

Re: has anyone ever

99 times out of 100 being overlooked is exactly how advertising should be. If one view in ten thousand results in a sale then the ad is doing extremely well. Getting louder and flashier alienates potential customers in a fruitless quest for higher profit. People may remember, but no study I've ever heard of can show that means higher sales and if anything peopel will remember that this particular brand annoys them even if they can't remember exactly why.

In short, advertisers need to put down the coke straw.

Re: has anyone ever

@RW

I have, just once. It was a little figurine of a character from an animated show I like, that happened to be advertised in a (quiet, discreet, and definitely NOT flashing and jumping all over the place to attract attention) sidebar on a fan page I was browsing related to that particular show. So I guess relevant, appropriate advertising that is respectful of the viewer - rare as that is - can sometimes work if it's simply making known the existence of a product that the viewer would likely be interested in buying anyway.

Corn-based diet turns French hamsters into baby eating cannibals

Re: It's amazing how Trump voters...

@cornz 1

Perhaps you should have checked the comment I was replying to, flaunting his ignorance before the world. But no, easier to rant than read, eh?

It's amazing how Trump voters...

...are not only unembarrassed by their ignorance and stupidity, they seem to actually enjoy flaunting it! Dunning–Kruger effect in full swing, I guess.

Trump signs 'no privacy for non-Americans' order – what does that mean for rest of us?

Re: Yet ANOTHER Trump story?

Big John, buddy... REALITY has a strong slant against the Orange One. Though I am sorry that you guys only had the choice between a childish buffoon and a harpy.

Re: "How exactly does one 'prepare' for a third world war?"

As an Australian, apparently I just have to weld a few spikes to my car and buy half a leather jacket.

Australia's Department of Social Services pushing ahead with data-matching plans

What will the Coalition do

if they ever run out of poor people to demonise?

It's frankly an embarrassment that we have enough easily-fooled idiots in this country to have voted these bastards back in.

Smart guns are a neat idea on paper. They'll never survive reality

Re: Left-wing American news organisation CBS

Remember this is the American idea of "left", which means they're not quite as rabidly right-wing as Mussolini.

Peace-sign selfie fools menaced by fingerprint-harvesting tech

Re: For the 1,000th time

You commute to work riding an ICBM? Do you work on a different continent than the one where you live? Do you hold your breath during the suborbital portion of the flight?

Anti-smut law dubs PCs, phones 'pornographic vendor machines', demands internet filters

@Bob

Why furo? Bath scenes aren't generally particularly risque.

Microsoft sued by staff traumatized by child sex abuse vids stashed on OneDrive accounts

Re: @palpy: Yup. Quite bullshitty.

Bombastic Bob may be a twit, but even he occasionally has a point.

By the way, I must apologise for my language. In retrospect, I should have simply referred you to the correspondence in the matter of Arkell v Pressdram, 1971.

@palpy

Then in that situation the police can damn well get a warrant! It does NOT excuse Microsoft trawling through people's files just to see what's there. "If you had a daughter..." fuck off. That's the worst kind of bullshit appeal to emotion with no actual debate value.

Binary star bash-up should add new light to Northern Cross in 2022

Re: Don't think that would be a Good Thing (TM)

I believe the supernova that created the Crab Nebula back in 1054 was visible during the day during its time of maximum brightness.