Posts by Tikimon 800 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Nov 2009
Washing windows, most women will stand pretty much upright and away from the glass. When washing a car, there's a lot of bending over, plus the option to mash the bosoms on windows while soaping up the roof.
The best example I can think of is this scene from the classic movie "Cool Hand Luke", where a woman teases the convicts with her car-washing technique. Were Hollywood honest, every one of them would have sported a raging woody.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veCZvM6-okQ
Most folks (in NC) who want porn won't figure out how to disable it, live too far from a state line, or simply don't feel it's worth $20 to drive six hours to buy an unlocked computer. They will pay the $20 to keep their access going. Multiply that by the legions of porn consumers, and you've created a nice revenue stream, an indirect Porn Tax.
What drives politicians? Money!
Hey NC legislators, why don't you give porn a break and instead make life hard on the plethora of tobacco growers in your fair state? Let's take relative harm into account here! After all, porn doesn't cause cancer, only blindness.
Utterly unrelated to computers, but it's a great linguistic mixup example. I had toured a wooden sailing ship visiting our sunny shores on a world tour. I was hanging around afterward, observing and annoying the crew with questions. One of them finally told me I could sign up to sail it (which I did!). Well, I also overheard a lady chatting with a couple of the crew about her daughter who was joining the ship there for a leg of the tour. It came up that her daughter loved to dance. She said "Oh yes, she loves to shag. I'm sure within a day she'll probably be teaching the whole crew." Cue choking and giggling, then they had to explain why.
My week as temp crew was also the coolest thing I've ever done.
And is it just me, or do the S+ cohort look like they're 14-16 years old, and the S- cohort about 20-25? The S+ poses look literally more wide-eyed naive as well. The S- women seem older, more confident, and kinda like they're sizing you up.
Full disclosure: looking at the S+ girls makes me feel like a dirty old pedo, where the S- women are smoking hot. But then I'm not a young Chinese guy terrified by assertive women, as another poster said.
I was educating myself about Limulus (horseshoe crabs) this weekend, and Wackypedia isn't a terrible place to start. They had GIMME MONEY ads that were three times the length of my mobile screen! My thumb was cramping from all the scrolling to reach actual content. WTF?
Thankfully, I also educate myself at The Reg (not a terrible place to start) and had heard about the gobs of excess cash that Wackypedia is rolling in. Therefore, I had been immunized against their "Time is running oooouut, save us save us save us!" messages. Many thanks, folks!
Horseshoe crabs are also fascinating animals, and something like the fourth oldest species on the planet.
After 20 years of IT laffs I'm frankly paranoid. So it gets me wondering if any of this effort will indirectly prove useful to The Man, who hates encryption and would like to break it. Or criminalize it if unbreakable. I doubt the companies or bodies involved would do such a thing, but once you find a way to break something, it WILL escape into the wrong hands. Or in the case of the NSA, GHCQ and such, the wrong grasping claws.
Hey, why no "Terror/Panic" icon?
Yep, LOHAN. As much as I loved PARIS and admired Lester, I don't give it much chance even if the FAA gets out of the way. I feel like I'm the only one that seems to think flight testing (never done) is critical for this project.
PARIS was a glider simply dropped to fly down unguided, fairly simple. LOHAN is rail-launched from a balloon by rocket thrust, then uses the rocket to climb higher. It has an autopilot to actively manipulate control surfaces to control the climb, then fly back down. LOHAN is many times more complex than PARIS and is highly unlikely to Just Work on the first try. At the very least, an unpowered drop test from a Cessna to check if it even flies and if the autopilot works. That would still leave many unknowns including how the autopilot handles the thinner air at high altitude, how control surfaces handle the stress of rocket thrust (they already changed the canard joint once) and so on.
I would love for LOHAN to work, but without some serious testing it has little chance of success.
Dang, I miss Lester though...
If we're lucky, a significant number of Java users will abandon the platform because of all this. Anything that removes Java from the world is a good thing. Lawsuits. Demons. Flying monkeys. Anything at all.
Here in our little IT shop, we decided to simply remove Java from our machines, eliminating one of the world's most popular hack targets. Sorry, can't do it! Two administration sites we use require it, and the employee payroll portal. So we're stuck with this abomination. Grrr!
Labeling anything "Smart" is a useful warning these days. In fact, it's likely to be stupid on multiple levels - design, security, UI, etc.. Stapling the word "smart" on a product is a marketing ploy that's only devalued the word.
Wait, I just remembered the alternate meaning of "smart" as in "to cause pain." That might be more applicable in most cases.
It seems like everyone worships Apple these days, forgetting the 20 years of 5% market share, failed product lines, and annual predictions of impending doom. Sell a few iphones and now they're so innovative and brilliant! No, they're not.
But at least back then Apple was experimenting and trying new things. Trying desperately to break out of the "schools and graphics pros" niche and into the mainstream. Now they're rolling in Iphone cash and believe their own hype about how awesome they are. And since Apple Knows Best they're making horrible design choices. They're throwing out years of user-oriented design experience. Apple widgets are not easy to use anymore, cost more than they're worth, and ignore what the users actually want. They don't bother with user testing, and usability is not even a design goal anymore.
As long as they can coast along on Iphone sales and their cash stash, expect Apple to go further down this path. Maybe when they're broke again will we see functional design from Apple.
All right, let's say the Grand Conspiracy of Trump and Putin conspire (which makes it a conspiracy yanno) to end Ed's stay in Russia. Since the US government has threatened anyone who harbors him with nuclear annihilation (let's have fun speculating) he won't have anywhere to go and CIA kidnap squads can snatch him somewhere. And then he's returned to the US to "stand trial".
This would hardly be a victory for US spy agencies or the Federal government. Such a trial would attract gobs of unwelcome media attention. Most people don't care about Ed now, but put him on the news daily and that would change. The last thing the spy lords want would be to turn Ed into a well-known poster child for privacy and government accountability.
Far from Sending a Message to intimidate future Snowdens, such a trial would likely energize the opposition and cause more pushback than less. They have to trumpet and thunder for the press, but I don't think they really want to open that door.
If Satan himself offered me a phone with the Hell.OS on it, I would take it and buy him a beer. Anything to spare me from Cthulhu's, sorry, Google's grasping tentacles and Apple's walled-garden of shiny over function. I'm frankly less worried about Russians spying on my phone than I am the NSA and Google.
My personal biases aside, it can only do the world good to create some real competition in the mobile market. Apple and Google have pushed all manner of BS on us knowing we have little other choice.
I'm not the first to point this out. In 2001 A Space Odyssey, the astronauts aboard the Discovery were seen to use flat tablets with rounded corners. Granted that they were movie props, but the concept clearly predates Steve Job's aspirations to take credit for the creation of the universe.
Too many products are being marketed and sold because someone made a Thing. They did not identify a need and design something to fill it, they built something because they could.
Clearly, nobody identified a widespread need that a wrist computer with a tiny screen (but bulky body) would meet. You can see it in the scattergun design of the Apple watch and others - throw in lots of dubious functions and hope consumers find a use for them.
Fitness trackers are an evolution of the heart monitor. They were already successful, but only serious athletes put up with the chest straps and bulky units. Fitbit et al moved that into a slim wrist-mounted widget. This made an existing product better and more accessible to the general public. So they're enjoying success, where the wrist computer is flailing and failing. If the early adopters had found them useful they would have told others and generated more sales. Instead they've proven not useful and the market is drying up.
Hey tech companies - find a need and meet it, don't make a shiny widget and try to convince us we need to buy it.
Many times, a well-designed machine can do what The Human does as well or better. They don't get tired or distracted, etc. However, this usually is limited to well-established routines. When the wheels fall off, the machines can't figure out what to do.
Experienced human pilots have performed some amazing feats to save crippled aircraft and the hundreds of passengers aboard. Those years of training and experience coupled with the ability to assess and react to a situation are far beyond the abilities of the best computer flight controls. It's going to be a long time before we can safely exclude the human pilot.
And yet, the vast majority of aircraft incidents are due to pilot error! It's a huge challenge to balance the strengths and limitations of Men and Machines. Maybe one day we'll get that right, or finally develop a smart computer.
"I knew very few people (in a heavily "red" state) that would fess up to wanting Trump. Based on that observation, I suspected they were probably too ashamed to admit that to an anonymous pollster and possibly to themselves."
Too ashamed to admit to themselves? You arrogantly assume that anyone voting for Trump SHOULD be ashamed! This smug demonizing of people with views you don't like is exactly why the Trump voters kept quiet. The Left in America seem to feel they can spout anything they like, and demean anyone they like with impunity. Those who disagree with them are obviously stupid redneck Nazis and their opinion doesn't count. Which is utter bigotry, but only white males can be bigots yanno. Bah.
This tactic has left many Americans rightly annoyed at being insulted and marginalized. In my opinion, Hillary voters have at least as much reason to feel ashamed. In truth, neither were acceptable candidates, which points up the failure of the Big Two parties.
Not to disagree, but sometimes extreme-weighted reviews are legit. Consider a rilly kewl product with some dodgy quality control. When it works, people love it - 5-stars. But if you get a defective one that dies after a week, you hate it. 1-star!
I've seen this effect many times on Amazon. Good product idea, inconsistent quality.
...is the one where they get what they want. Because then they're not needed, and after the handshaking is done people forget about them. More of them than you know are all about The Struggle, not actually solving anything. And if you do find a solution to a problem, if it's not the one approved choice THEY wanted, well it's not good enough.
"I think I'll hold my nose and stick to the pit toilets seen in national parks in remote areas. At least there, there's rarely a surprise."
Rarely, yes, but this once was enough for a lifetime. The tank was about half full, and very liquid. Have you ever watched the fluid dynamics of something falling into water? You know how Improbable does not mean Impossible? This time the splash reached up and scored a solid hit, an anti-bidet if you will. I shrieked in horror and nearly scrubbed my own ass off trying to get clean.
Thanks to the poster about organizing the hard drive for sparking this thought. I wonder if this could be used to screen your collection to make sure there's nothing in there you didn't expect.
A guy I know downloads porn clips, and only has a thumbnail and brief description to base download/no-download on. Sometimes he's been startled to find something else in the clip he wasn't expecting and did not want to see, possess, or be arrested for. Could be a nice CYA to ferret out the dodgy bits. Not unheard of for laptops to be copied and scanned by cops and border screeners.
No walled gardens for me thanks. I was one of the millions who started with AOHell because their icon was on the desktop of a new computer. After years of slow service, limited content, and bandwidth wasting graphics (in the old days it was icon-blockers, not ads yet) I bailed for Earthlink. I eagerly traded the walled garden for the wild and vast forest outside.
I agree that some folks would indeed like the benefits you mentioned! But would it last? Enough times where their friends or family say "what, you don't have (app/site/game/etc)?" and those walls start to feel like a prison. I'm not sure how that would average out.
This happens for every "high tech" product class since Digital watches, computers, automobiles, you name it. At first they were terribly expensive, owned by the affluent few, and made by a few pioneering companies. As the gadget matured, others started building them. They became products aimed at average folks instead of the rich. The price came down, and most market share went to non-luxury brands.
Been there, does that, every time. Why does the tech world seem so surprised? Did they really believe it would be Samsung vs Apple forever?
For Fat And Fit examples, look no farther than Sumo wrestlers. However, they're the exception. Most obese people do not exercise, and are terribly unfit... which is true of a large percentage of not-overweight folks. I beat this drum all the time. Don't lose weight as a goal, get FIT!
Walker-pressure schemes are doomed to fail for one very simple reason. Homo Sapiens has been finely tuned for efficiency in walking. We simply don't stomp every step, wasting force that we won't get back as we lift that foot again. Most of our mass vector (probably the wrong term, sorry) as we walk is directed forward, not down.
I wondered if the heavier, more deliberate step of the obese would make a notable difference. Then I realized that such folks are generally not in the habit of walking very far, so still not a good power source.
This guy gets his wee winky stuck in a wedding ring, so presumed small diameter. But consider that at least a few of his friends (plural!) were small enough to successfully do it and have fun doing so. I kinda pity the men and women of that area.
Of course, it's possible that they lied about having done it and merely pranked the guy...
I have a legit concern about ending up in a Hotel California Database, where you can check out, but never Delete. That's one of the more obvious ways companies lie to and abuse their users/clients. How can we trust anyone anymore?
I'm not one to run to Government to solve many problems (it rarely does) but I'm all for legislating crippling financial penalties for keeping supposedly deleted data.
Um, sorry that IS clearly what he meant. He let his spoiled little temper tantrum overrule his Good E-mail Sense and said exactly what he thought about anyone who dared to vote against Queen Hillary. No amount of spin will disguise that.
He could at least be man enough to stand behind his words. Now he looks like a strident jerk AND a wuss who caves in the face of public condemnation.
Funny how a left-wing idea or candidate is defeated, and it's because people are stoooopid and racist and just horrible people. Yet when the left wins, it's a glorious mandate from an enlightened electorate. This kind of smug, insulting arrogance is just the kind of thing many Trump voters were pushing back at. Being told "You're either with us, or you're a Misogynistic Racist Fascist Nazi!" rightly gets people's back up.
Plenty of people voted not for Trump, but to keep out a person they saw as a greater threat. In other words, "Please Not Another Clinton Or Bush". Given her widespread backing from The Establishment, she's capable of doing far more damage than the Total Outsider. Trump can say or propose anything he wants, but Congress must put it into law or not, and the Supreme Court can strike anything down. I'm not for him, but I fear him less.
This election was a repudiation of Hillary (rejected twice now), both political parties, and their attempts to control elections. If we had had a better candidate, we would have gladly voted them in.
A few years ago, we had a run of bank robberies committed by the same person. They were in fact using a mountain bike to clear the area. They scouted their escape routes in advance, planning them to run through wooded areas. The cops of course were scouring the roads. On emerging from the woods a fair distance away, they switched to a parked car. Clean getaway over and over. I believe they finally messed up on their 25th robbery or so.
I wonder if their vaunted pixel patterns have anything to do with it. Face recognition works in large part by using light or dark areas to figure out a face is there and which parts are where. Dazzle makeup works by breaking up the light/dark areas. Take a look at the example photos. Is it possible that the glasses are simply adding light areas around the eyes and nose? Instead of magic pixel patterns, the effect may be due to simple value changes.
If so, then bright, thick-framed glasses will do it, complex pixel maps not needed.
Early helldesk job, we had a tech support number that we would call when some service or other we needed (I forgot what) was offline. So I call it one night and an absolutely luscious female voice comes on the line. Oops, that number now dials to a phone sex line.
We went through this already with intrusive web page pop-ups and pop-unders. The same players (advertisers) competed to yell the loudest in our faces. We got tired of it and started blocking popups. The advertisers screamed and whined, the end of the world was predicted..
This is exactly the same thing all over again. Did they learn nothing from the popup wars? If ads become intrusive and annoying, we will smack them down as hard as we can. Can they really claim to be surprised?
Yes, but they are so rare as to be totally lost in the tsunami of terrible ones. You can actually find properly-formatted word-processing documents too, but you'll have to dedicate yourself to a long search.
Powerpoint as an Outline is fine, it simply provides a visual placeholder and some organization to an otherwise long rambling talk. Properly used graphics can help share information, being only an update of overhead transparencies. Too bad most people use it as "every frickin' word of the talk on slide after slide". Graphic capability is wasted on Shiny Pictures For No Discernible Reason.
It ain't the first program given a bad rep by stupid users.
What are you saying, that iPads don't go into landfills, only Huawei tablets do? That's utter BS unless you can produce numbers to back it up. Consider too that Apple desperately wants you to buy a new shiny tablet every two years. If you play along with Apple's business model, you'll contribute more to landfills than with these cheaper tablets that are being kept by their owners for longer periods.
Fight the Apple snobbery, comrades!
Tech manufacturers have based their business model on the same thing American auto companies did back when - the assumption that we will replace a perfectly good device/car with a shiny new one every few years (to benefit them, not us). Apple bet so heavily on this model that they brought back Planned Obsolescence, remember the non-replaceable batteries in their early widgets?
Also like the car companies, the new models aren't much different from the old ones three years previous. Slight change in appearance, maybe a little more engine power. But really, the same driving experience.
The fact that some of us decide that our current car/phone/etc is Good Enough and we don't need to buy a new one to line their pockets fills tech companies with horror.
I seed foreign profanity into my passwords. What dictionary attack is going to check multi-language cursing?
Agreed, DAMN the sites that have maximum-minimum or other requirements. They won't make a stupid user create a good password, and they screw up those of us with a good system.
Eta pizdets, faszfej!
"Our destruction would be attributable to our own incompetence rather than an evil AI turning on us."
I have mused before about how what we call AI is actually AH, or Artificial Humans. We keep trying to shoehorn human attributes into machines. True machine-based AI will have no interest or motivation to destroy us, those are human inclinations driven by lust for power, territory, etc.
So there's the trick. True machine AI will be highly unlikely to destroy us. On the other hand, AH will almost certainly do so, having been infected with human-like behavior.
The Beetle was a cheap, cute car to being with. Also had some awful design elements (total lack of self-adjusting anything) but it was cheap and cute. Redesign? Big and expensive, WTF? I fault designers, who think that body elements that vaguely resemble certain parts of the original is "going back to the spirit of the classic." Taillights with three vertical bars do not a Mustang make either.
The important point as I see it, is that people want a vehicle with some personality. Most cars have looked like jellybeans for decades. They're indistinguishable and all the same bland colors. What's to love?
I offer as a success story the PT Cruiser. It was basically a minivan, a hated form factor if there ever was one. However, it had STYLE and they sold like crazy. For all it's faults, the Mini has more personality than 99% of American designs, so it sells more than it deserves to.
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