Posts by LaeMing

Creepy as hell: Facebook developers get to know you better

Just like television

in that regard.

$1,000 reward offered for stolen cancer research laptop

Having worked in IT for a top international university

I am not that amazed. Being incredibly capable in your field does not automatically bleed across to other areas. The number of conversations I had about how the university's managed (RAIDed, mirrored across two geographically separate campuses, backed up nightly to two distant off-site secure repositories) was too expensive compared to buying a USB hard drive from OfficeWorks! Keep in mind the data to be backed up could have real-world values measured in tens of thousands (usually) or even millions (not uncommon) of dollars (not to mention several years of the complainant's working life) and you will understand why the VC tended to side with IT on this matter.

Sainsbury's techie jailed for loyalty card scam

That is like saying shoplifting is a victimless crime.

In the end it is the honest customers that pay, via higher mark-ups required to cover the costs of theft.

Man nabbed nude pics from women's email accounts

Not just "the Internet"

But the part of it best known for both poor security and attracting a lot of phishers!

Not sure why ANYONE would even think of putting private things of any kind in such a place, as opposed to, say, a USB stick that lives at the back of the undies drawer when not in use.

Bogus Kama Sutra presentation opens your backdoor to hackers

Rather silly really

Even in their own documentation, MS frequently refers to "the .exe file" or "the .doc file" which must confuse a lot of people who have never turned off the default hide-extensions.

Top CEOs agree: US is down the crapper

The cooperative business model...

...is certainly more democratic than the facist-dictatorship setup of big companies. Which is why CEOs and their lackeys in govt. won't have a bar of it.

Ideally, management is selected by the workforce, and a good manager will be valued and paid well if the workforce wants to keep them. You avoid all the rorts and golden-parachutes, as a manager who is demanding rediculous pay will be replaced by someone of equal competence asking less. And workforces who make bad management-selection choices are in danger of loosing their jobs when the company goes down, so they generally will do their level best to get and keep a good balance in management.

That is the theory anyway, though shareholders in public companies stand to loose a lot of money from bad/overpriced management, but it doesn't seem to stop them keeping on instating bozos from the same overpriced tallent-less pool year-on-year. And the dumber the population gets, the easier it is to keep the entrenched system going.

yes

A lot of people seem to miss that the reason big corporations behave like short-sighted arse-holes is that they are legaily required to (the fact that most CEOs are likely also arse-holes is probably a round-peg-round-hole effect). Some tweaking of the legal climate in which public companies operate would be needed. And on that day, Satan will call the central heating people for a quote!

Problem can't be fixed because the people with the ability to fix it benefit from the problem.

Yup.

I had to outsource myself and my expensive publicly-funded education to China for several years too. In this case it was my own country who couldn't give me a job. As a school teacher. With IT specialisations including solid industry experience.

Every week the papers ran stories of the government screaming out for qualified and experienced IT teachers and every week I was down the dole office with my list of job applications I didn't get because I was 'overqualified'.

I am back home again now, but in a far better job than school-teaching, though only because I lucked onto an employer who explicitly wanted older hirees for dealing with a particular type of customer, and admits she was taking a chance with me even then (a chance that, I'm happy to say, worked out excellently for all parties).

When one oligopoly screws another

It is a lot like the banks

When the Reserve raises interest rates, the banks are 'forced' to raise theirs immediately, but when the Reserve lowers them, the banks can take months to follow suit. And then they whine in the press about how put-upon their industry is because hopelessly-bad decisions might (but probably won't) cost their managers their bonuses.

I try to preferentially shop at local stores.

And consistently fail, ending up online (though like most online shopping in Aust. at Australian online shops - so the GST is paid anyway). The problem is that the corpreal shops are not interested in stocking what I want to buy. And the numpties* they hire as staff don't know or care as long as they get their pay for standing around all day chewing their cud. I would not be surprised if that was a significant portion of the case with the market as a whole, not just price (some of the freight costs are rediculous too).

*I know from personal experience that major retailers with a CE section (like good 'ol "Hardly Normal" - not my expression, it is part of the linguistic culture here) won't hire you if you can spell 'technical' let alone know something about the products beyond what it says in the brochure.

A lot of it seems to be just retail giants whining because people are waking up to the fact they are just having crap dumped on them for a premium and are refusing to play anymore.

I should also point out that there /are/ good stores around here too. I have a shortlist. It is very short. But those stores get a lot of business from me and I get good value for money, even at a higher price, as the service and convenience they offer is worth the extra.

WikiLeaks lawyer dubs US subpoena on Twitter 'harassment'

It is a pleasant breath of fresh air

to hear of a personal-data company standing up for its users.

Man charged in bizarre EXPLODING VIBRATOR plot

Its

Terror-tastic!

Google battles Derby cops over access to Street View data

Always wondered

Can a police officer be charged with "wasting police time"? It is the public's money they are wasting in the end, so some recource for the public should be available.

Ion readies book scanner for e-book buffs

This. is. brilliant.

First truely useful new gadget (for me at least) this century! I hate risking cracking the spine to get a decent scan of (part of) a book.

Footie fans in 'cunthorpe Utd' calendar shocker

I tend to agree

and likely the person proofing the cropped photo was thinking this way too.

Then some people with nothing better to do with their lives complained.

Nvidia forges ARM chip for PCs and servers

Staggered Upgrades

Or you can start with a mostly-empty backplane and whenever you need more oomph, ADD another board, still keeping your existing ones(s), untll all slots are filled, by which the slowest board would be starting to sucum to silicon degredation, freeing up a slot for the next upgrade.

Microsoft invents touch-sensitive mouse

Gestures

Most of the gestures I use with my PC are more suited to a Kinnect-like sensor than a touch plate.

Ubisoft eases PC DRM (a little)

Piracy?

Can you really call a person's dowload a "pirate copy" if they own a legit copy and are only DLing the crack in order to actually use the product they paid for? I know they are bypassing DRM which is (swear swear) illegal in its own right, but that is not the same as 'stealing' the game without paying for it?

China announces Skype ban to protect telco revenues

Simple.

Because the world is run by evil corporations.

Fun exercise: do a line-by-line comparison between the way a public company is structured and the way the Chinese Govt. is. It is an eye-opener for sure.

Christmas shoppers hit by BT fire

easy!

They got tired of their managers and accountants getting 'locked in' when the system went off.

English Defence League membership list stolen

Security LEAK?

Does the use of the word "leak" here mean the information was outed by an insider. That is what a leak is, as opposed to a "breach" from the outside.

Or is "leak' the new "terrorism", a word destined to be overused inappropriately until it has largely lost all its real meaning?

IBM super cleared for trivia showdown with humanity

The problem is...

...Jeopard is all about working out the QUESTION!

And we all know what happens if the great question and the coresponding answer are known at the same time!

MEGA DINO-WHALE from 'Valley of the Whales' exhibited

Whaaaaaaa!

There is [sic] CONTRAVERSY over whether it is mammal or saurian! This PROVES evolution is a LIE!

(do I really neet the joke icon?)

David Attenborough dino doc shows limits of 3D TV

While I do feel it is, in many applications, a gimmick...

...I am rather reluctant to join H. M. Warner of Warner Brothers in 1927 with his "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" statement regarding the gimmick of /that/ era!

I imagine the difference you were seeing...

...was 'natural' vs 'contrived' stereoscopics, with the former being where the long-term appeal might be.

Yes, at best what we have here is 2.5D

Though I'd be more inclined to call 2.2D.

WikiLeaks urged to stop hosting on Russian blackhat ISP

We call sheep stupid

after centuries of selectively breeding them for their behaviour. And lock pigs (naturally fairly clean animals) in a stinking pen of soiled mud and then point and call them dirty, so why not force data-providers we don't like to ISPs of dubious reputation and then point it out? It is just human nature!

Man caught w*nking over Alan Sugar's autobiography

What do you call a large crowd of people having a lively argument?

A mass-debate.

Public Libraries attract wackos like a light attracts moths

My sister works in one and while most of them are simply eccentric, at least once a month one that is dangerous enough to staff and customers to need police intervention will be in there.

Chinese official gets suspended death sentence over anti-virus scam

Very easy to make snide comments about corruption in China

even for me. Having lived there for several years, it is rather apparent. But also apparent is the moderate number of people on the inside genuinely intent on fighting it. I'd recommend people look in their own backyard a bit: my backyard of local politics in this part of Australia consists of more local councils run by auditors than councilors after the councilors were sacked for corruption (in one region some time back, when it came time to vote in a new council, the people protested they preferred the auditor to stay rather than them have to choose amongst the dross of small-time political wanna-bees on offer. Sadly, the auditor was not interested in breaking the law, even by popular demand).

Governments stonewall interwebs porn domain

Arrrr.

We be wantin them barrels of rum on tha XXX domain.

Default judgement FAIL: ACS:Law muffs up in court

shits and giggles

I'd recommend a nitrous oxide based laxative for that!

Flash is not that reliable

I'd also like to know...

...if it was SLC or MLC - I have never thought the latter was a good idea for reliability. Cheap nasty consumer-grade tech. Ich!

Primary school miss flashes porn vid at kiddies

horrified youngsters

As a former primary teacher, I am very doubtful that kids of that age would be "horrified" or any where close. They are not mentally developed enough in the area of indoctrination to social norms to have such a sense of moral outrage over something like this (unless they were overly concerned at the girls/boys germs issue). I imagine they were quite surprised and rather curious, not to mention giggly.

Kids of that age can get horrified over things like violence, social injustice and other such 'real' issues, but a bit of skin, no way.

Dutch police arrest 16-year-old WikiLeaks avenger

I am having no trouble boycotting them for spendmas

But I have been boycotting that particular 'celebration' for years. I buy bigger birthday pressies for everyone instead, which spreads out the spend nicely and avoids the need to plonk money down on some crap no-one would want just because I /have/ to get /something/. Noticable mental health benefits in additional to the financial ones.

....

I wonder if it is possible to DDOS the world's prison systems with a huge influx of inmates. It will cost the tax-payer dearly, I imagine.

Why is Google's new Nexus S like no other smartphone?

I imagine...

...you are supposed to use the cloud for bulk storage.

At least until it rains.

Apache and Google airbrushed from Oracle's Java victory

Who?

Hmmm. Google - sounds a bit like goggle. Possibly some sort of web tool thingy for finding stuff?

As for this 'patchy' thing, no idea.

Financial vice tightens on Wikileaks, hacktivistas retaliate

Damn!

My last replied-paid envelope from MC trying to sell me debt went out in the recycle collection yesterday morning. But there will be more, and if future I will be posting them all back. Empty.

The only downside is that this puts money into the hands of those parcel-mangling numpties at Australia Post. Though I guess supporting incompetence is better than supporting malice.

Microsoft unveils 'do not track' option for IE9

Don't track me man.

Don't track... Zzzzztt.

Gov decides not to have scientific advice on drugs any more

That is rather unfair.

Most 8yos could run rings around most MPs for IT knowledge.

They tend to be better behaved too, much of the time.

Anonymous attacks PayPal in 'Operation Avenge Assange'

So who

will censor the censors of the censors? And who will censor them in turn.

Or is it more an ouroboros thing?

CNN flashes gay todger over interwebs

It's like Larson's jellyfish

"Only they can tell"

Paris adds: "That's hawt!"

Chinese hackers 'slurped 50 MB of US gov email'

It was meant to be spying on firewall technology,

but something got mis-translated!

Feds arrest man who juiced Google's 'just be evil' search

At the very least...

...his fellow inmates can repeatedly step on his glasses!

Ellison: Sparc T4 due next year

YES!

A single-socket mini-ITX reference/demo board would do me nicely.

Though dual-socket even better - I like the idea of being able to use un-matched CPUs - I could do tandem upgrades across two years, one in even years, the other in odd years!

Popular sites caught sniffing user browser history

Re: Tell me - how well do you trust a porn site

Why would a (legal) porn site be any more or less trustworthy than any other (legal) site? Because porn is 'icky' in the view of some? Because only 'bad' people would run a site dealing with such content? (Maybe this is true - my experience of such things isn't exactly pervasive).

Sir or Ma'am! You go too far.

"The energy and money invested in snooping would be far better spent making sure your commerce website is delivering the information the potential customer wants to see, in a convenient fashion."

E-Comerce sites that help you buy the things you want?! What malakary is this!

I like a nice short history

I compromise between privacy and convenience (I do sometimes need to backtrack) by setting my history quite short (usually 8 entries). I am a real cookie-nazi too: cookies are for MY conveinence, not the site's!

Firefox: freedom's just another word for 'kerching!'

My brain's addblock

My brain has blanked advertising as long as I can remember. I know it was doing it back in my early 20's as my workplace got in two printed trade journals which were 100% adds (basically suppliers advertising their latest offerings). I had huge trouble even reading these! It took conscious effort to see anything on the page (obviously I was SEEING the ads, but my mind rebelled against registering them in any way other than as squiggly lines).

On the down side, I can't casually watch a TV weather report due to the same effect. Unless I glue my concentration to the screen, I get to the end with three minutes of conscious experience missing! :-/

WikiLeaks dubs Amazon 'The Cowardly Liar'

Hmmm.

Trying to work out if your comment was referring to the U.S. government or the Wikileaks guy? May be you are being very clever and referring to both at once!