Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

Daddy, are we there yet? How Mrs Gates got Bill to drive the kids to school

Surprised that either of them take their kids to school.

I live on the edge of a "good school district" in startup land.

A colleagues kids had their friends over - one of the friends announced that the nanny had crashed the Range Rover again

Internet industry freaks out over proposed unlimited price hikes on .org domain names

Re: ICONN

You can always move to .eu

Re: Protection Racket

>increasingly competitive market.

Competitive between all the competing companies to run the .com registry ?

Ok Google, please ignore this free tax filing code so we can keep on screwing America

Re: Amazing (in a bad way)

>that's not free market, that's milking the serfs

That's what serfs are for

Gather round, friends. Listen close. It's time to list the five biggest lies about 5G

Re: 700 MHz is supposedly the best

>If lower is better, why not move all the way to 60Hz?

Twitter over morse is possibly an improvement

Jocasta? Jocasta! Don't ram that trolley into the man: New tech promises an end to this scenario

So some sort of autonomous drone capable of identifying the little crotch-goblins and applying a slipper would be the solution ?

A sort of Kindergarden Terminator ?

Owner of Smuggler's Inn B&B ordered to put up a sign warning guests not to cross into Canada

Re: Friday afternoon Google Maps investigation

Since 911 there is a massive amount of survellance gear - at least near cities.

There have been a string of stories of people arrested for fetching a ball or getting a takeaway pizza - the border runs through some towns and farms.

It also got ridiculous with some US properties only accessible by road from the Canadian side - and the US banning border crossings except at official spots. US school busses were being sent across the border with sealed doors and INS agents on board to make sure that Canadian terrorists didn't sneak onboard

Ironically there is very little border marking or protection in remote areas - there is not much point in detecting someone crossing if it takes the agents 6hours to drive there to catch them

The roads are typically numbered in order (typically ave E-W and streets N-S)

What else would you call the 1st E-W road ?

Re: It's not a small border, needs more signs

It was her own fault she was deliberately walking while black

Lots of other tourists manage to walk along the beach and cross the border without being arrested

FYI: Yeah, the cops can force your finger onto a suspect's iPhone to see if it unlocks, says judge

Re: Not an item for debate

>This is permission in a specific setting, not for general policework.

Then it becomes standard wording in all warrants, then becomes standard at all arrests - then it is "a standard police procedure" at every stop and search.

Remember ow DNA samples were only being taken for murder+rape and destroyed immediately? Or all those laws that were only against terrorists

Re: Forced password entry not possible

I would like to introduce to my friends; mr tazer, mr being handcuffed to a burning radiator and mr being locked up in a cell with bubba for a romantic evening

ood new, fanbys. Apple spds up n-str McBook latop kyboad rpairs, ccrding t hs leakd mmo

Re: Stopgap at best

Why do macbooks need keyboards?

I thought they were just for holding your place in Starbucks?

President Trump sits down with Twitter boss for crunch talks: Why am I losing followers?

Hellbanning

A very useful technique for dealing with vandals/idiots/trolls on forums is for them to see their messages but for them to be invisible to everyone else.

That way the idiot thinks they have an audience but nobody has to suffer from it.

Could Twitter arrange for Trumps account to just show 10% more followers than the real top ?

They could also arrange for only him to see his Tweets

Re: Reality sets in.

He is losing followers because 250K of them were bots.

I would be tempted to follow the Trump if I was testing a bot and needed a constant supply of random messages.

Re: I have a new, great, better plan to Make something better

The reason Trump can't block followers is that he apparently makes policy on Twitter

So having a law that group X isn't allowed to see b, but applies to them would be a bit naughty.

The question - other than a bunch of black helicopters - is what stops a company (especially a privately held one) refusing a certain customer?

Visa and Mastercard suddenly stopped processing donations to wikileaks when the pentagon papers leaked, presumably after some pressure from the Pentagon. What stops Visa/Mastercard refusing to process donations for a political party ? Or stops Facebook/Twitter/Google from no longer showing messages from that party?

I am pretty sure I am allowed to pick and choose my customers, even on the basis of their politics. Given the election swinging power of silicon valley we might need some common carrier rules soon.

Re: I have a new, great, better plan to Make something better

Interesting question from the other side.

Twitter has no requirement to allow a customer, it isn't a common carrier or a media publisher.

Any candidate that twitter decides to block is not going to win the next election

There used to be a joke about waking up from a coma and hearing "President Schwarzenegger" - now that seems like a lovely dream

Double trouble for Lyft after share price drop sparks class action lawsuits claiming hype

Re: Ridesharing?

>Well the city has to pay for the roads that they drive on,

The city doesn't license truck drivers or limit the number of delivery drivers

Re: Ridesharing?

The question being why a taxi or minicab needs a license and why a city council gets to administer it ?

The city doesn't limit the number of app developers or require them to have $1M developer medalions.

We just allowed Uber, coincidentally after the mayor who received a $50K donation from the taxi union lost the election. But oddly you have to have the extra license (like the UK one that lets you drive a minibus) to drive for uber - because of safety.

Apparently a regular license is safe enough to drive your kids around, or other people's kids, for free but not safe enough to drive them for money. Ironically us old farts are allowed because we did our test years ago before all this extra lessons, written exams and tougher tests - so we are already safer.

Canadian woman fined for not holding escalator handrail finally reaches the top after 10 years

Re: The Canadian Supremes have shown a remarkable level of common sense

Quebec allowed women to vote about 20years after the rest of Canada.

Defense against the Darknet, or how to accessorize to defeat video surveillance

T-shirt with a QR code pointing to goat.cx / ISIS video / Wikileaks

Aussies, Yanks may think they're big drinkers – but Brits easily booze them under the table

Re: Taxes are the snake oil of the lefites

I would never be part of a dialectic that would have someone like me for a member

Re: Taxes are the snake oil of the lefites

This didn't say that Brits drank more, just that it was more concentrated in a smaller group. Obviously social justice requires that it is more evenly distributed.

A typical government response would be to tax it so that the elite 1% of heavy drinkers, drink less .

A capitalist response would be to lower prices to encourage the great unwashed masses to drink more.

A marxist response would be to make alcohol free so that everyone could be drunk all the time.

Google rolls out Android Easter Egg for Europe – a Microsoft antitrust-style browser, search engine choice box

Because to use most popular apps you still need to install Google services, Google Maps, Play store etc - so sending just as much business their way.

Of course my granny could compile all the apps from source and load them with adb - but she doesn't trust any computer that she can't enter the bootloader with front panel toggle switches.

Re: What if Brexit already happened?

We would be using proper mobile phones designed and built by the GPO as Corbyn intended.

(did I manage to offend all sides?)

Idiot admits destroying scores of college PCs using USB Killer gizmo, filming himself doing it

Re: Don't Blame the Victim, But

Take off and Nuke the drive from orbit, it's the only way to be sure

Re: Don't Blame the Victim, But

This is America, the stand way to destroy a computer is an amour piercing round. Very few usb ports are bullet proof (only original Thinkpads)

Re: Quantum superposition of usb orientations

Because we live in a four dimensional universe

Hey criminals, need a getaway vehicle? There's an app for that... Car share tool halts ops amid crime wave, arrests

Could be hacked

Car2go have a little electronic box on the window that originally used an RFID membership card, but now a smartphone app, to unlock - you then enter a pin inside the car and drive off. They obviously have GPS tracking because you have a map where they all are to find an empty one.

So either some jurisdictions allows you to sign up with only a stolen credit card - unlikely given you are driving a car. Or it as been hacked.

A couple of obvious ways - somebody cracked the the authentication between the car and the mothership to unlock it (or are faking the RFID card for older cars) and once inside just ripping the ignition in the traditional manner. Although you would assume that a moving car without a valid account would ring alarm bells

Or somebody has hacked the system to generate fake accounts, or simply paid off an employee to generate a few 100 fake accounts.

Re: Do they even have a clue what's wrong with this?

Here they want your driving license details and you get a separate call from the licencing authorities asking for your permission to share your details with them.

They are renting cars - they need to know you can drive, and how many tickets you have .

I've had it with these mother-fscking slaps on this mother-fscking plane: Flight fight sparks legal brouhaha over mid-air co-ords

Re: Here have a can of worms...

Could be interesting, suppose she was flying on emirates or similar and the slap happened over Saudi or Iran - would the US court be happy with her going to trial there?

Let 15 July forever be known as P-Day: When UK's smut fans started being asked for their age

Or you just have a url on your site which returns digits of pi.

since the content of your site is (finite amount of porn / infinite digits of pi) you mathematically have zero proportion of porn on your site

Brit Watchkeeper drone fell in the sea because blocked sensor made algorithms flip out

Re: Dry, hot and dusty

Or the Eurofighter one where the only practical opponent is Malaysia and it doesn't have the range to get there so he suggests inviting them to hold their war here at the factory that was re-designated an RAF base to meet a 'delivery' deadline

Re: "accusations of an MoD cover-up over the troubled multimillion-pound programme"

That they never actually built any of the drones, they just mashed a few Airfix kits together, removed the strings in MS-Paint and pocketed the money

Now the auditors are coming they have to explain where all the hardware is.

Re: @Grandpa Tom

Or even one sensor so long as you can detect when it fails.

Don't write code which performs perfectly well when the sensor outputs a normal range of values but when a millisecond later it sends you 0xFFFF and you just decide that this means the plane is currently flying upside down and so your autopilot needs to do a barrel roll in a 737.

Re: Just a thought

the response will be to add another set of meetings to sign off on another requirements doc to ensure that an appendix is issued to all airlines - with a rigorous enforcement regime to ensure it is properly filled in the back of each operation manual 3 ring binder.

Remember if it's documented it isn't a bug it's a feature.

Netlfix goes one further, it invented "chaos monkey" - an app that randomly shuts down servers, kills process, drops network connections, corrupts packets etc - just to test what would happen.

If your bit of the system doesn't degrade gracefully - you fix it.

Of course the engineering time and expense necessary to ensure that Game of Thrones isn't interrupted wouldn't be appropriate to building an aircraft

Re: What a good thing ...

Not soon enough.

Too soon would have been at one of the dozens of design, review, testing, analysis and hand off meetings when nobody asked - what if the sensor fails ?

You're not our FRAND any more, Apple tells Qualcomm: iGiant and pals lob $30bn sueball

Re: Dumb questoin.....

Because the hovercraft was full ?

Re: Dumb questoin.....

Why would you put worms in a kettle ?

Re: Dumb questoin.....

They aren't a troll, they do actually make the parts that their patents are on.

But since they own the patents that allow you to make a 4G (and probably 5G) phone, they have to license them to everyone.

The reason for the license/part cost split is usually complicated, if you buy more parts the cost/part drops but the fee doesn't, what if you use Qualcomm IP in your own chip, what if you use their modem block inside a SOC you fab somewhere else etc etc

Did someone forget to tell NTT about Brexit? Japanese telco eyes London for global HQ

Makes sense

You are a global company you put your HQ where the time zone makes sense and there are lots of cheap workers. You don't necessarily need to consider access to markets, having an HQ in the Eu wouldn't suddenly allow free access to Huawei for example.

The worse Brexit the cheaper London gets (salary, rents, currency) and the more "accommodating" the government will be. And presumably will still be safer than South Africa

Watch Toyota's huge basketball robot shoot a hoop, and read up on how you should think about AI and, erm, Jesus

Re: Southern Baptists and souls

> it comes down to whether an AI can have a soul.

What about silicon heaven - where else would all the dead toasters go ?

Re: Southern Baptist Convention, is here to help if you have any existential dread of AI

> I have an existential dread of Southern Baptists, can AI help me?

Congratulations - dread of southern baptists is the new Turing test, you've passed

Re: Southern Baptists

You shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves:. Leviticus 19:28

Of course that is in the Jewish bit - so to be taken absolutely literally when it is about gays and totally ignored if it bans your bacon cheeseburger.

US-Cert alert! Thanks to a massive bug, VPN now stands for 'Vigorously Pwned Nodes'

Or at least use OpenVPN not some magic secret sauce corporate crap

So you've 'seen' the black hole. Now for the interesting bit – how all that raw data was stored

Re: Tape

But not the very raw signal - once it has gone through the correlator and filters it gets a lot smaller.

Ironically we don't keep as much archive data as we once did because of the cost of analysis. Even poor grad students are expensive to keep

Re: The usual exaggeration

Depends how hot the orange is.

A moon temperature orange on moon temperature rock would be tricky.

A 1000 deg C infrared Orange is doable, a million degree orange you could see yourself