Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

Working with Asperger's in tech: We're in this together

Re: Asperger's has been very good to me

>So what you're suggesting is being NT is a disability?

In my line of work, being the one in the office without a maths PhD means you are handicapped - yes !

Einstein's brain to be picked by satellites

Re: Maybe I've been out of the country too long

And not first in 1976 as the story says. Gravitational redshift was first experimentally tested in a stairway at Harvard in 1959

DC judge rips into the NSA over mass surveillance

The UK government famously prosecuted the communist party for destroying a bug.

While denying that MI5 had planted the bug or even that MI5 existed.

The prosecution's argument was that the spied upon believed that it was the government was doing the spying and so intended to destroy government property !

Buffett would take a $2bn hit on IBM shares … if he cashed in now

Re: Sell Sell Sell

So if the cloud isn't the future - BUY BUY BUY a legacy on-site mainframe maker ?

Let's get to the bottom of in-app purchases that go titsup

Re: great Article

And then you need to fire up the VPN to see if it is available on Netflix UK or Netflix USA if it isn't on Netflix Canada

Lithium-air: A battery breakthrough explained

Re: Source of Oxygen? How delicate is it? etc

>Which means it goes into the big pool of available oxygen (and other stuff) we call "the atmosphere". >And something will make use of it eventually.

May contain upto 100% post-consumer recycled Oxygen ?

NASA photo gallery: How to blow $200m of rocket in seconds

Re: Ultimate goal

How else are cats going to populate the universe unless their servants keep building rockets ?

Amazon's chomping at the Brits: UK to get AWS data center region

Re: Really handy

A hugely expensive to build and operate data center in the UK.

So huge losses reported by amazon.co.UK to the tax man, while the income from the data center is a huge profit for Amazon.co.CaymanIslands

A bubble? No way, we're in a bust, says rich VC living in alternate reality

Re: In a Bust

>I really think Facebook's actual plan is to get taken over by the US government

That's a relief - I thought Facebook's plan was to take over the US government

It's perfectly reasonable that a VC should demand 4x preference shares that guarantee their money is paid back 4x before any of the founders or employees, that made the company a success, see anything.

It's totally different from a loan shark demanding 400% interest - totally different

CPS fined £200k over theft of laptops holding 'sensitive interviews'

Re: Now if the ICO was able, as they would like, to impose a jail term for serious data losses

Wouldn't the CPS be the ones deciding if they should press criminal charges against the CPS ?

GCHQ 'smart collection' would protect MPs from spies, says NSA expert

Obviously

If GCHQ collect all the communications and keep them locked in a big safe - the terrorist won't be able to get their hands on them.

PM wheels out snoop overseer minutes before latest snoops' charter bid lands

Re: @ Richard Jones 1 - nice to see

All he needs to understand is that he was appointed by the prime minister to do what his boss says

I survived a head-on crash with driverless cars – and dummies

Re: Pavement Testing Facility - ignored?

If the contract to build the road and then the contract to maintain it went to the same company - that might affect your choice of road surface.

Chrome OS is not dead, insists Google veep in charge of Chrome OS

Re: Reading this on my Acer C720

Even better on the Samsung. How many ARM executable viruses are there ?

E-mail crypto is as usable as it ever was, say boffins

So where can I get your public key? How do I know it's really you? And what procedures do you have for securely informing me if it has been compromised?

Think Fortran, assembly language programming is boring and useless? Tell that to the NASA Voyager team

Re: Which fortran?

>Fortran-I, Fortran-II, Fortran-III, and Fortran-IV are different beasties.

At least with Fortran77 you didn't have to use roman numerals for all the calculations

UK watchdog offers 'safe harbor' advice on US data transfers

Model contracts would be great

If they were reciprocal.

Getting FDA approval is horribly long, complicated and expensive. If I could just have a model contract for doctors saying that we intend to obey the law in some other country - and that was acceptable to the FDA it would be fantastic.

The only GOOD DRONE is a DEAD DRONE. Y'hear me, scumbags?!

Re: You're too easy on French hunters, Mr Dabbs.

Hence the famous American declaration of the need to "arm the bears"

Post-pub nosh neckfiller special: The WHO bacon sarnie of death

Re: +1 only for your name, Mr. Cupid Stunts.

Even more bizarre, according to Barry Cryer who wrote the scripts, she was originally called Mary Hinge but the BBC decided that was too rude and so they changed it to cupid ...

It's worse over here in Murika. We have the "this facility contains a substance known to the state of Ca to cause cancer" warnings on our office door. Because it applies to so many things (printer toner, floor cleaner, nail varnish remover) that it's impossible not to have it.

But our anodizing plant - full of really nasty chemicals - has the same warning message.

Top cops demand access to the UK's entire web browsing history

The city of London is the best place in the world to commit a crime - that's why so many institutions have their HQ there.

Compared to the finacial regulators in New York, Frankfurt or Singapore you can be pretty sure that the City of London police will take very little interest in your activities

They would also see if somebody went to "random warez site" and it had a 1x1 pixel link to a tracker on dodgy_porn site. Except they only see a request to "dodgy_porn_site/"

VMware vs German kernel dev: Filings flung in Linux-lifting lawsuit

Re: GPL enforcement is really difficult

That's the beauty of copyright.

You have the copyright on every single line of code you write - even after it goes into the kernel.

So if you misuse it by breaking the GPL, every single author of every single line of code can sue you. In this case vmware are specifically using (allegedly) a module written by this guy

Re: Break out the popcorn

It is going to be a lot less entertaining having the case heard by a judge that understands the facts

'Profoundly stupid' Dubliner's hoax call lost Intel 6,000 hours of production

Re: Phoning it in

Because it's more effective to shut down an airport/train station/shopping center with a call rather than an actual bomb.

An actual bomb risks you getting caught or accidentally blowing up a photogenic disabled child which would look bad on the news. The official terrorists have code words registered with the police so that both sides know it's a real call.

Probably the production line wasn't shut down but continued happily on its automated way.

3000 managers didn't do any powerpoint or hold meetings for an hour - leading to $$$ in increased productivity.

Northrop wins $55bn contract for next-gen bomber – as America says bye-bye to B-52

Re: Crew

>but having the ability to crew them is a requirement for missions like nuclear strikes

We salute the brave pilots of our ICBMs

Re: B52s/B2s...

1) Airpower can suppress opposition but

The opposition comes from your own voters.

Stealth aircraft look cool and you don't get many dead pilots if you stay high enough.

2) ground forces are needed to drive them out and

Why would you want to drvie them out, good enemies are hard to find these days.

3) political will is needed to keep them out.

Commies are funny now and since we have fracking we don't even want to keep them out of countries that have oil

4) You can't indefinitely occupy a country whose inhabitants don't _want_ to be occupied and (Soviets in Afghanistan?)

That's why the Brits always split the country and let them fight each other - works for centuries.

5) you don't win hearts and minds by dropping bombs on some bystander's family

Only hearts and minds of congress matter. As long as you build the bomber in their constituency they will support you.

6) (on the other hand, doing so is one of the best recruiting tools for terrorists that exists) case in point: ISIS

ISIS mostly kill other people that we would be killing. We will get round to re-doing the terrorist league tables next year.

Cops use terror powers to lift BBC man's laptop after ISIS interview

Re: Give me liberty or...

"Give me liberty or... give me cheezeburgers" ?

Re: Enemy combatant

As does the Queen and Prince Charles for meeting Mr Adams

Re: Snowden?

They don't abuse their own laws. They do exactly what the laws were designed to do - keep journalists afraid and compliant.

I hope you aren't in the UK - that sounds like you are supporting the words of a known terrorist.

Re: So What? @Dan Paul

And in the eyes of the UK and USA government.

Re: So what?

I think it's disgusting that the state security apparatus has to go through all this pointless bureaucracy to access data from the state broadcaster.

To improve efficiency we need all depts of government to work together so all information from the state health service, state broadcaster is immediately available to the police and cabinet office.

'Govt will not pass laws to ban encryption' – Baroness Shields

Re: Great idea!!

No you just require all locks to be opened by a special master key that only The Security Administration have, and just hope that all their 100,000 employees are perfectly honest and that nobody ever loses a key

The same bill that required you to hand over your password also applied to steganography. The wording was something like "any document that contained a hidden or secret message" so if you had a copy of anything by James Joyce or pretty much any religous book in the house you were in trouble.

It's a bit tough to get 5years if you can't explain Paradise Lost

Re: Where are we getting "banning encryption" from?

"The penalty for non-disclosure might be significantly less onerous than that for any crime revealed to have been committed if the key is disclosed. "

Not that now the penalties for displeasing her majesty's intelligence services include being extraordinarily renditioned to some -istan to be tortured and then chained to a floor to freeze to death.

Safe Harbor 2.0: Judges to keep NSA spying in check – EU justice boss

Re: And??

We have top people looking into it. Who? Top people.....

Re: Hmm...

Sadly it doesn't even need to go that far.

Hey judge sign this, "it's for Murika and against tourists"

Xiaomi preps Linux laptops for the post Christmas sales rush

Re: Portent

Xiaomi phones have customer service that make Apple look crap.

If they do this right (assuming there is any market for laptops anymore) it could be nice

UK.gov launches roadmap for Quantum of Something or other

Re: oh good

It's not a question of experts predict - it's that this money comes out of physics budget and goes to which ever bandwagon is flavour of the month.

So it's nano-tech this, quantum that, cyber-thingy - most of it goes on new buildings and marketing but the studentships, post-docs and staff positions are all cut.

oh good

Because government are so much better at spotting the area of physics where the next breakthrough will come than physicists are and can so much more efficiently target resources.

That' why we have all these high temperature superconductor research centers founded, and funded, in the 80s which have produced so much

RBS promises 'safe, secure, confidential' info-sharing on Facebook at Work

e) circulating memos about covers for TPS reports

Court to Wikimedia: Your NSA spying evidence is inadmissable, so you can't prove NSA spying

Re: A lawsuit isn't the answer to every problem.

That people aren't reading or editing certain pages because of a fear that the visit will be monitored and you will go on some government list ?

If the secret police were photographing everyone entering a store and making a list of what they bought - would the store have to prove that some people had stayed away ?

Silicon Valley freeze-out: EU watchdog tells firms clock is ticking to limit data transfers

On Facebook or Linkedin and have contacts in the USA - how are you planning to manage that without copying data ?

Snowden, Schrems, safe harbor ... it's time to rethink privacy policies, says FTC commish

Safe harbour is only about commercial protection of data. If it was about protecting your data from the US government then the Eu wouldn't allow data to be processed in the UK where it will be handed over to our 5eyes partners.

It is about not having your medical records sold to an insurance company, or your banking information sold to advertisers.

Fully working U-Boat Enigma machine sells for $365,000

> But a diesel engine is a diesel engine, a valve is a valve and so on

But none of our nuts and bolts fitted, and we had to file down all the bolt heads until they fit proper spanners