* Posts by mrobaer

109 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Mar 2010

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I can 'proceed without you', judge tells Julian Assange after courtroom outburst

mrobaer

A little more than a name change occurred here. I suppose it's normal to wish Caitlyn Jenner a Happy Father's day as well. To each there own, and that should also include my opinion, whether agreeable or not.

Additionally, there was the obvious troll icon attached.

mrobaer
Trollface

To be fair, Chelsea didn't serve in the Army, Bradley did.

mrobaer

Re: No fair trial in the US

Thankfully, in our system a judge cannot overrule a jury's innocent verdict, which as you mentioned might very well benefit Mr. Assange.

mrobaer

Re: Blackmailed

If you're going to do illegal things while being a parent, it is you and you alone who are putting your child at risk, especially when your adversary is known to play hardball.

Northrop Grumman wins $13.3bn contract with US Air Force to kick off Minuteman III ICBM replacement

mrobaer

Re: Why do we need enemies to function?

It's probably easier than convincing the entire world to cooperate with each other. That doesn't mean it's right, or that we should not be prepared to defend ourselves, friends, and apparently... our interests.

US senators: WikiLeaks 'likely knew it was assisting Russian intelligence influence effort' in 2016 Dem email leak

mrobaer

Re: Almost like there's an election...

Right. You can admit guilt to a federal crime and be pardoned for it, without being charged or convicted.

Shocking no one, not enough foreigners applied for H-1B visas this year so US govt ran a second lottery

mrobaer

I don't imagine it would. The cost of living there is through the roof compared to where I live. Most of the people around here weren't collecting $600 a week on unemployment, so that $600 extra more than doubled their benefit. Believe it or not, if you were bringing $600 home after taxes here, every week, you would not be struggling to live comfortably (provided you were not in debt up to your eyeballs).

mrobaer

Me? Cult45? I did not vote for Mr. Trump. I work in a skilled labor position and make a very livable wage.

mrobaer

There's a lot of growth in the construction industry here in the United States. Most of the fastest growing industries are construction related right now. If that many people can afford to build homes, remodel homes, etc, I would think they are doing OK in the economy.

Where I live, the cost of living is a bit below the national average. There are hundreds of unfilled jobs here that pay over the median income for this county. A huge problem lately is the 'incentive' to remain unemployed and collect additional income. There's been about 1400 cases of COVID-19* here since the onset of this pandemic, despite much of the industry here being deemed essential and having continued operations at 100%. Of course, this is Small Town, USA, population ~150,000. This country is vast and the economies can vary greatly from place to place.

* The Department of Health for this state had come under fire for reporting numbers higher than health care providers had submitted. They also had to redact/correct the number of deaths, they were inflating the numbers again. The county coroners are responsible for autopsies on all people who die of an infectious disease that is a public health risk (COVID-19, right?). However, the DoH was listing cause of death as COVID-19 and not submitting the deceased for testing. As it turns out, they had reported about 3x as many deaths from COVID-19 than actually occurred.

Someone made an AI that predicted gender from email addresses, usernames. It went about as well as expected

mrobaer

Re: Work with facts

There actually are rare disorders where you do get XX males and XY females, they fall under the DSD category you mentioned.

mrobaer

Re: facts

Your 'fact' of 1-2% of the world being biologically intersex is far from a fact. Also, why not include the percentage of that chance out of 100 men who might not be genetically/chromatically/hormonaly men? Furthermore, isn't it far more common for intersex people to be sterile/infertile? That might not be considered ordinary and functional by many people.

With the US election coming up, when better to petition regulators for a controversial way to chill online speech?

mrobaer
Unhappy

The thinkers and doers might want to try and actually serve the nation, as public servants should. The left/right wings (of the same bird) won't have any of that. Did you watch the culling of the Democratic candidates, from the party who decried, "We don't want another old white guy!", leave themselves with Joe Biden? There are silent majorities on both sides, and clearly the Democrats underestimated their own.

By the time the candidates are whittled down to each party's messiah, half the country has no interest in voting for the lesser evil. It remains a great challenge to get the non-voters involved from the beginning.

'First ever' snap emerges of something vaguely resembling our solar system 300 ly away. We'll take 10 tickets

mrobaer

Re: One of those two gas giants ...

LV-426 is in Zeta Reticuli, 39 light years away. Totally different neighborhood.

mrobaer

Re: Are those numbers right???

All the places I looked report the same numbers. It makes me wonder what else might be orbiting our sun that we're not aware of.

Black hole destroys corona

mrobaer

I believe Space and Time sort of flip-flop once you cross the event horizon, if we're to trust Roger Penrose. That's difficult for me to grasp. Outside the black hole, time seems to go on for infinity. If that flips inside the black hole, then space would go on for ... nearly infinity. There's plenty of room to not bunch up. I haven't slept in a long while, so feel free to disregard this as nonsense.

Twitter says hack of key staff led to celebrity, politician, biz account hijack mega-spree

mrobaer

I don't think anyone would trust our Con-Man in Chief to double their donation. A general stereotype of Republicans/Conservatives is that they do not like handouts. That's could be why they were not targeted.

Trump's bright idea of kicking out foreign students unless unis resume in-person classes stuns tech, science world

mrobaer

Re: Hmm

If you look objectively at the economy from Obama's first term until the pandemic hit, you'd see it had been steadily growing. It's the spin that makes you think one way or the other. The reality is that capitalism is fueled by greed, which doesn't care what political party you're aligned with. How many countries don't have massive wealth gaps?

Social distancing, if actually done, really would help slow the spread. The only outbreaks in the area where I live and work were in long term care facilities. We've had people self quarantine due to symptoms, but so far, we've been 100% operational at work since the beginning of this madness with no reported cases of COVID-19.

mrobaer

Re: PSA

The United States isn't a true democracy where majority rules. We're a representative democracy. I don't fault you for not realizing that, because I think over half this country thinks we're a democracy as well! If it weren't for the representative part, the population centers would decided the outcome for the rest of nation, which is quite vast.

Trump won in 2016 because many people would rather gamble with an unknown than put Hillary Clinton in the office. If he wins in 2020, it'll be for similar reasons. We don't have very good choices this election year.

As Uncle Sam flies spy drones over protest-packed cities, Homeland Security asks the public if that's a good idea

mrobaer

Domestic Terrorism Surveillance ?

I suspect the Predator drones are flying around to provide intel on some of the bad actors in this mess. There are anarchists attaching themselves to the Black Lives Matter protests. These people are inciting violence, riots, and looting. Some of it has been captured on, you guessed it, cell phone video. In several cases, the peaceful protesters have taken a stand and stopped these bad actors, exposing them before they are chased away. Kudos to them! I worry though, that the current administration, in it's private war on ANTIFA, will use this for the impending overreach that governments are known for.

Google Cloud's AI recog code 'biased' against black people – and more from ML land

mrobaer

Recurring trend?

A previous El Reg article reported similar troubles with racial profiling AI.

White House turns to Big Tech to fix coronavirus blunders while classifying previous conversations

mrobaer

Re: Prediction - America will suffer a shit storm

Not going to the hospital to get tested because you can't afford it is a bit ... silly. They'll do the tests and send you a bill. If you're too poor to pay it, more often than not, for critical things (such as this) the county/state pays for it. This is why even with a few cases of COVID-19, most states have declared an emergency of sorts, that allows more funding to become available.

The sick days thing, yeah that is a huge problem. Where I work we have to use our vacation time to cover sick leave or risk losing our job. We've brought up the 14 day quarantine with HR and they're "looking in to it." We do have unemployment benefits if your hours are reduced at work, such as a 14 day quarantine would do.

Let's look back at how my government (under Obama's care) responded to another outbreak: the 2009 swine flu. The response then was slower than the current response, and in four months there were 25,000 cases. We ended up with about 12,000 fatalities from it in a year's time. To be fare, this outbreak began much closer to home.

Most of the public has been aware of this risk from the get go. With so many gatherings, events, etc, being cancelled right now, and the months of media alarm sounding, I would say the biggest threat are the meatheads who were downplaying the seriousness of it. I see this all the time on social media, some tool claiming the seasonal flu is more dangerous, blah blah blah. Right now, the majority of Americans are not at an elevated risk for becoming exposed to this. We'll see how long that remains true.

mrobaer

Re: Testing in US is not as bad as reported?

Testing in the US is not as bad as being speculated. It's not very practical to compare what's being done here to other countries, such as South Korea. South Korea is smaller than many of the States that make up this country, and the population there is much more dense. Geographically, all the cases in my state (20 so far) are on one side of the state near a large metropolitan area. As of four hours ago, there are 219 people under investigation, 116 have tested negative, 81 are pending results, 20 presumptive positives, and 2 confirmed positive by the CDC. Our Department of Health for this state has assured us that we have enough tests for the current 'demand' and do not foresee running out of them. There have been just over 13,000 tested and we've found less than 1,300 positive results, I would speculate that testing is not falling horribly behind.

Alleged Vault 7 leaker trial finale: Want to know the CIA's password for its top-secret hacking tools? 123ABCdef

mrobaer

Re: Cell phones in prison

Often times there are prison staff complicit in smuggling in such things.

Time to patch your lightbulb? Researchers demonstrate Philips Hue exploit

mrobaer

Re: It's not just Smart bulbs that are at risk

You think that's bad. My electrical outlets are vulnerable to a DoS from people who insist on clapping.

A sprinkling of Star Wars and a dash of Jedi equals a slightly underbaked Rise Of Skywalker

mrobaer
Meh

Did I miss something important?

I fell asleep about 45 minutes into the debacle and woke up (about) 40 minutes from the ending. My pals were so enthralled by the movie they didn't notice I was snoring until a quiet scene, which is when someone woke me up. I'm sure I snored the entire time I was asleep, if what my ex-wife says about me sleeping while sitting is true.

Full disclosure: I was already physically and mentally exhausted going into this adventure.

OpenBSD bugs, Microsoft's bad update, a new Nork hacking crew, and more

mrobaer

Prisoners must serve at least 85% of their federal prison sentences here in the USA.

Gas-guzzling Americans continue to shun electric vehicles as sales fail to bother US car market

mrobaer

Re: SUVs and pickups are just a lifestyle fad.

Pickups and SUVs have certainly become novelty vehicles for many of us Americans. There are a few guys I work with who drive a pickup and have never hauled anything in the back of it! My personal favorite is the full size diesel pickup with an eight foot bed, over-sized exhaust pipes coming up through the bed, four doors, battering ram of a brush guard on the front, enough lights to distract aircraft, and dual rear wheels being driven as a daily driver.

mrobaer

Re: Electricity in the USA

There are certainly longer traveling distances here. But most people don't travel very far in vehicles. My small 25 year old pickup gets about 400 miles per tank. My 10 year old mid-sized sedan gets about 450 miles per tank. The truck has about 6 more gallons of fuel capacity. It's the go-to for hauling things or winter driving when 4x4 is required. Otherwise, I'm using the sedan.

mrobaer

Feeling safe in an SUV (in the USA)

The average mid to large size car come with as much risk as the average SUV. The compact and subcompact cars have slightly more risk. That being said, the risk SUVs impose on others is about twice as much as the mid to large size car. The pickup truck is probably the biggest concern we have on our highways. There are far more of them than there are sports cars, and the sports car is the only vehicle with more risk than the pickup.

mrobaer

Electricity in the USA

Hydro, wind, and solar make up about 15% of the net electricity we produce here in the USA. Nuclear provides more, coal even more, and natural gas the leading source. That means electric vehicles are using electricity produced mostly by fossil fuels to (re)charge their batteries. On top of that, I think we're now the top oil producing country. That leaves our fuels relatively cheap compared to the rest of the world. I'm not suggesting there is no concern for the environment. What I'm surmising is that money is the primary factor behind the resistance to electric cars, and the source of the electricity may be a major contributing factor.

Republican senators shoot down a triple whammy of proposed election security laws

mrobaer

Re: One Billion Dollars for FY2019

If you read the top portion, you'll see it was introduced in Senate (05/16/2019).

S.1989 was introduced in Senate (10/19/2017)

S.277 was introduced in Senate (02/28/2019)

Russian spacebot stranded outside the ISS as Soyuz fails to dock

mrobaer

Re: Transporter

"... doing it for an entire person has it's problems. As while every atom is an exact copy, and reaches it's destination... you may not be able to glue them back together as easily as teleporting a watch!"

Refer to Seth Brundle's fix: Teach the machine to be made crazy by the flesh.

Gonna be so cool when we finally get into space, float among the stars, work out every day, inject testosterone...

mrobaer
Thumb Up

Upvote for the effective trolling. :)

Hate your IT job? Sick of computers? Good news: An electronics-frying Sun superflare may hit 'in next 100 years'

mrobaer

Re: Valves

" I've seen all those US-based post-apocalyptic documentaries."

You've been watching the Detroit nightly news, have you?

America's anti-hacking laws are so loose, even Donald Trump Jr broke them. So, what do we do about it?

mrobaer

It's not a viable defense. It is something that would be taken into consideration in sentencing phase if it went that far, or in this case, in deciding to press charges at all.

Wannacry-slayer Marcus Hutchins pleads guilty to two counts of banking malware creation

mrobaer

Re: FBI acting on a tip-off collared Hutchins?

I don't think the tip-off was regarding his location. It probably had to do with what criminal activity he was involved with.

Humanity gazes into the abyss to get its first glimpse of a black hole

mrobaer

Re: Cross-Section?

I'd imagine the accretion disk of a black hole would form around it's equatorial plane, much like rings around a planet, and planets around a star, etc.

mrobaer

Re: Cough splutter

Isn't that what the graphic at the end of the article is?

Patch this run(DM)c Docker flaw or you be illin'... Tricky containers can root host boxes. It's like that – and that's the way it is

mrobaer

Downvoted for a RUN DMC song title. Fitting.

mrobaer
Thumb Up

It's not funny.

It's 2019, and a PNG file can pwn your Android smartphone or tablet: Patch me if you can

mrobaer

Re: Great

Mine are from Nov 2018, and indicated that the last *check* was mid December. It tells me, "The latest updates have already been installed." Gee thanks, Sprint.

Friday fun fact: If Stegosauruses had space telescopes, they wouldn't have seen any rings around Saturn

mrobaer

Oops

I came here expecting incredible discoveries regarding the vision capabilities of the Stegosauruses.

On the first day of Christmas, Microsoft gave to me... an emergency out-of-band security patch for IE

mrobaer

Re: Really?

Oddly enough, IE has more market share than Edge does.

Adobe Flash zero-day exploit... leveraging ActiveX… embedded in Office Doc... BINGO!

mrobaer
Coffee/keyboard

Re: Flash, ActiveX, Office doc embedding/scripting - should already be DISABLED

I had one pleasant sip left, and now my laptop is wearing it. Thank you!

Here are another 45,000 reasons to patch Windows systems against old NSA exploits

mrobaer
Facepalm

Re: how about

"Oh, and turn UPnP off, which has been standard advice for a decade." - The Article

Russia: We did not hack the US Democrats. But if we did, we're immune from prosecution... lmao

mrobaer
Coat

Kremlin: Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

Cosmoboffins think grav waves hold the key to sorting out the disputed Hubble Constant

mrobaer

There is no centre

Wouldn't there have to be a center in the Big Bang theory? In your analogy of the balloon, there is still the center of the balloon while it's surface is expanding.

mrobaer

The uneducated-in-this-field mind of mine wonders what is propelling the unverse from it's center, and how does it get faster in the process? Or is there something that the universe is expanding 'in to' that is drawing it away from the center, faster and faster?

Put your tin-foil hats on! Wi-Fi can be used to guesstimate number of people hidden in a room

mrobaer
WTF?

3 years ago...

Isn't this just about the same thing MIT did waaaaaaaaaay back in 2013?

http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi

And then improved on the concept a bit in 2015?

http://rfcapture.csail.mit.edu

Surprise, surprise. Here comes Big Cable to slay another rule that helps small ISPs compete

mrobaer

Companies won't compete with each other

In my area, the phone lines are owned by Sprint. They refuse to compete in the local broadband market, leaving it all to Comcast. The fastest speed they offer is 40mbit. For the same price, you can get 100mbit from Xfinity, or double the price and get 400mbit. If you're really feeling it, you can tripple the price and get 1000mbit.

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