Or got promoted into top management.
Posts by MD Rackham
284 publicly visible posts • joined 26 May 2007
If you suddenly can't print to your HP Printer from your Mac, you're not alone: Code security cert snafu blamed
Aut-doh!-pilot: Driver jams 65mph Tesla Model S under fire truck, walks away from crash
Re: Carshare
No passenger needed in California for all electric vehicles; those get a sticker that authorizes them to use the carpool/carshare/diamond/HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane.
As for those asking why the Tesla didn't swerve: he was on the 405--the HOV lane may have been clear enough to allow 65 MPH driving, but chances are the adjacent lanes were bumper-to-bumper stopped. "Rush hour" on that stretch of the 405 lasts 24 hours.
FCC Commissioner blasts new TV standard as a 'household tax'
What does the Moon 4bn years ago and Yahoo! towers this week have in common? Both had an awful atmosphere
Re: Fly me to the Moon
Had much more to do with the cost of the Vietnam war than the "Great Society" programs.
Nixon was the one that killed Apollo, killed the Mars follow-on, and settled on the flawed and under-funded STS development.
He also cut back many of the Great Society program while escalating the Vietnam war.
So it was politics, but as practiced by Nixon and his "southern strategy" (i.e., promoting racism).
Five ways Apple can fix the iPhone, but won't
User demanded PC be moved to move to a sunny desk – because it needed Windows
Scientists measure magnetic field around most distant galaxy yet
Surfacegate: Microsoft execs 'misled Nadella', claims report
Steve Bannon wants Facebook, Google 'regulated like utilities'
Fast-spreading CopyCat Android malware nicks pennies via pop-up ads
While USA is distracted by its President's antics, China is busy breaking another fusion record
AES-256 keys sniffed in seconds using €200 of kit a few inches away
I fought Ohm's Law and the law won: Drone crash takes out power to Silicon Valley homes
Google can't spare 113 seconds of revenue to compile data on its gender pay gap
Complicated by the fact that those juicy government contracts that Google has contractually obligates them to keep such data. And to make it available to auditors.
I (briefly) consulted for a company that thought those federal contract details were just "boilerplate" and could be ignored. When the feds were done with the audits and started assessing penalties and yanking contracts, the company was shut down as it was suddenly bankrupt. Oops.
(Of course the CEO was a libertarian asshole (but I repeat myself) who didn't think any rules should apply to him.)
Boffins gently wake the Large Hadron Collider from annual hibernation
It's Russian hackers, FBI and Wikileaks wot won it – Hillary Clinton on her devastating election loss
Re: Comey was required by Congress to inform Congress
There was no "email fiasco" except in the minds of low-information voters.
She handled email the same way as her predecessors. Sorry if you fell for the Republican con.
Really, really sorry if you fell for the Bernie con (which Clinton diplomatically didn't mention as another reason for her loss).
Western Digital relocates HQ, sheds jobs
High Court hands Lauri Love permission to appeal extradition to US
Re: Mummy has a few "connections" and has worked them to death..
The problem is not that Mummy cares enough to make the effort, but rather that her "connections" could actually make a difference.
Justice should be blind to the presence of connections, or even the presence of a doting mother.
It may not be the way the world actually works, but don't expect sympathy from me when it sometimes does.
Alabama joins anti-web-smut crusade with mandatory opt-out filters
No way this could could go wrong
Well, the obvious thing to do is report all the legislators' re-election websites to this central contact that is obligated to block sites.
And maybe I'll report my neighbor's business website. He still hasn't returned my circular saw.
Then there's the coach of the soccer team that beat my son's team last week.
Oh, I know! I'll report the site that you report sites to. They'll have to block themselves!
Nope, no way this could go wrong.
Apple squashes cert-handling bug affecting macOS and iOS
Google's stock rating downgraded as YouTube ad boycott contagion goes global
Re: Huh?
The article points out that advertising makes up most of Google's revenue, so if this boycott starts to affect ad revenue it will show up quite clearly in their bottom line revenue and profits.
Reduced revenue and profits tends to negatively affect share price. I'd say both count as "market forces."
SpaceX yoinks $96m GPS launch deal from under ULA's nose
Microsoft nicks one more Apple idea: An ad-supported OS
Uber loses court fight over London drivers' English language tests
Re: Correction:
I don't understand what makes you "cringe."
Is it your own ignorance at not being able to read those languages? Is it the thought of "those people" being able to vote? Is it the color of their skin? Is it typical American white male insecurity? Is it shame at the size of your "hands?"
Frustrated by reboot-happy Windows 10? Creators Update hopes to take away the pain
Re: Stopped using
I think it's sort of telling that Mossberg thinks that iPad apps cover the totality of what is done on computers. There is more to life than word processing/spreadsheets/games, although most "pundits" don't know that.
(Not to mention that ARM really isn't up to the task of those non-word processing/spreadsheets/games uses.)
SpaceX blasts back into the rocket trucking business
Credit where credit is due
This is the second launch since the September kaboom. The first was a launch for Iridium from Vandenberg.
It's the first from Canaveral (actually KSC this time), the first from LC 39A, and the first ISS resupply mission since then. Maybe that's what you were thinking of?
Crack in black: Matte iPhones losing paint at alarming rate, gripe fans
It's that time of the year again: Texas school district blabs staff tax documents to phishers
Re: Quite an achievement!
I just received my W-2 as a PDF. It's 45K in size.
For 250 employees that's 11 MB. Even less if it was a single PDF so all the PostScript header stuff wasn't repeated 250 times.
A bit large for an email attachment, but if the District Superintendent asks, then you do whatever it takes!
Amazon files patent for 'Death Star' flying warehouse
If you bought a dildo in Denver, the government must legally be told
Everything at Apple Watch is awesome, insists Tim Cook
Wannabe Cali governor gives up against beach-blocking billionaire VC
Facebook Fake News won it for Trump? That's a Zombie theory
Shhh! Shazam is always listening – even when it's been switched 'off'
No spin zone: Samsung recalls 3M EXPLODING washing machines
Re: Uh oh!
Start counting down. Between 6-9 months from now the main processor board will fail in some fashion, ranging from bogus indicators to complete (literal!) melt-down of your freezer contents.
The cost of replacing the board is greater than the cost of the fridge. Samsung will not honor any warranty on it; there's always some way that it's Not Their Fault.
This is from a sample of six Samsung refrigerators from myself and friends. All six have had processor board failures. All six have been replaced by units from more reliable manufacturers.
(The ice maker usually fails around four months in.)
Accessories to crime: Facial recog defeated by wacky paper glasses
Did Apple leak a photo of its new Macbook Pro in an OS update? Our survey says: Yes
Apple to automatically cram macOS Sierra into Macs – 'cos that worked well for Windows 10
One-way Martian ticket: Pick passengers for Musk's first Mars pioneer squad
Re: Journey time
If anyone actually looked at the Musk presentation data, they'd see that the 80-day transit time is the "best case" scenario with one particular Earth-Mars alignment. Worst case was 150 days, or nearly twice as long.
And all of that was in support of determining thrust and fuel requirements for the desired payload mass to Mars, which determines the size of the booster, not for the purposes of scheduling how long you need to board your cat for.
While I'm at it, he also didn't promise 100 passengers to Mars in 2022. The 2022 date is for a completely different mission to Mars (Red Dragon), and he specifically stated in the Q&A that the first test flights of his "spaceship" would have many fewer than 100 people on-board. I would expect that the first flight(s) would have 0 humans on board.
Our Windows windows will be resizable, soooon, vows Microsoft
Re: Our Windows windows will be resizable, soooon, vows Microsoft
Obligatory pedant comment pointing out that neither Smalltalk on the Alto nor Star Office featured overlapping windows. They were both tiled systems.
But the Apple visitors to PARC thought they'd seen overlapping windows so that's what they implemented, and did a rather clever job of it.
(Around the same time the AT&T Blit did have overlapping windows, but I've never heard any claim that anyone from Apple saw a Blit. And I no longer recall the exact timing of who released first. Needless to say the Blit didn't go very far.)
IPv4 wealth redistributed
Re: Remember an IPv6 numer? And not use DNS?
And when presented with one of those misconfigured DNS installations, you never have to look at, type in, or mentally compare an IP address?
This reminds me of calling tech support because your computer won't boot, and you're told to fill out a trouble ticket on their website. The high-level solution is best until it isn't there.
Human-readability of addresses isn't the most important issue (by a long shot), but it sure is annoying.
The dev-astating truth: What's left to develop? Send in the machines
Philando Castile death-by-cop vid mysteriously vanishes from Facebook
Re: He is the 506th person to die in a police shooting this year in the Land of the FreeTM
What difference does it make where he was headed or what he does in his spare time? He could have been headed to the local fluffy-kitten sacrifice cult annual BBQ and he still wouldn't deserve to get shot for explicitly following a cops orders.
Being a cop is not terribly dangerous compared to other jobs. Being a crab fisherman is considerably more dangerous, but we don't use that as an excuse to allow crabbers to shoot people.
Having grown up around cops I can say quite confidently that most cops are racist assholes who are incredibly insecure anytime they are not 100% in control. There are some good cops out there, but they've been bullied into just going along with the rest.
Thunder struck: Apple kills off display line
ADB a Failure?
Here I am typing on a wonderful Mac II ADB-interface mechanical-switch keyboard connected to a current round Mac Pro. Works just fine, thank you, and is the best keyboard this side of a Selectric.
I have a stack of 5 more of them in the closet just in case, but I can't kill this keyboard no matter how hard I pound on the thing.
Yes, I use an ADB-to-USB converter, but still...
Smut shaming: Anonymous fights Islamic State... with porn
SpaceX winning streak meets explosive end
Apple quietly launches next-gen encrypted file system
Re: Next-gen?
Since case-insensitive is the default setting for HFS+, what is it that you think makes it "not work (properly)"? Locale handling? Honest question.
Yes, there are issues with HFS+, mostly just showing its age. Not sure anyone is going to argue with you there. But whatever follows it is sort of by definition the "next-gen," at least for Apple.
ZFS appeared to get canceled by Apple's legal department, not because of technical issues.
Broadcom sues Sony over MPEG, wireless etc patents in PlayStation 4
Re: This is why we cant have nice things
But there is no evidence in this article that Broadcom is abusing patents via submarining or patenting the obvious. These 10 patents are well known and widely licensed and, as the article noted, were previously licensed by Sony.
It's possible that it's an oversight on Sony's part, but if Broadcom has really contacted them then an oversight could have been quickly remedied. More likely Sony is using their lawyers to try to cut a better licensing deal as part of a settlement. ("Well, you could continue this expensive patent litigation for a few more years, or we could just license the patents for 10% of what we were previously paying. Your choice.")