Posts by Brian 3

Google burns few hours of profit to disappear location privacy lawsuit

These cut price settlements are a crime against humanity. The minimum price of the settlement MUST BE at least equal to the total profit of the venture involved in the wrongdoing. Otherwise it is just a cost of doing business and no fault claimed? BS. No more!

Actual real-life hoverbike makes US debut at Detroit Auto Show

If you watch the video there you will see that this isn't drivable - it's a ridable remote control hexacopter. It's piloted by a guy standing in the background.

Iceotope: No need to switch servers to swap air-cooled for liquid-cooled

So they are suggesting 1 rack of servers uses far more than 1kW of power just for the fans? So much more that the energy cost of the liquid cooling apparati are covered by what is excess of 1kW?

Totaled Tesla goes up in flames three weeks after crash

Working at a scrap yard, I'd say it's equally likely that some derp tried to "steal it's catalytic converter" and caused the fire, than it being some crash related damage. The guys that go around doing this are beyond comprehension, don't expect they are able to know it's electric or that there's nothing to steal that they could carry off.

Star loses $500,000 NFT after crooks exploit Rarible market

Given the state of power grids and fuel worldwide, it should be a crime to waste electricity on this crap!

Deere & Co won't give out software and data needed for repairs, watchdog told

Re: Is this news?

Yes, actually, you CAN go down to the automotive dealer and buy a factory scan tool and do all of the things yourself. Some stuff like making keys and reprogramming requires a subscription to retrieve encryption keys but it's all >available<, if expensive for the average toolbox.

You CANNOT buy a JD scan tool. You're not allowed to own one! They would sue you for having it! It would invalidate your service contract if you even dared to put certain parts on yourself. And they would still have to reset the tripped computer, which means you're back to a service contract or at least paying them (more, sans contract) to come out - which they won't get around to doing until you are PROPERLY screwed, harvest / farm work wise.

In a first, FTC extracts millions of dollars from online store accused of blocking bad reviews on its website

Re: Good, but

It's not a slap on the wrist, it's a small tax on highly profitable business practices. Just like the 'fine' for companies conspiring to keep wages down, the amount is so small that the behavior was HUGELY profitable. Why would other companies not try and do the same, there's so much money to be had! The fines need to be larger than the profit from the illegal behavior, for starters.

They admit no wrong when they do this, it shouldn't be allowed. They obviously knew this was going on the whole time, and there just never managed to be budget for getting the bad reviews up to speed, oh darn!

Almost there: James Webb Space Telescope frees its mirrors and prepares for insertion

SO TRASHY

I would expect that NASA at least would have the self respect to give an approximate measurement, "half a paperclip"?? Bunch of hokey jokers is what is makes them sound like. No wonder they have conversion problems, with units like these in use! What KIND of paperclip, for starters?!

Gas giant 11 times the mass of Jupiter discovered in b Centauri binary system

I think with 500 floodlights to light the place it'd be a doddle to find the christmas bulb quickly? Much harder to find it in the dark, plus how will you see which way round to put the fresh unit?

What a bunch of bricks: Crooks knock hole in toyshop wall, flee with €35k Lego haul

35000E in sets, that's 350 x 100E sets, just how big is the store to have that many sets in stock?? The picture suggests they weren't cleaned out by any means

US lawmakers give Amazon until November to prove it didn't lie to Congress

the policy prohibit the use of anonymized data, but not de-anonymized data.. so they are totaly legit! they do this in canada too

They need to be held responsible for "irregularities" regardless of whether they knew or not, they still profited from it.

Boeing 737 Max chief technical pilot charged with deceiving US aviation regulators over MCAS

Re: REasoning past B....

I'd just like to point out that bringing your own bomb in NO way lessens the chances? This is why psychiatry is such quackery.

Court of Appeal says AI software cannot be listed as patent inventor

how dare she

how dare she say only a person can have rights when clearly corporations have more rights than people!

Apple settles antitrust case with developers, but it's far from an Epic resolution to App Store monopoly concerns

Apple are paying pennies on the dollar and admitting no wrong, what a great deal for them

BOFH: Here in my car I feel safest of all. I can listen to you ... It keeps me stable for days

Re: Unlike the £1 coin...

actually one average adult can get that 20 quid note - just bounce the car on it's suspension and it will hop right up, use your shoe to tug it out as the pressure lifts. I do it with hoses and extension cords all the time, works well with most smallish cheap models

Thanks, boss. The accidental creation of a lights-out data centre – what a fun surprise

I saw someone do this with a fire suppression system in a restraunt kitchen once - right after he finished cleaning the whole place. He pulls the knob off - nothing - then proudly goes to show how the chain it's connected to needs a bit more pulling - DING DING DING - cue the glycol nozzles!!

Snakes on a Plane meets The Simpsons as airline creates ‘whacker’ to scare reptiles away from parked A380s

The real story here is Qantas calling their mechanics engineers - this will come back to bite them in the ass at performance review time when all the mechanics demand engineer pay!

Titanium carbide nanotech approach hints at hydrogen storage breakthrough

Re: It's not just the storage

Unpressurized flammable liquids do not become bombs when punctured or impacted. They are also not embrittlement time bombs waiting to go off - and a high pressure rupture would likely result in an explosion 9/10 times because hydrogen is so easy to light off. Modern steel and plastic tanks take a huge amount of abuse and don't require scheduled hydrotests that the tank would have to be completely removed from the vehicle to perform.

Downvote: why do artists deserve or need a posh paris/cornwall office rather than working from what is no doubt referred to as their "home studio" ? You are clearly from the Art Dept!

Intel accused by distributor of breaking promises, shipping subpar enterprise-friendly Falcon 8+ drones

"Available through our distributors"

Yeah, that Stampede place still has loads of 'em!

China's Chang'e 5 probe lands Moon rocks in Inner Mongolia

Re: Wait

THAT'S NO MOON!

Oculus owners told not only to get Facebook accounts, purchases will be wiped if they ever leave social network

Just further proof we Citizens should have struck first against the Corporates, before it was too late!

Disgraced cop, 55, spared prison term after admitting he abused police systems to snoop on his girlfriend's ex

Not proportionate at all!

The police have an obligation not to do these things - the punishment in this case should be the same as what a civilian who hacked into the system and did the same would face. 20 years? 30? A civilian certainly would not get mere community service. This is an outrage. Government employees and police should be faced with MUCH more severe penalties rather than the obligatory scot-free package. In the first place, part of the supposed qualification involves specifically knowing these things must not be done.

Uber allowed to continue operating in English capital after winning appeal against Transport for London

Re: I wonder whether this has anything to do ...

If only there were some way to make the judge honestly represent his reasons and not give utter bollocks in his summary? I've read a lot of these that can't pass my 8 year old's BS test.

Astroboffins reckon evidence of Martian life has probably been destroyed where liquid acid flowed on the Red Planet

He is completely full of it! Just because the acidic fluid was carbonic acid, it's no longer acidic? Who is this jumping clown?

And it's off! NASA launches nuke-powered, laser-shooting, tank Perseverance to Mars to search for signs of life

What is lightweight teflon? I'm only familiar with the ordinary kind which is considerably dense for a polymer.

MIT apologizes, permanently pulls offline huge dataset that taught AI systems to use racist, misogynistic slurs

This is what powers the analytics the police are using for image recognition?

Tesla sued over Tokyo biker's death in 'dozing driver' Autopilot crash

and it's totally their fault that this group of idiots illegally stopped on the inside lane of a motorway too!

Five-a-day energy drink habit turned chap's eyes yellow, urine dark, caused anorexia

It's the chemicals!!! It's always the chemicals, you can't trust anything that clumps together like that! I've never felt better since I started the Dark Matter Diet 2 years ago! I lost all my weight!

Boffins one step closer to solving nanoscale computer challenge

No, surely if there is to be a new spec, it must have rounded corners, no?

Confused as to WTF is happening with Apple, the FBI and a killer's iPhone? Let's fix that

I think the here is that they have a court order to tell them to make software and what they should have is a contract. The court order can be used to make someone surrender or destroy atoms but I've never heard of one to make something. That amounts to slavery.

Work on world's largest star-gazing 'scope stopped after religious protests

Re: Until I Read...

Not only that, but the US government has a long standing and absolute policy on not giving in to terrorism. So now the only possibility is to build at least two such telescopes, right?

Pimp your TV: Goggle box gadgets and gizmos

Some of these devices cost more than my van did, with a govt safety on it. Those speakers at the beginning seem like especially poor value.

And +1 on the slow TV gripe. On my generic DLED TV I have plenty of time to imagine some 80's transforming robot separation and recombination sequence going on inside.

Nano – meet her: AMD's Radeon R9 4K graphics card for non-totally bonkers gamers, people

$$

The price is all wrong here - it's obviously not that great of a cooler and it's an underclocked Fury chip. It should be cheaper as with any lesser product. It's not like it's smaller because of anything but the size of the cooler and reduced power requirements really. I mean, come on. Enough BS. Specialty form factor? How about Reduced Net Cost?

Epson: Cheap printers, expensive ink? Let's turn that upside down

The big point IMO is that the cost per page is so insignificant that there would no longer be an economic reason not to print color...

LOGITECH - TECH = 'LOGI' ... that's non-Logitech tech, is it?

Logitech also make some really good value speakers too.. I replaced a big setup with the z540 4.1 years ago, because it was good enough. Not as good as my huge old loudspeakers and big sealed sub but very close and don't take up half a room. The only problem they had was with the volume pot getting crackly but as we all know it just needs a little contact cleaner to fix that.

Space station cabbage: To boldly grow where no veg has grown before

Re: nearly 4000lbs...

Just ignorant probably... it's not so hard to remember that it's 2.2 pounds to the kilo.

Courtney Love in the crossfire! Paris turns ugly over Uber

Next up: meth dealers in Paris file a complaint with the EU that french authorities are blocking their right to do business...

ISIS command post obliterated after 'moron' jihadi snaps a selfie, says US Air Force

Billions of dollars to the NSA to archive and scan a large part of the internets, and this was found by some dudes surfing?

Virgin Galactic will get into space 'within 18 months to two years'

I expect that, by the time Virgin Galactic get a paying customer in space, it will already be cheaper to go up in Dragon.

US Air Force reveals what's inside its top-secret space plane, this time

I do believe the USAF is adopting a wait and see approach here.. Wait and see if those russian engines explode, so put a cheap/disposable payload on board.

You can't put a price on LOVE, says Apple after court's Samsung payout slash

But I thought that once this was over, then they could challenge the validity of the patents?

Tesla's battery put in the shade by current and cheaper kit

Am I the only one who has wondered if these things aren't hugely overprovisioned with cells so that a "full discharge" is in fact, more like a 70% discharge?

Strange radio telescope signals came from microwave ovens

My panasonic inverter microwave does indeed kill the wifi in the house.

Powering the Internet of Stuff – by sucking electricity from TREES

I for one...

...welcome our new Thing overlords!

NASA revisits Europa with modern image-processing software

For those who missed the live 'cast of the image processing..

ENHANCE!!!

ENHANCE!!!

ENHAAAAAANCE!!!

...There you go.

Remember that tale of a fired accountant who blamed Comcast? It's kinda true, says telco

He'll have violated the policy which says you can't threaten clients. Moral of the story is, don't threaten to call the cavalry, just quietly do so. Also, most call centers record ALL calls. The US helpdesk I worked at recorded every call and saved them indefinitely.

Calls MAY be recorded for training purposes. - Means they are always being recorded, but not always used for training! Consent is assumed because you are still on the line. Lots of call centers are set up to give every call enough hold time to get the statement, regardless of call volume. Why risk the staffer forgetting?

Forget the invisibility cloak: Boffins invent INVISIBILITY FISHNETS

I for one...

..welcome our new invisible replicator overlords!

Samsung slams Apple patent jury, wants new trial in US

Clearly judge Koh's intention was to send this thing up for appeals as quickly as possible, it would have ended up there anyways. Why bother with a good clean trial when it's all for nothing anyways.

Symantec crowdsources buzzword bingo to name product

Damn! I was all set to offer you guys my Global Intelligent Integrated Automated Critical Business IT Recovery solution at a substantial discount. Almost had the right product..