Posts by SoaG

Guardian lets UK spooks trash 'Snowden files' PCs to make them feel better

Yeah...that'll work...

I'm sure those HDDs contained the only copies in existence other than on Snowden's personal laptop. None of the data is stored a dozen different places on the internet...

Here's a hint for the cops. The only likely reasons the entire trove isn't all publicly available, are that releasing a bit at a time A) keeps Snowden in the public mind so he feels safer and B) it sells a LOT more papers. If the US feds don't work out something with Snowden before the effectiveness of that strategy inevitably wanes due to the public going SQUIRREL!, it will all be available via wikileaks/torrent/etc.

Probation officer gets TINY fine for spilling domestic violence victim's ADDRESS

Umm...no.

A) They were fired because they weren't competent in their job, not as punishment. This incident merely brought the incompetence to light.

B) Such externalities shouldn't be considered in sentencing At all.

C) Even if the judge did consider it, not harsh enough. In this case, the maximum isn't harsh enough anyway.

Knocking China with shocking phones and mocking tones

If you don't think 90% of Chinese output is crap...

...then obviously you've never been to Walmart. Or pretty much any other big retail chain for that matter. It's worth every penny to find something made elsewhere (even elsewhere in the 3rd world) and pay double or triple for it. Unfortunately that's becoming harder and harder to do.

Paypal makes man 1000x as rich as the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE

Re: Are you telling me...

Baseball is also as Canadian as apple pie. Just don't tell the yankees as they so desperately want to believe they were first to invent something. Anything really.

Run for your (private) lives! Facebook's creepy Graph Search is upon us

Context

The discussion was of adults using the service to stalk school children.

If that doesn't qualify as appropriate use of 'pervert', what do you think does?

'The Apprentice' is a load of old codswallop, says biz prof

Charlatan denigrates other charlatans, film at 11

First off, who are these people that still watch TV and why have they never heard of the internet?

Second, a business prof is the LAST person to refer to as an authority on business related matters.

Third, stopped clock, twice a day, and all that, this time he's right.

Fourth, the internet would be an exceedingly dangerous place for any that need to be told that reality shows bear no resemblance to reality. So it's probably for the best that they're still watching TV after all.

Pussy galore: Bubble-bath webcam spy outrage

Re: Ratters

The scope of this problem came to my attention a few months back:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet-the-men-who-spy-on-women-through-their-webcams

Having young daughters myself, I decided to do a little further investigation on my own to verify. While not ubiquitous, it's certainly more widespread than I expected, or Mr. Dabbs seems willing to believe. Both in terms of the number of pwned devices the trading and selling of control of same. I've already removed such software from the computer of a female acquaintance last month.

Suffice to say any integrated cameras in my home get disabled and the external ones get unplugged when not in use. A simple enough precaution, no new laws required.

When to say those three little words: 'I am quitting'

@ AC 12:11 GMT

I hope you don't have any plans of running for office with that attitude.

Report: Foreign owners blocked T-Mobile, Verizon from NSA snoops

How do you see where a black hole is?

To me the story wasn't that they served one carrier to deliver call records.

It's that they got the call records from all the other carriers without even being asked for the paperwork.

Thanks, NSA: Amazon sales of Orwell's 1984 rise 9,500%

Where it gets really weird is...

...as a divorcee now dating women* in their 30s and 40s how many are obsessed with getting tatoos and piercings and pink hair because they still think they're rebelling against...something? Kinda? Maybe?

'Youth culture' is becoming the culture.

*I'm sure there's just as many 40 year old men trying to be 14 again, but I'm not meeting them to be able to say how it's manifesting.

Re: Orwell vs Huxley

I unreservedly recommend to all Neil Postman's book Amusing Ourselves To Death. Written in the TV era but all the more relevant in the age of the internet and smart phones.

Also a letter from Huxley to his former pupil, Orwell, after the publication of 1984:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/1984-v-brave-new-world.html

Bread and circuses people, bread and circuses.

Whoever recently showed us the secret documents: Do get in touch

Re: Somewhere in the depths of Prism

"Every person who clicks on "http://regmedia.co.uk/2013/06/11/gpg_public_key.txt" is having a flag switched."

NSA ,might be a bit swamped today, I wouldn't worry about it...

http://trollthensa.com

Longer, stronger love starts online, finds 19,000-marriage study

Re: Misrepresented

Speaking of misrepresented...PoF isn't dinky, it's larger than all the other sites combined. However, there is some self-selection when using marriage as a yardstick in that sites with a fee (match/eHarmony/Lavalife) tend to be perceived as having a higher concentration of 'serious' members than free sites (PoF/OKCupid).

Sites also vary greatly depending where you're located. I gather Match is very popular and thus useful in some large metropolitan areas, but in my region w/ total population ~500k, it has less than 20 active women in my age range vs 200+ that PoF does. So not worth paying for here, but could be in NYC or London. I wouldn't be surprised if which site is best in a given area varies by age as well.

Both meeting and dating women were very different when I started again. In terms of being 2011 vs 1995 and 38 vs 22 years old. So for anyone that really wants to geek-out on the topic, I refer you to http://blog.okcupid.com where they get into all kinds of data and analysis. Some of it's Captain Obvious stuff, some of it's US-centric, most of it's interesting but unimportant, but for someone like me that was married and out of circulation for 16 years there were some real eye-openers.

BT Tower is just a relic? Wrong: It relays 18,000hrs of telly daily

Re: Yeah but....

"Yeah but who watches 18,000 hours of television a day?"

My ex-wife.

IT bloke publishes comprehensive maps of CALL CENTRE menu HELL

Re: Brilliant

"Sorry wrong department, I'll just transfer you over"

There's a reason that's so common.

Departments/3rd parties that deal with customers track a number of different stats about the calls they get. NONE of the other stats matter unless the Average Handle Time (AHT) target is being met.

I was in a place with an 8 minute target.

Overall AHT for tier 1s that made it through 3 month probation (including 2 months classroom training so only 1 on the phones)? Varied week to week from 6:45 to 7:57 minutes with transfer rate of 33%

AHT for tier 1s in 4th and final probation week on the phones? 10 minutes with transfer rate of 10%.

New class of trainees every month representing 20% of tier 1 staff total. Why so many? 90% of those that complete training not kept on because they don't meet AHT, even though the low transfer rate actually means less time on the phone for the customer.

So keep in mind it's not that they don't want to help you if they can. Doesn't matter if you're the tier 1 drone, department manager or CEO of a 3rd party call center. Beat the AHT target you're getting a bonus, blow it and you're fired.

'LulzSec leader's' victim named: tiny Oz council

Re: Yep, it does seem feasible

Quite, and looking at the map, if he's in Sydney local court, he may well have a personal connection with the town. A hacker is also more likely to make mistakes when they're emotionally invested in the target.

Or, if he did work for them, using a password or other information he knew from the job, rather than obtaining access as an outsider would have to, could also narrow the list of suspects.

Australian law has more in common with us here in Canada than US. People here have gotten house arrest for manslaughter, I wouldn't bet on him getting anywhere near the max. Such possible sentences exist as deterrents and for, a broad law such as this, for the rare infraction that would justify such a sentence (major hacks on targets causing loss of life or massive financial losses).

'Liberator': Proof that you can't make a working gun in a 3D printer

State not ATF/DHS/FBI

Nothing illegal disseminating weapon manufacturing information to his fellow yanks.

Making it available internationally however is apparently an issue that they can go after him on. Haven't verified this part myself, but I gather that even then it's not so much a violation of law within the US, but of US adhering to international treaties and him not having the requisite permit(s).

Either way, it's just an excuse to make an example out of him. If he'd got the permits and blocked IP ranges of embargoed countries, they'd have found something else. With millions of laws and regulations on the books and 100's of thousands more being added every year, everyone's probably in violation of something or other. Just most of us don't deliberately draw a great deal of public attention for the purpose of thumbing our noses.

I'm sure that's why, after all the build up, he complied with the take down order so quickly. He didn't do it because he believes the Predator is useful or necessary as a device. He did it to get the US 2nd amendment reaffirmed (or not) by their supreme court 5 or 6 years from now.

Builder-in-a-hole outrage sparks Special Projects Bureau safety probe

Dogs in IT

Two words:

Physical security,

First, the bad news: EA bags Star Wars games rights

Re: Cheers.

Offhand foot in front, and don't lock your elbow or you'll hurt your wrist.

Re: Battlefield 3/4 - Star Wars ???

You mean like this?

Also, they already did the re-skinned Battlefield thing and called it Battlefront.

Scramjet X-51 finally goes to HYPER SPEED above Pacific

Re: (... for some values of ordinary)

Yes, like diesel, and, you know, completely unlike ordinary jet fuel...

One of the world's oldest experiments crawls towards a fall

Re: Ah, the memories....

My cousin still uses AOL. Haven't talked to him in years.

Move over, Mythbusters: Was Archimedes an ancient STEVE JOBS?

Re: Punic? This war is MASSIVE

So you're just waving your E-poeni then?

Gov report: Actually, evil City traders DIDN'T cause the banking crash

Re: But surely?

"over-promoted and over-rewarded sales regardless of the sense of the sale"

Do you know of some line of business that doesn't get snookered by their own sales department?

You know how your energy bills are so much worse than they were?

Re: "There is no mainstream party [...] which offers to dismantle these crippling stealth taxes"

Conservatives have been firmly left of center since Thatcher left. The others are further enough left they can't even see the center. There is no right wing any more. Use your own judgment as to whether that's good or bad.

Heavily armed dolphins on rampage in Black Sea

Knives I can see happening...

...but pistols?

Rise Of The Machines: What will become of box-watchers, delivery drivers?

Re: They can't retrain as storage technology engineers.

I've had a few employers go out of business in recent years. In between, rather than collect unemployment, I've opted to do temp work, mostly industrial labour. Believe me, the bulk of people I've worked with doing these kinds of jobs cannot be trained for jobs that require a capacity to think, never mind work with technology.

Good people mind you, but they're operating on a whole different level that I've never seen even among those I work with in telecom who have no responsibility beyond stringing cables.

Perfect sex minx calculated from 'deep' probe of X-rated flicks

Re: the perfectly average

Tell me more about this ground beef shake of which you speak and where I might purchase one. Or are you just floating ideas for next week's episode of Epic Meal Time?

I tried to buy a satellite and all I got was this lousy $67,000

Scam

Just because a con man claims to have noble goals as he spends donations on international travel doesn't make it either plausible, or any less a criminal act of fraud. This clown belongs in prison, not plotting his next fleecing of the gullible. More than a few of whom seem to be lurking around here. If something seems to good to be true, that's because it is folks.

Yes, hundreds upon hundreds of websites CAN all be wrong

Re: Obligatory XKCD cartoon...

386 has long been one of my favourites :) For this article though I think another is a perfect fit:

http://xkcd.com/978/

New York takes 2,100 pervs offline, gets gaming support

Just a new way of enforcing existing restrictions

Typically child abusers will have stipulations in their probation/conditional release about not associating with children or where children congregate.

Not really seeing a difference between not being allowed to hang out at the jungle gym in the park vs not being allowed to hang out in Lego Universe.

Dotcom titan funds 'Mark Cuban Chair To Eliminate Stupid Patents'

Sorry youngster

Nintendo has done absolutely nothing first. They're exactly the kind of company and product that will benefit from reforms that allow people to modify and improve software. It's all they do (and do well).

Eliminate stupid parents?

That's an even bigger challenge than patent reform.

Chinese student fails job interview because of iPhone

Re: Thin end of the wedge

On the contrary, they both have exactly the same application. Selling users' information.

Google buys parcel storage service for Christmas

Bizzare idea

I live just down the road from University of Waterloo, most of my neighbors are students. The big parcel delivery companies in Canada are Canada Post, Purolator, UPS and FedEX.

Canada Post packages needing signature are left at the postal outlet in your nearest Shopper's Drug Mart for pickup until 9 weekdays and shorter hours on the weekend.

UPS bought Mailboxes Etc. a few years back, now the UPS store, and do the same thing there.

Fed Ex bought kinkos, same deal except the one near the universities may be open 24/7

Purolator is the big courier here and they have their own outlets as well as 3rd party locations at retail stores including Staples.

So since it's almost impossible to get something delivered that can't be picked up evenings and 7 days a week anyway, where did they come up with the idea and how did they con Google into thinking it was a viable business?

Annual reviews: It's high time we rid the world of this insanity

Reviewed on doing your job?

Inconceivable!

A properly designed-by-MBA review process will only look at tasks and objectives that are not part of doing your job. Thus the only way to score 4 is to do less actual work so you can do the BS special project instead. Then, the guy who picks up the slack and does your job, in turn doesn't get much done on his something-to-measure project and gets canned.

How to spot a terrible tech boss within SECONDS

Re: 5 years?

I never have, and never will, recommend hiring anyone who hasn't had at least 1 employer for 4-5 years. Even if just part-time while they were in school. Why would an employer invest in someone who's already looking for the exit before they start?

Re: Is it only a British thing

For the most part lower and middle management are crap jobs. Salaried crap jobs at that, so lots of unpaid overtime so often 25% works out the same. If they didn't pay more, nobody would ever want a promotion. I've known people given an up or out choice for the same money, and every one of them as taken the package and gone to another tech job. Can't say I blame them, it would take a pretty big chunk to tempt me, and I actually enjoy leadership roles.

Classic game 'Elite' returns … on Kickstarter

Re: @Suricou Raven

Suricou Raven caught my meaning I think. The founders of CCP (the company behind Eve) have made no secret that elite was their inspiration, right down to the logo being designed to have a resemblance.

Yes, ship control is different, but there's lots of single player flight sims, including in space. There's even another Kickstarter for one from another guy who did one of the old ones. The bandwidth and server load for such control in a real-time MMO environment would be more than a little impractical, especially on the single game universe/massive fleet battle model of Eve. I'm sure the Eve devs would have liked to include that aspect as well.

I haven't played Eve in a few years, but I know it's still growing. They're both niche games though as I said and I don't think there's market room for a 2nd Elite based MMO even if they could solve the lag. Single player definitely, so hopefully they meant that with a co-op, or small-server/LAN multiplayer, mode added on. That would likely do well.

Multiplayer game based on Elite?

I believe it's called Eve Online...

Not saying there isn't room for both, just that it's somewhat of a niche market and there needs to be a clearer differentiation.

Sacked British RIM staffers to get minimum legal payout

Re: Sacked?

Marketing types are always redundant so it would have confused things to use that word.

Unrootable: Mash these bits together to get a CLASSIFIED spyphone

Re: Mandatory add-on

Blues harp Inside?

SpaceX satellite burns up on re-entry after Falcon FAIL

Re: "Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think." – Ayn Rand

It does go into a big pot.

If an insurer takes a big loss on one line of business you think they won't recover part of that from all their other lines as well. Better a marginal increase across the board than to price just one line out of competition.

Then you also have insurers insuring each other as well. Remember when Lloyd/s almost went under in the '90s covering other companies policies on asbestos related illness and damage from Hurricane Andrew?

Gotta love the way bankers saw one industry almost collapse and decided to copy the idea and call it a CDS,,,

Japanese fanboy robbers empty shops of iPhone 5s ahead of launch

Blacklist is a waste for the most part anyway

Different when they're stolen pre-sale like these were, but over all it's a waste.

Having worked for a few cell companies over the years, here's how it works:

- Customer calls in to report the shiny new gadget they bought their teenager got stolen from the change room during gym class a week after purchase.

- Service suspended under category lost/stolen and phone added to blacklist

- Customer advised they're still on the hook for 3 years at $80/month

- Customer rages.

- Customer told they can put another phone on the contract.

- Customer pulls out their own previous phone collecting dust in a drawer to give to teenager.

- Customer calls back to activate old phone on teen's service.

- Suspension is lifted, thus removing it from blacklist because the process assumes it was lost and then found, not stolen and replaced.

- Thief sees teen w/ replacement phone next gym class and knows the stolen one is no longer hot and can now be sold/used.

Gigantic Roman bathtime-fun mosaic found under Turkish field

Re: There goes the neighbourhood

Clearly a question to be answered by the PFoJ. Or perhaps those splitters in the JPF.

Going viral 9,500 years ago: 'English descended from ancient Turkey'

Re: What we need here is a women's perspective...

Either way, it's viral so be certain to isolate the control group before getting too deep into the research.

EA kills Medal of Honour arms deal

Not possible

"Despite understanding concerns,"

Nope, 'concerns' not understandable at all. Next time just mail the complainers a big box of Raisin Bran and a coupon for some milk.

McIntyre: Climate policy crippled by pointless feel-good gestures

Confusing weather and climate?

No, he's recognizing that an individual not competent at making short term predictions about weather is probably not an individual capable of producing reliable long term predictions using far fewer known quantities, many more variables and vastly more unknown quantities and feedbacks.

Like a grade schooler struggling to add fractions will probably not give you the right answer to a calculus problem.

If he can't do the (comparatively) simple, he's got no business attempting the more complex.

Few 'Likes' for Facebook from hedge-fund moneybags

Re: made at least $7m

Right, because everyone knows that financial companies moving tens of millions in a single trade with their own in-house traders pay the same fees that we mere peasants do.

Video shows armed assault on Kim Dotcom family home

Re: Lucky...

You mean the police helicopter? The footage from which was subsequently released and, when broadcast, stamped with the TV station's logo?