* Posts by C 18

182 publicly visible posts • joined 27 May 2011

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Canuck truck stuck in muck

C 18

Canuck truck stuck in muck

You wait your entire career for a story like that and to what end...?

I'd have taken the day off after writing the headline, to heck with the story...

The LSD guru, the 1980s pop-star and video games to reprogram your brain

C 18
Meh

Re: @Geoff Campbell (was: Computer games & drugs? Seriously?)

>...doubt that Jake's reality encompasses anything other than Jake.

Unfortunately it also includes at least a keyboard and an internet connection.

Boffins have constructed a new LIGHT SABRE. Their skills are complete

C 18
Facepalm

Re: Use The Force, Lukin

These aren't the droids you're Lukin for.

Chaos Computer Club: iPhone 5S finger-sniffer COMPROMISED

C 18
Thumb Down

The real world problem will not be...

...somebody breaking into your phone. And let's face it, thieves are not the people you're worried about getting into your phone. It's your close friends and those you keep even closer...

It's a privacy thing not security. Anybody who keeps really important stuff on a phone that needs to be locked down is not being very smart.

The real problem, in the real world, is the uniqueness of a fingerprint from the user's perspective. They cannot make a copy of their 'key'. They won't be using any of the other options to get into their phone, and will no doubt have lost their PUK codes etc. Then, oops, they catch their finger in a door and they have to wear a great big bandage on it for a few days until the swelling goes down. OMG! They won't be able to update FB to let everybody know how their finger is healing. They will probably not be able to get in touch with any of their contacts, because most people have their friends' numbers in their phone and nowhere else.

I agree with the sentiments expressed elsewhere about the 'normalisation' of using fingerprints to go about our daily lives. It's a Bad Thing(tm). Selling this as a 'security feature' is disingenuous. In fact, the only security people in general care about with regard to their phone is the stealing of the hardware itself I think. I'm pretty sure the majority of thieves will factory reset any phone they get, they're not interested in your personal data. If they were, they wouldn't need to steal your phone to get it...

C 18
Trollface

Re: Perspective please

Bother for a thief? No bother...wear gloves.

Put a big gate with barbed wire along the walls, gun turrets on watchtowers, crocodiles in the moat, and lift up the drawbridge but someone will still fly a swallow over the ramparts and drop a coconut on your head!

'Beat the lie detectors' trainer sentenced to 8 months in jail

C 18
FAIL

Re: Sceptical

>...even if it were, the chances of any 7 tests being accurate is less than 70%...

If it's 90 to 95% accurate for one test, surely it becomes more likely for an accurate result the more tests that are done, not less likely?

Skepticism and Probability classes were running simultaneously perhaps?

Happy Friday the 13th! It's Programmers' Day

C 18

A byte is always 8-bits

Muppet.

You might have encoding systems and protocols and other stuff that uses bits of bytes in particular ways to give n-bit coding systems, but bytes have 8bits, words have two bytes, etc, etc, etc...

Twitter announces it's going public, via Twitter

C 18

Ads, me arse

Twitter, Facebook, the internet...

IT just wants your data...

Your data is a commodity...

IT is being traded between 'other services and companies DataGatheringInc(TM) feels you may or may not be interested in, from time to time and the bits in between...'

IT's in the small print...

And your spambox...

We made the iPhones, now we want OUR 'UNPAID' WAGES – student Pegatron toilers

C 18
Joke

Re: @ Ilsa Loving

>...important phone...

Ah, that's what the 'i' is for...

Scientists demo light-controlled semiconductor

C 18
Boffin

Re: Had it been the *other* way around I could forsee at least one immediate use for this.

>...Perhaps it demonstrates something clever but I'm not sure what it is.

The best presentations in the field of research usuall end with statements like this.

Of course, the marketing department will be along shortly and make it more 'sellable', but until then we could just continue to classify this as 'interesting...'

South Carolina couple cop cuffing for shed shag

C 18
IT Angle

Re: Just to repeat

Or as people here are so fond of saying wistfully, 'everything's done with computers these days'.

'World's worst director' plans Snowden-inspired movie comedy

C 18
Joke

>...be on prescription pain meds...

Are you sure you turned on the TV?

C 18
Trollface

Must be something wrong with me...

...but I found that trailer quite amusing!

The George Bush looky-likey is particularly convincing.

I might even bother torrenting this.

Google chap reverse engineers Sinclair Scientific Calculator

C 18
Meh

Re: Sadly

Eh, but, isn't reverse engineering the damn thing cool geekery itself?

3D printed guns are for wimps. Meet NASA's 3D printed ROCKET ENGINE

C 18
Thumb Down

Re: If they can make components in space

>...pack tighter than lots of funny shaped spare parts.

You're confusing density with mass...

C 18
Meh

Re: If they can make components in space

>The weight saving comes from the fact that you only have to send up one general purpose tool...

Only if the raw material for the other tools is available at your destination, because if you need to build a tool you need the plastic and its mass doesn't change just because you change its form.

C 18
Meh

Re: Sorry this model is out of print

>We've been waiting for the future for a long time.

That's the thing about the future, it's always off in, the future...

Boffins lay bare exotic Lara Croft meteorite element ununpentium

C 18
Thumb Up

Re: I found another element

>The element of surprise.....

It's okay Chuck has your back on that joke...

Pimoroni PiGlow: Rainbow LED swirls for the Raspberry Pi

C 18
Meh

Do or do not...

...there is no why.

Top 10 Steve Ballmer quotes: '%#&@!!' and so much more

C 18
FAIL

Re: One Smart Thing

>Being in technology, I...

>...something that can run C++ code...

Given this remarkable insight into technology, I presume when you say 'being IN technology, I...' implies that you're IN the computer...

Fear the JOBZILLA! 150ft STATUE of Steve planned 'lest fanbois forget'

C 18
Childcatcher

And on another slightly less frivolous point...

Isn't Jobs, or wasn't he, reknowned for being a bit of a bully?

In fact, anecdotal evidence would suggest that he was a right c*nt of one. Shouldn't we think of the children and NOT celebrate bullying, you know... Given the stories in the meeja and all...

C 18
IT Angle

At least...

...it'll create the potential for a comical re-enactment of the toppling of Saddam's statue when the Iraqi regime was overthrownrebranded, when the United Empire of America is itself rebranded as The People's Democratic Annex of Glorious China.

Open Rights Group revives 'unavailable for legal reasons' HTTP error code plan

C 18
Headmaster

>the temperature at which books burn

Actually, if I remember correctly, 451F is the temperature required before paper will combust. It burns of course at all temperatures above that.

Books are made from materials other than paper, so while the paper might combust at 451F, and subsequently the rest of the material of the book will more than likely do so, if the fire can be maintained long enough to generate the heat required for the other material (leather for one).

It is somewhat ironic that they should use the Fahrenheit 451 reference when the story implied that the screen overruled the paper page for the dissemination of information in that society... The underlying truth of course being that the static nature of the information on a printed page (once that page is not destroyed) is less malleable than digital information.

Oh... and some people have too much time on their hands...

Netflix dares UK freetards: Watch new Breaking Bad NOW or torrent it?

C 18
Windows

Re: I hope it works

>What are they doing editing it as it is being shown?

I bet they using some new fangled technology to do it...

Back in the day we used to have to jump out of our seats and hit the pause button on the Video Cassette Recorder, jump up see, no remotely controlling, not at first. Ah then came the wired controller, wow, you could play and pause, fast wind forward and back, all from the slightly less inconvenient distance away from the VCR unit than actually having to touch it but still having to lift the rump enough to let daylight shine between it and your seat...

And we still call them the 'good' old days? Feck it, I love this 'almost like the future is here now' time and can't wait until we're able to watch TV shows BEFORE THEY'RE EVEN MADE!

Ooops...

*shuffles off back to his cave (which has a newly acquired C64 awaiting a VDU - yeah that's what we called 'em when we used 8-bit computers, and it is an 8-bit computer so it needs a VDU, okay? hmmm? gots a problem with that?! where's me stick and I'll wave it atchye!)*

US taxmen told to hush up shadowy drug squad unit laundering NSA intel

C 18
Black Helicopters

Two things in life are inevitable...

...said Mark Twain...

Death is for the individual, taxes are the death for tyrants...

The Roman Empire fell because of its taxation system, Al Capone got stuffed for tax evasion, hopefully America will fall apart due to its bungling global tax collection system it has managed to create.

The 'powers that be' in every empire don't see the law as a barrier; merely an inconvenience, a puzzle, something to make getting rich a little challenging...otherwise, where's the fun?

Xerox copier flaw changes numbers in scanned docs

C 18
Mushroom

Re: @MrDamage

>It may come as a surprise to you to learn that most people in offices have more important things to do than read photocopier manuals.

Yeah, like get that shredder repaired because somebody tried to shred something with a paper clip on it, which they wouldn't have done hadn't they had to perform a fire drill when they needed time to read the effing manual for the shredder...

We actually had a fire in our office and nobody got up to leave, because we hadn't been told that there was a drill scheduled for that day.

Office people who don't RTFM...bane...of...their...own...lives...

C 18
Joke

Re: @ Jolyon Smith - 'this is simply unacceptable'

>There's a warning in the manual, if anyone could ever bother to read it, about small fonts and compression.

Yes, you are right. It's there. In small print, of course.

What the warning says is 'Small fonts are impeccable for use in documents requiring accuracy.'

When instead it should say, and does so when printed in a larger font, 'Smalls fonts are impossible for use in documents requiring accuracy.' (The original documentation was in Japanese or some other exotic language from west of Greenwich...)

Webcam stripper strikes back at vicious 4Chan trolls after year of bullying

C 18
Thumb Up

Re: To troll in and of itself.

>...joined Christian forums...Herbie Fully Loaded was satanic.

That's some top trolling there, top trolling indeed.

T'would be perfick if it weren't for the hint of the truth lying within...

End of an era as Firefox bins 'blink' tag

C 18

Re: Funny but wrong.

>Actually the point of the thought experiment is...

Actually, actually, as usual the puny humans have it the wrong way around.

I was reminded of the following recently, cats once were worshipped as gods, they haven't forgotten this.

The cat is the one running this experiment, fooling a scientist to actually try it out. The whole 'is the cat dead and alive at the same time' thing is where the flawed perception gives us one-life players rise for confusion. See, the cat during the closed box period of the experiment is in the dual state of having lost another of its nine lives and not losing one. Once the cat has more than one to spare before the experiment (which it ensures by only ever taking part in this exercise eight times) then the true purpose of the experiment is achieved. I.e. the lifting of the cat from the box and the application of something resembling sawdust and silicon gel with an aroma of fish or chicken.

Cats over many millenia have devised many ingenious methods for being fed by their pets, which is odd considering how lethal they are as killing machines...

MS brandishes 'Katana' HTTP/2.0 server

C 18
Holmes

Re: C# runs fully compiled

The answers you seek lie within...(the questions you ask)

C 18
Flame

Re: C# runs fully compiled

>You dick.

Take that back and I might enter into reasonable discourse with you.

Otherwise you are a cunt.

C 18
IT Angle

Re: C# runs fully compiled

>When a method has been executed *once*, subsequent invocations simply run the compiled method.

And then if you modify the source, it is recompiled AT RUNTIME, which is essentially INTERPRETTING. Doesn't matter how many new names MS come up with for the multitude of layers that exist between reading the instructions and executing them on the metal.

.NET is basically a 'compiled' most of the time, 'interpretted'/'recompiled' when modified, execution model.

Kids these days...etc

I remember... having to bend paper clips to flip bits... arg!

Mystery object falls from sky, area sealed off by military: 'Weather balloon', say officials

C 18
Coat

Re: If Occam was alive today ...

Oh look!

If you take the 'fun' out of an UNidentified Flying Object...

You get an 'Identified Lying Object'...

I'll get me own goat...

C 18
Meh

Re: If Occam was alive today ...

Therefore in this case it would appear that the story is about an 'Identified Lying Object'...

Snowden picks up 'Epic 0wnage' gong in Vegas... well, not literally

C 18
Pint

>... the occasional prank.

"It should be noted that our heuristic prevents metamorphic epistemologies."

That's just fantastic...

Beer... for the guys who wrote the nmap article...

Base stations get high on helium, ride MUTANT kite-balloons at the football

C 18
Boffin

Re: Anything over 200' is liable to be shot down

>Not so nice to HAVE to put the craft into a dive after it starts disappearing into said clouds. That's between you, me and the rest of the Internet though. Keep it quiet, 'kay?

Oh, oh, oh... me, me, me!

Yes, you at the back with your hand about to fall off if you wave any harder... what?

I know what he should do... he should get one of these helikite thingys and use it as an intermediate base station for his RC aeroplane, then he can find BRITNEY or PARIS or whatever else the lads have left drifting around up there, probably an empty pizza box if the last model is anything to go by...

Terror cops swoop on couple who Googled 'backpacks' and 'pressure cooker'

C 18
Meh

Re: More ex-employer

>No one has a right to act like a moron.

Morons do.

C 18
Mushroom

Honey trap is da bomb!

Okay, so "100 times a week"..."99 times...", that's a 1% hit rate for an undisclosed bounty.

What happens, do they actually find a 'pressure cooker in a backpack'?

Like flies around ...

'errorists ain't as stoopid as we're led to believe...

Soon robo-cop will be all they're prepared to send in 100 times a week...

I bet robo-cop won't be interested in quinoa...

Icon 'cos title

You're 30 years old and your PIN is '1983'. DAMMIT, biz mobe user

C 18
Trollface

Re: As usual, the stupid "strong" alphanumeric concept.

>Yes,yes xkcd, but can't be arsed to get the link...

Hmm, it was quite easy in fact, I feel like downvoting you.

Surely xkcd doesn't have an answer for EVERYTHING?!

Dumpsters begone! App matches diners with leftovers to broke, hungry

C 18
Linux

>...Chinese Food theme...

...may be because...?

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (SPOILER ALERT)

C 18
WTF?

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (SPOILER ALERT)

<spoiler>The USA is the bad guy</spoiler>

Has anybody seen this?

I was appalled to see the stress Adrian Lamo underwent while being interviewed. It seems quite obvious to me that this guy is seriously being coerced and is living in a perpetual state of what can only be described as akin to Fr. Dougal in Fr. Ted when being shown the difference between reality and dreams...

To paraphrase one of the paraphrased quotes he ACTUALLY used to justify the shit he did...

"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of Bradley Manning..." - of course I appreciate the irony of the filmakers to include so many scenes from ST:TWOK, and that's never unpleasant to watch on the big screen...

Lamo uses many other direct quotes from movies in his speech. I really feel sorry for this guy...

Man who pulled gun during chess game surrenders to robot cop

C 18
Joke

So let's see...

...this game got very REAL...

.

.

.

23. Kn x Q4

24. Draws gun

25. Summons Robo-cop

26. Black to 'move' (black's move because of the numbers, I'm not stereotyping because he's the one in prison, well I am typing with both hands, and all fingers, so I guess...oh...look here's the end of the parenthesis...phews!)

C 18
Coffee/keyboard

>Mark it zero, Smokey.

Over the line!

That's over the line man!

Simply the best, in this humble writer's opinion...

Thumbs up!

Tablets? Check. Mobes? Check. What's next, Apple? Fondlable CARS

C 18
Meh

Re: stating there is a "sociological problem" because 'The title is too long.'

>...damn good thrashing...

Oh that simply has to be accompanied by the necessary link...

Fever pitch as Dublin tar drop fall captured by webcam

C 18
Thumb Up

Up the Dubs!

And... 'down with that sort of thing!'

Now you can be the NSA: Snoop on a Google Glass hipster with a QR code

C 18
Headmaster

Re: Bah!

>...the hoi-poloi.

That's 'hoi-poloi' not 'the hoi-poloi', the 'the' is implied...

Confirmed: Driverless cars to hit actual British roads by end of year

C 18
Meh

Re: Here's a Thought

@Some Call Me Tim: You should run for president.

C 18
Joke

Re: Motorways Only

>...it might at least reduce this particular plaque on the roads.

It's either that or a hell of a lot of flossing I suppose.

Psssst: If you wanna be rich, make the next privacy Robocop app

C 18
Facepalm

Re: Flash?

Eh, read this...

And then have a look under the hood of the thingy your o/s is running on...

And to which your webcam and microphone and ethernet or wi-fi and every other darn thing that can be classified as hardware is connected.

Who the heck knows what those circuits are doing with your bits?!

(And don't give me the whole, you need device drivers for all the devices... well, that's true, but the spooks just need the bits, they can figure out what device drivers to use later, when you've gone and blown something up for instance.)

PRISM is just the tip of the iceberg.

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