Posts by Blank Reg

China slams President Trump's TikTok banned-or-be-bought plan in the US

Except that what he is proposing is extortion, or as trump would call it, business as usual.

It's been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how's that working out for you all?

Re: Nope

I don't understand why some people have these problems, with 4 laptops and 4 desktops at home all running win 10 Pro I never have any such problems. It's been rock solid for me.

Class move, Java. Coding language slips to third place behind Python in latest popularity contest

Re: I Wonder...

I tried to use Python for an RPi project once. I needed a couple of different packages but couldn't find working versions of each that both worked on that same version of Python. After wasting half a day just trying to find functioning packages I switched to Java and got it working in under an hour.

Apple was the only Fortune 50 company to foresee COVID-19 pandemic risk and properly insure against it – Forrester

Re: Things we can prevent and things we can't

The problem is that most governments don't like spending money on things that don't make them look good. Spending money to prepare for a pandemic that doesn't happen looks like a waste of money. Or worse, spending money preparing for a pandemic that happens while the next government is in office only helps make them look good.

You're testing them wrong: Whiteboard coding interviews are 'anti-women psychological stress examinations'

I hadn't even heard of fizzbuzz until a few years ago. I can't see how anyone could fail and still claim to be a programmer. just for fun I sat down and wrote the worst possible solutions I could come up with.

Pandemic proves just the tonic for PC sales as shipments shoot upwards

Re: "restocking their supplies back to near-normal levels"

Except that this still means trouble for the industry. This industry was built for growth, and that growth is all but gone, apart from temporary anomalies. Things will correct themselves, there will be more layoffs and a few more players may drop out, leaving even fewer choices for buyers.

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

Re: PSA

Well then at least Putin will have got his money's worth

Macs, iPhones, iPads to get encrypted DNS – how'd you like them Apples?

"late to the party" should be Apple's corporate slogan.

Lockdown team building: Actualise the potentiality of your workforce... through the power of video games

128vs128

Too bad MAG isn't around anymore. You could play 8 to a squad, 4 squads to a platoon and 4 platoons to a company for up to 128 players per team. So you can have your team setup to mimic your company hierarchy and play one group against another. IT vs HR and the bean counters?

After 84 years, Japan's Olympus shutters its camera biz, flogs it to private equity – smartphones are just too good

Re: Nah

I expect it will be Canon and Sony that are left standing. though Nikon will likely be the last of the rest to go.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... but not your H-1B geeks, L-1 staffers nor J-1 students

Re: Why would the President help big tech?

"conservatives ̶p̶o̶i̶n̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶v̶i̶e̶w̶ lies get censored/demonetized"

FTFY

If they would stop lying all the time then maybe they wouldn't get censored.

Most of the big tech companies are growing massively in Canada, because there is plenty of tech talent available.

Canada is the most highly educated country in the world, and the tech companies have finally realized that. I had little trouble finding a new job right in the middle of the pandemic, in fact I had more interviews during the pandemic than before it started, and I'm still getting calls and emails from recruiters.

Re: H-1B visas [ ... ]

And I'd bet the number of fines levied as pretty close to zero. Politicians love to complain and find someone else to blame for your problems, but don't actually want to do anything about it.

It's the same with the undocumented worker problem. If companies were levied heavy fines for hiring illegal immigrants, then few companies would do so, and so few would bother to enter the country illegally since there would be no jobs when they got there.

But this will never happen because too many big donors rely on such cheap labour to maximize their profits.

Re: H-1B visas [ ... ]

One solution is to set the minimum salary for an H1B position such that you won't really save much over hiring someone local.

Belief in 5G conspiracy theories goes hand-in-hand with small explosions of rage, paranoia and violence, researchers claim

Re: So basically ...

So you're telling me that movies like "The Day After Tomorrow", "Ice", "Sharknado" etc. aren't documentaries based on real science?

A memo from the distant future... June 2022: The boss decides working from home isn't the new normal after all

Re: New Normal?

sure it's not typical, but it's not uncommon. I haven't had a manager in the same country as me for over 2 decades, and I've worked from home for most of that time.

The incumbent President of the United States of America ran now-banned Facebook ads loaded with Nazi references

Re: They actually have a plan...

This wouldn't surprise me, The few smart individuals left in the Republican party are likely aware that another 4 years of trump's complete incompetence could result in the Republicans being shut out for a generation once the full extent of the damage becomes apparent to even the dimmest trump supporter.

Splunk to junk masters and slaves once a committee figures out replacements

Re: Where will this end....

This is outside of computing, but there have been a number of calls recently to rename streets, towns, counties etc. that happen to be named after some long dead racist. If the person in question was well known for their racism and despicable racists acts then I could see the point. But when no one other than historians even know who this person was then the name has no racist meaning in today's world.

Machine learning helps geoboffins spot huge beds of hot rocks 1,000km across deep below Earth's surface

Re: My guess is..

Maybe if this were any other year, in 2020 it's probably Godzilla.

Trump's Make Space Great Again video pulled after former 'naut says: Nope

Re: Nuts

"That implies he was ever on or owned his own trolly to start with"

Well he may not own the trolley, but he may have manged to con someone into thinking that putting his name on the trolley would drive up business. But that doesn't stop him from claiming to own the trolley, at least until the trolley runs into financial trounle, then he will claim he had nothing to do with it, never even heard of the trolley. Doesn't even know what is a trolley.

Re: 450 cities protesting racism

"Probably intelligent people fleeing British oppressiveness."

That's may be what Americans are taught in school, but in fact most were relgious zealots, and they're still paying the price for that today.

Re: 450 cities protesting racism

If he tries something like this then he'll end up like so many other dictators have done, strung up by his own people.

Amazon declined to sell a book so Elon Musk called for it to be broken up

Or did it? There are now reports that many athletes attending the Military World games in Wuhan back in October had symptons similar to covid-19. It's possible that it was brought to Wuhan rather than originating there. Though it was certainly spread from there as all these athletes came from around the world and then went back home to spread those nasty critters to dozens of countries.

Re: Amazon is a shady bookstore

It's an even more slippery slope if you can force retailers to carry products that they don't want to sell.

In the USA over the last few years a few big retailers have stopped selling guns, or at least reduced the amount of retail space available for firearms. If there was any legal way to make them continue selling guns then the NRA would have been all over them. Let's not give them an opening, there is enough stupidity going on over there as it is.

Trump issues toothless exec order to show donors, fans he's doing something about those Twitter twerps

Re: Trumpetsters Trumpet Drumpfs Lumps

I suspect that every desk in the white house has a drawer fully stocked with booze just to help them make it through the day.

Twitter ticks off Trump with new 'Get the facts' alert on pair of fact-challenged tweets

Re: Rootin' Tootin'

Except even Yosemite Sam knows that the first amendment doesn't apply to private corporations, unlike the orange idiot wannabe dictator

Huge if true... Trump explodes as he learns open source could erode China tech ban

Re: 1% are the 1%

"They don't realize that the people we're talking about killing, are *them"

It's not just the 1%, Fox viewers and trump supporters are disproportionally at higher risk due to them being well above the median age of the general population

Beer gut-ted: As many as '70 million pints' spoiled during coronavirus pandemic must be destroyed in Britain

Re: K'in eejets.

Anything less than 5% is light beer to me. My favorite craft beers come in at 7-9%

Re: K'in eejets.

That's true, but I rarely see anyone drinking regular Budweiser, usually it's Bud Light. Which should not be much of a surprise as the best selling beers in the USA are Bud Light and Coors Light.

Breaking virus lockdown rules, suing officials, threatening staff, raging on Twitter. Just Elon Musk things

Re: Suprise

maybe they could be cell mates

We're in a timeline where Dettol maker has to beg folks not to inject cleaning fluid into their veins. Thanks, Trump

Re: Suggestion

It's not just his elderly supporters. The idiots gathering in crowds protesting the lockdowns will be disproportionally affected, and I would bet they are mostly trumpites.

Forget tabs – the new war is commas versus spaces: Web heads urged by browser devs to embrace modern CSS

Re: WTF

Don't worry, anything that is wrong with web development will be fixed by the next flavour-of-the-month web framework.

In case you need more proof the world's gone mad: Behold, Apple's $699 Mac Pro wheels

Re: These are wheely gweat!

However they are attached, I'm sure I could design an adapter that you can 3d print and then just use the wheels off of an old office chair.

Samsung calls it a day on liquid-crystal display, says quantum dot is really hot

Re: Apple holding out

Exactly, why would they go with the more expensive tech when their flock will gladly pay the same for the cheaper stuff.

Out with the old and in with the new as Java 14 arrives, bringing with it first Project Panama enhancements

The new Records will be as close to structs as you're likely to get in Java. But it's still in preview on JDK 14

Broadcom sues Netflix for its success: You’re stopping us making a fortune from set-top boxes, moans chip designer

Re: Do Broadcom actually have any proof that Netflix are using their IP?

Even trump has occassionaly told the truth in the past few days. That's a sure sign that the end times are here.

Coronavirus pandemic latest: Trump declares 'two very big words' – national emergency – and unexpectedly ropes in Google to help in some form

Actually Gates and Zuck have both put in more than that.

US prez Donald Trump declares America closed to those flying in from Schengen zone over coronavirus woes

Re: Ratio of medical staff to total population

The ratio improves when you ignore all the Americans with little or no health insurance

Re: Well

It might just be a relief when they finally find out the root cause of their problems :)

Trying something to make it look like they are doing something, rather than doing what they should have been doing weeks ago.

Many countries are testing more people in a day than the US has tested in a month. The numbers are so embarassing that the CDC took them off their web site. When pressed in an interview the surgeon general refused to give numbers.

This all looks like an incompetent government trying to pretend the problem isn't there. If you don't test then you don't have cases to report, problem solved.

IBM's outgoing boss Rometty awarded $20m+ in 2019 for growing revenue 0.1%

Re: WTF?

You forgot the guns, can't go anywhere without your guns.

Boeing didn't run end-to-end test on Calamity Capsule, DSCOVR up and running, and NASA buys a Falcon Heavy

Yes but the politicians make much of that money back in k̶i̶c̶k̶b̶a̶c̶k̶s̶ donations.

The difference though is that when your refrigerator fails then maybe your milk will taste funny. When Boeing's products fail, people die.

Our 'solution is killing us in a number of areas' IBM said about doomed £175m Co-Op Insurance project

Re: Old Codger Talks about the "old days"

I was involved in one of these large projects, we had about 40 people from all over the company involved in writing the requirements and reviewing the vendor responses. It was between our current vendor and 3 others. In the end our current vendor's proposal was ranked dead last. We put together our recommendation and sent it up the food chain for approval. The CEO picked our current vendor.

Then 6 months later he left to become CEO of another company, the parent company of our current vendor.

Oh look, another failed megaproject

No surprise that IBM is involved, they seem to be involved in most of the failed big IT project lately. Why does anyone hire them anymore?

If it's Goodenough for me, it's Goodenough for you: Canuck utility biz goes all in on solid-state glass battery boffinry

Re: Still a problem though

Perhaps, but higher voltage also requires more/better insulation. So the weight could come down but the cable might still be huge.

Superchargers are already pushing 300amps at 480v, how much higher can we go before it's too dangerous to allow the average idiot anywhere near the charge? Maybe there will be new job openings for pump jockeys to operate these 1000amp chargers

Still a problem though

Even if this works as advertised, there still limitations as to how fast you can charge the battery. To charge an EV battery fully in just minutes would require a cable the size of a fire hose, unless someone finally comes up with a viable room temperature stable superconductor.

MWC now stands for Mighty Wallet Crusher? Smaller firms counting the cost after mobile industry event scrapped

If you think canceling MWC is problematic

Just wait and see what happens if the Olympics get canceled. There's many billions on the line for that event, and that's not even including the billions already spent building and upgrading the various venues and facilities.

I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go: Yes, Sony's Xperia 1 II has a 3.5mm headphone port

Re: Who is watching movies on their phone?

I'm still using my 7 year old Sony tablet with it's 1920x1200 screen. After all these years it still works well and holds a charge as good as ever.

One man is standing up to Donald Trump's ban on US chip tech going to Huawei. That man... is Donald Trump

Re: Demented?

People age at different rates, and dementia is not inevitable. I've known centenarians that were sharp as ever, and 60 year olds that couldn't find their shoes when they were already wearing them.