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17 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Nov 2011

Microsoft releases cross-platform .NET Core 1.0 at Linux event

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Re: Is Microsoft ready for LINUX ???

How old are you? 9 years old?

Parliament takes axe to 2nd EU referendum petition

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Re: Hang on

Brit living in Ireland. Signed the petition. Why not? I'm a British citizen who never imagined the Leave group would win. Looks like I'll finally be applying for that Irish passport.

By the way, my fellow British subjects, here in Ireland we are torn between (1) the prospect of being the premier majority English speaking country in the EU with all the benefits that will accrue to us because of that and (2) having firstly the sectarians wounds in the North reopened and secondly the entire EU project of fiscal and political integration put in jeopardy owing to a domino effect of anti-EU sentiment sweeping the continent.

As an outsider looking in may I give my perspective? About two weeks before the referendum I travelled to Canterbury. Anybody working class I talked to was adamant they'd vote Leave, on the university campus there was agitation to Remain. It's clear that the EU is being blamed for the growing wealth inequality in the British Isles. Here in Ireland, while there is anti-immigration sentiment from a segment of the population (which is laughable because we have far far less immigration than UK/FR/DE for instance), I think the majority of people realise we are better off in the EU and that though the Troika are bastards our current situation is mostly of our own making.

Next two things. First is that the financial transaction tax the UK blocked in the EU may now go through. Many view the UK blocking that as a total dick move by the way, and that was your own elites working against the ordinary person -- how does leaving the EU change that? Hint: It doesn't. Second is that I saw posters saying "Take Control, Vote Leave" which sounds reasonable until you realise that by leaving you actually both cede control and take control -- within the EU you have a strong voice to change things from within that you are now giving up.

Lastly. Though indeed a democratic process I agree it is simply incredible that such a monumental decision could be enacted with such a slim majority given how destabilising it could be on the North and how there wasn't a detailed plan of what would happen with the _only land border you have_ with a country that remains in the EU. I'm all for sovereignty and self-determination but you don't exist in a vacuum as much and all as it appears you'd like to think you do. :)

Fujitsu picks 64-bit ARM for Japan's monster 1,000-PFLOPS super

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Re: This is why AMD and NVidia are making ARM chips

Windows/Intel -> Wintel

Windows/ARM -> Warm (or Winarm?)

Warm, Winarm. Doesn't have the same ring to it as Wintel so I say let's resist the change with all our might.

Google DeepMind cyber-brain cracks tough AI challenge: Beating a top Go board-game player

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Whether it's AI or not is missing the point

The game of Go is a fantastic way to measure the advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence by. The rules are deceptively simple, but the board is large and the possible patterns and combinations are mind-numbing. You can learn the rules in an afternoon and then spend the rest of your days getting slowly better and better by playing and playing and playing and getting lessons and looking at pro games and reading book after book after book.

It is a truly remarkable achievement that Google's deepmind division has produced an artificial entity that once trained can beat a weak professional. I wouldn't say it is epoch-defining but it is a watershed. Go is the most difficult board game known too man. How could anyone belittle this feat?

The only worry I have is that we are creating competitive algorithms. Surely that's not in our interest? I think we should be using these algorithms to model societal phenomena so that they can aid us in producing better societies. Clearly at this point there is doubt that Humans+Algos>Humans therefore we should put them to work on solving social ills not playing games.

'We can handle politicos, OUR ISSUE IS JUDGES', shout GCHQ docs

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Black Helicopters

Mainstream Media

I have checked all major[0] print media websites and only the Daily Mirror[1] and Daily Mail[2] have reported on these latest revelations. Nothing so far in the Telegraph, Times, FT, Guardian, Independent, Daily Express, Daily Star, Evening Standard,… Couldn't actually find a search function on The Sun's website, and Dear God, my eyes. And by the by, had never heard of the Daily Record before. Anybody care to comment on what all this means?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation

[1] http://www.mirror.co.uk/search/simple.do?destinationSectionId=219&publicationName=mirror&sortString=publishdate&sortOrder=desc&sectionId=69&articleTypes=+news+opinion+advice&pageNumber=1&pageLength=5&searchString=gchq

[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?sel=site&searchPhrase=gchq

Ad-blocking super-weapon axed by maker for being TOO effective

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Re: Swings and roundabouts

Using an Android tablet? Don't use Chrome.

You can now use Ghostery, get it from the G Play, no need to root. Blocks ads nicely. I have happier Android devices now. : )

I think Ghostery uses WebView which I think Chrome uses as well so the rendering engine is top-notch. I'm open to correction. Not sure if mobile Firefox uses its own rendering engine or Android WebView.

Microsoft has developed its own Linux. Repeat. Microsoft has developed its own Linux

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G+ button

Er off-topic, El Reg...

Either your G+ button is not working or literally nobody is using it. Currently for this article we have,

Twitter: 3666

Facebook:3320

G+: 0 !!

linkedin:1009

Seriously, linkedin (why is that not capitaised?) a thousand and nine, G+ a big fat zero. Same for most (all?) articles I've checked. Question is, why do you keep it around? Observation is, I knew G+ was little used but not used at all? Wow.

Slightly on-topic, say what you like about Microsoft's past stupidity they've never really tried to do "social", or have they?

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo good to go!

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Ah all right. It has a free and open tier and a commercial tier. Good to know. I wonder then how the basic (low-precision) Galileo free and open service compares to the current free and open GPS tier?

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> Galileo is a commercially-based system and you will have to pay for access to the codes that give more accurate positioning.

Eh?

Galileo was a public-private partnership way back when but since 2007 (I believe) funding has come completely from EU (i.e. EU citizen taxes) coffers. I'd be happy to be proven wrong. I'm also led to believe that what Galileo has going for it is that it is a _civilian_ system rather than _military_ system, unlike GPS. So, being civilian and publicly financed I'm failing to see in what way Galileo is commercially-based and could charge for access to certain codes that give more accurate positioning. It was my impression also that Galileo is not tiered unlike GPS and that the single tier that Galileo provides is a good deal more accurate that the non-military tier of GPS. I know I have not provided any sources, but I thought all this information was pretty widely known?

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Go

Re: When can we use the system?

There is already a European system called European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS)[1] in place but because it uses Geo and not Leo I think the inclination is too low for all but aircraft so it hasn't seen widespread commercialisation. EGNOS improves upon GPS, the USians have a similar Geo overlay system of their own called Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS)[2].

The umbrella organisation for EGNOS and Galileo is the European Global Navigation Satellite Services (GNSS) Agency (GSA aaaargh, what's with all the acronyms?)[3] . But the main info for Galileo appears to be on the European Space Agency's (ESA) website. For instance this page[4] answers your question with, "Initial services will be made available by the end of 2016. Then as the constellation is built-up beyond that, new services will be tested and made available, with system completion scheduled for 2020."

Anyway, 10 satellites up, 20 to go. 24 will be in use, 6 backup. 2 have been going up at a time using Russian hardware recently. As of next year a modified Ariane 5 launcher will send up 4 at a time[5] which will bring the system up quicker but if something goes wrong with the launch more tech will potentially be a risk.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Geostationary_Navigation_Overlay_Service

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Augmentation_System

[3] http://www.gsa.europa.eu/

[4] http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/The_future_-_Galileo/What_is_Galileo

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_%28satellite_navigation%29#Full_Operational_Capability_.28FOC.29_satellites

Sony Xperia M4 Aqua 4G: The Android smartie that can take its drink

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128GB Micro SD cards?

I've searched.

The decent ones are a good bit more than twice the price of 64GB cards.

The more reasonably priced ones have dubious performance numbers.

64GB seems to be the sweet spot for price/size/performance ratio in the Micro SD world at the moment -- am open to corrections and pointers.

Shuttleworth delivers death blow in Umbongoland dispute

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Re: Umbongoland

I think it must run like the following:

Canonical's founder is South African and Ubuntu is a Zulu word.

South Africa is in Africa.

The Zulus are African.

You know what else is in Africa?

The Congo, that's what.

Remember that ad from the 80's?

Wow, was it that long ago?

For some kind of juice drink?

Umbongo it was called. That was from the Congo, wasn't it?

Sounds like Ubuntu too.

All bongo players are African by the way.

I know, instead of saying Canonical/Kubuntu, let's say Umbongoland.

'

I think I may have to lie down for a moment.

Let's maybe not have that third whiskey at lunchtime in future, eh chaps?

NSA gets burned by a sysadmin, decides to burn 90% of its sysadmins

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Thumb Down

Re: that machines are probably better at doing

Gee fucking thanks for spoiling the entire movie

Amount of ice in Bering Sea reaches all-time record

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Holmes

Riddle me this.

What I'd like to understand is this.

Every year the earth gets bombarded by solar radiation. Does this not in and of itself cause the earth (as a whole) to increase in temperature? Is there some mechanism whereby the earth releases energy back into space? Is there data on what the net balance is?

Also, given that the earth's climate is changing, and given that our (humans) actions do have a statistically significant impact on that change ... why is it a bad thing? Is it because weather events are going to get more extreme? Are we not going to be able to cope? Perhaps we shall.

I'm not saying that I don't believe that humans can damage the planet, I think it has been shown again and again that industry has contaminated and polluted our soil, sea and air.

What I personally am skeptical about is our ability to disrupt the entire earth's climate to such a degree that we will be adversely affected by it on an annual basis (I'm talking catastrophic global calamity here). If all we're talking about is some more severe storms, a bit hotter here, a bit colder there, some rise in sea levels then so what? We'll adapt. Why won't we adapt?

I accept the science, I don't accept the policies advocated as a result. I live in Ireland, most people here whine about climate change, yet hardly anyone backs nuclear power because it's "evil". Enough said.

Google's Schmidt strikes Carrier IQ off Xmas card list

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Black Helicopters

oh, really?

Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com on Her Clintonness on net freedom thingies.

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/09/hillary_clinton_and_internet_freedom/

Microsoft! among! suitors! hungry! for! small! bite! of! Yahoo!

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Unhappy

For the love of God please quit the ! after every word in Yahoo! articles.</eom>

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