Posts by Bleu

Hillary Clinton: Stop helping terrorists, Silicon Valley – weaken your encryption

Re: "News"

Catatorised? That is a new word to me (admittedly still a learner).

To catatorise, I am too tired to try and make a lame definition.

Re: Oi! Hillary

No, she just has many of the same advisors as George II.

Trump is the most entertaining candidate, it is a little frightening in some ways, but he wrote The Art of the Deal, he keeps saying that he will be able to make deals with Russia and Iran, restore decent jobs to the USA, pays for his own campaign, sorry, I know he says stupid things at times, but from afar, he sure looks like the most interesting of a horrid bunch.

Re: Oi! Hillary

She is a liar on all sorts of levels (recall the tall tale of disembarking under active fire in former Yugoslavia, the Whitewater affair, suicides associated with that, many more, the e-mail, the Libyan 'consulate', which turns out not to have been a consulate at all).

Hilary makes Bush the second almost look a model of probity.

Bush the first almost was.

Say it along with me 'm*ff m*nch*r' for prez!

Astronomers catch first sighting of a planet's birth pangs

Re: It's happening NOW!

Energy budget?

Re: Phenomenal progress

Sure, to me, too, the techniques to observe exoplanets are almost a miracle, something I never expected to see in my life. OTOH, they are not direct observation.

I refute 'now have sufficient data to generate statistical models of the likely prevalence of habitable worlds throughout the galaxy', much evidence for violently inhospitable worlds, no statistical evidence for anything else, outside our own system, where Mars and the Moon are possibly livable underground, with the aid of advanced tech, Venus is hell, but looks nice on a clear night.

For Yugguy

Well recalling my own awakening in childhood on that point, your comment is touching.

Was the brilliant night sky visible at the time?

Probably not.

You can not see anything

from Tokyo, sometimes I count the visible stars and planets, even on a cloudless winter night, it is well short of twenty.

Re: Like Watching TV with a 13 pixel resolution

Up from me, but quibble with the bit where you connect it with creationism.

You may consider the difference between 'young Earth' and the more sane versions of creationism.

I do not have a quid on it either way, but the 'young Earth' people, whether Protestant Christian, Christian heretics, or Muslim, are clearly insane.

Most of the claims about extrasolar planets (apart from that they are vaguely observed) are so wild and poorly based, snouts in the trough indeed.

Merseyside DDoS daddy given eight months behind bars

Re: "They investigated a guy who was stupid..."

For Little Mouse.

If yr. spawn love modern police procedurals, I recommend you try 'Space Precinct' on them, much the same flavour as 2000 AD side stories, loved every episode I saw. Not too many were made, aim was the USA market, it was cancelled by, I think NBC, and zero support from Brit broadcasters. Great show.

Re: If I read the article correctly

You get an instant down from me, since your challenge demonstrates a total lack of consciousness.

Re: Modern take on an old saying.

You mistake troll for hacker.

Still, I see reports that big arseholes in Syria and Iraq now use the PS4 net to communicate.

True or disinfo., I know not.

I do not disbelieve the claims of having shut hundreds of recruitment and propaganda for murder accounts on Twitter, some on Facebook. Great stuff.

Then I see some self-appointed spokesman using his real name with journalists in the mainstream media, claiming to represent Anonymous. He should grow a brain and work out what the idea means, and be utterly rejected from now.

Re: Modern take on an old saying.

Well said, Matt, but I think eight months is excessive, *unless* he was 'wrangling' (US English expression I like) a bot net, he would not have achieved much. Others have served less time for more.

I have never participated in an 'Anonymous' campaign, but did go to Scientology's HQ here to watch 'Chanology'. Used to have 'net friends involved in the early days.

Lots of cops, *very* few protestors.

IIRC, I went into the building and had a brief chat about e-meters and Hubbard's good short fiction, of course, they tried to recruit me for a 'course'.

The demographic of 'anonymous' was mainly self-righteous teens and twenties, with a smattering of angry older men.

Reporters, always remember that it is not a monothilic org., they *did* have leaders, whoever was seen as the coolest or best troll on 4-chan boards, particularly /b, but I think those days are long gone.

Yes, GCHQ is hiring 1,900 staffers. It's not a snap decision

Re: Remind me,

So was Burgess.

Mr. Styles

How very good of you to raise that case.

Having plucked and shaved his eyebrows into neat half-circles over his eyes, it is obvious that he did not, as his sister claimed, buy the tens of thousands of pounds worth of designer dresses as 'presents'. He bought them to wear, but only at home, it seems.

He also had the encapsulation fetish, his previous landlord and landlady had to rescue him once when he tied himself down to immobility.

Still, a very strange case.

Inadequately investigated.

Big Bang left us with a perfect random number generator

Re: You are an idiot, truly speaking out of your arse.

It is a perfectly valid assumption on the spelling of her name.

I checked, it is the spelling of her married name, so mea culpa from me. Her birth name is Kroeber.

Re: but but

You are just repeating the idea Destroy All Monsters cited in the first post on this thread.

Must have quite the following on social media to get so many votes for a lame post which demonstrates that you don't bother to read before posting. However, I suppose there was not much talk of the details: don't want to spoil the books for potential readers!

I, as DAM I am quite sure also would, recommend that you read His Master's Voice by Stanislav Lem, the masterpiece on a mysterious message from SPAAACE. Seriously strong recommendation.

Also must add that using 'highly' as an all-purpose intensifying adverb is lazy, inane, and bad style.

For 'encrypted', the correct couplings are 'strongly', 'weakly', and expressions in between those.

Re: You are an idiot, truly speaking out of your arse.

So you admit to having spoken out of your arse in the first place.

'Fuckwit' was also a nice touch.

As for le Guinne's racism, it is clear in many stories, but nowhere clearer than in her screed in response to the Ghibli take on Earthsea. That made it clear to me.

You might take the time to read it at some time.

She is from the same tradition as Obama's mother, who incidentally abandoned him in her rush for further exotic sexual conquests. Funny how that is never clearly stated.

The term is 'Boasian', sure, I still like some le Guinne stories, but as I said, the fantasy ones leave me cold, although I have read quite a few. The racism really comes out in some of her SF, particularly short stories.

If you think recognising clear racism towards those of east Asian and European descent in some of le Guinne's work and writings is somehow wrong, and want to call me names for recognising the blindingly obvious, you are free to cling to your delusions.

As with your earlier comments, where you combined poor recall with a lack of reading, I doubt that you have read enough of le Guinne to have a well-based opinion.

Re: You are an idiot, truly speaking out of your arse.

For pompous git.

OK, you are not an idiot. Just not knowing or having read enough to support what you initially said.

There is an essay by Ursula le Guinn, I forget the title, in a collection, where she makes very nasty comments about PKD, but with far less reason than Lem (who had been publicly smeared by PKD).

Le Guinn wrote a novel that was a direct copy of PKD's reality disruption style Lathe of Heaven, unlike Lem's three works, The Futurological Congress, Solaris, and the one I can't recall the english title for, which were just influenced, it was a conscious copy, admitted at the time, still a good book (the mid-period PKD novel PKD never wrote).

I don't much like Le Guinn now, still like some stories, Always Coming Home was great, but she is too racist, I had a distaste since she whined about the Ghibli version of Earthsea. Now, if I re-read her older writings, I see much hatred in some. Never much liked her magic fantasy work, anyway.

How did she expect Ghibli would do Earthsea?

She sure must be receiving large royalties from it.

So, she hates east Asian people as well as people of European descent (obvious from many of her stories).

Must sleeping.

Re: You are an idiot, truly speaking out of your arse.

For pompous git.

Yes, I have read Lem's comments, or at least copious extracts therefrom. Also, everything in literature he has had published.

I have also read almost everything by PKD, even his most pulpy early novels have much of interest. The short stories are always brilliant. From mid- to late period, the novels are all amazingly good. Essays, unfinished work, also often of interest.

I look forward to reading Mary and the Giant. May be disappointed, but all of the other early non-SF ones were fascinating.

Never read a book by Lem that did not make me think, and feel like laughing or crying.

You, on the other hand, again show yourself to be utterly clueless.

If you had no idea that Dick was amphetamine driven for about thirty years, and that Lem greatly admired him as a writer, and was strongly influenced in a few of his novels, you don't have much of a clue.

Why comment if you know FA?

God, you cannot even spell Theodore 'stars shine out of my arsehole' Sturgeon's name correctly. It is only a pen name, in any case, not his birth name.

His work satisfies his own 90% crap rule. One or two were readable, also the occasional short story.

Both Lem and Dick have a near 100% hit rate, many great works.

YMMV, what the fuck does that mean, and I don't really care. Your movable meaningless vehicle?

Re: Random?

Sampled noise from a reverse-biased transistor is a much cheaper way to generate true random numbers.

This article suggests that, like too many on the Reg. staff, the writer is without a clue.

Re: You are an idiot, truly speaking out of your arse.

Indeed. Still led to some great work. Valis trilogy has some great and very moving and wondrous scenes, shifts of consciousness, betrayals, characters based on his housemates at the time (notably Kevin Jeter, whatever his real surname is, but he had a unique right to write the novels that were the sequels to Do Androids ..., given that he was a major character in Valis

.

I think 'controlled by' is too strong, he claimed to be informed and enlightened by it in his notes, but in the stories, it turns out to be a fake.

Lem's Solaris was also influenced by PKD, much more lightly than the Futurological Congress, but the same kinds of reality convulsions.

There was one other, but I forget the title in English.

The comment referred to by Re., is of course, only one, by a moron, I hate the @Loyal ... Twitter custom. The Reg is supposed to be a tech. site, can they not make the destination of replies clear without that crap?

You are an idiot, truly speaking out of your arse.

Dick and Lem had a strong mutual admiration, at one stage Lem said that Dick was the only then-working western SF writer worth reading.

Lem's The Futurological Congress, a couple of others, were clearly inspired by PKD.

Lem was disgusted by Dick's later denunciation of him as a commie agent. The last time I looked, Dick's most hateful letter on this point, inspired by a combination of real problems for him in the USA and his overconsumption of amphetamines for abt. thirty years, was pure paranoid delusion and is still on the WWW.

DAM, I am so happy that you love

Lem's His Master's Voice.

Brilliant novel, love all of his work, but to stay on-topic, that and Fiasco are wonders of speculation about just how alien alien life, thought, and existence may (or would likely) be.

Of course, both go into questions of ontology, and eschatology in the case of Fiasco, at least for the misunderstood alien life.

Space fans eye launch of Lego Saturn V

Re: Count me in!

What are you tearing up at those times?

Re: The Real Thing

but is the refitted control gear made of

LEGO bricks?

Re: Specialised Lego?

Mr. Harris, you are correct, it is stupid. Lego's rightful place is as a toy for toddlers. Except for their experiment with programmable control years ago, it remains the same.

At one of the smaller booths at CEATEC this year, they had a Meccano robot. That did impress me, although it wasn't active at the time.

What a load of crap

This legomania is really stupid, I liked the programmable motors they produced at one stage (over ten years ago), but even there, it is pretty stupid if the only point is to drive a pile of plastic bricks around.

FFS, the model can't even have a rocket to take off, pathetic, although some fanatic at some time will find a more inventive design for the bricks, inflexible though they are.

I like the comments from people making plastic model kits, my favourites were the Mitsubishi Rei-sen (better known in the west as the Zero) and the Apollo lunar landing module.

Glowing dust doughnut circles white dwarf

ちRe: The dust cloud is not completely enclosing the star

Krikkit is the region formerly known as British isles, the dust clouds are cloudy weather.

Much better book than the original Hitchhiker's, where the general plot and many details were directly stolen from Venus on the Half-Shell.

I like the way Adams's japes in the later book are also applicable to Japan.

Only difference, we never got cricket! There are only seven fields in the whole country.

This is a big mistake of the English, they did not popularise the game.

So we have the Spalding-created baseball, not as interesting, I think. I hear it is based on the earlier game, rounders.

We hate the IOC for dumping softball, how many women are playing baseball?

Re: "Astroboffins grab first image of pulverised asteroid disks"

have a pretty good idea of what they are looking for.

There is an upper layer of 'science' bureaucrats who claim the credit.

Same goes for particle physics.

Re: "Astroboffins grab first image of pulverised asteroid disks"

I agree that it is in no sense an image of a disc. More like a horseshoe.

Too tired to think about exactly what Tom 7 means by 'but they haven't', but it is supposed to be a map of mass-velocity.

However, I do know that Tom 7 is not stupid, so pls, explain what you mean by 'but they haven't'.

I will say something else they do not: in this kind of astronomy, there is a kind of 'King's or Queen's new clothes' effect.

Many of the engineers, programmers, and mathematicians who work on these things

Re: Grammar

Having to work with such imprecision is a truly taxing thing, votes for both of you.

Fancy flying to Mars? NASA's hiring

Re: Why don't they just say 'Has to have been a US Air Force Pilot, Like Always'...?

Capricorn One. A great dramatised documentary, with the added thrill of a star who later GOT AWAY WITH MURDER. Blonde wives of black lives don't matter.

Unbeatable.

Srsly, I stick to parts of 2001 for my fix of space-is-the-place.

More recently, Moon was also pretty great, but it is all on the Moon, except for the rushed ending.

Gravity is said to be good, but Clooney was so awful in the horrid parody of Solaris, and my capacity to suspend belief doesn't extend to him and Bullock pretending to be in SPAAACE, boycotted for now.

Re: Is there a B Ark?

Sign up for Mars One! ... but they seem to have a stronger preference for relative youth than any of the official agencies.

Not that they will be going anywhere, but there is always that tiny chance!

Re: Is there a B Ark?

The new qualifications will be riding on Branson and Scaled Composites' ride, if it ever gets into its fun-fair ride mode rather than sudden-death mode, *and* a bullshit degree in a bullshit field.

They will never be going to Mars.

I almost support Mars One, but they clearly have no idea.

Neither does NASA.

As I've said before, the USA leeched everything they can on free-fall survival from the USSR and Russian space programmes.

Radiation problem beyond the van Allen belts remain, I was much amused by the proposal to pack turds as they are expelled into the walls of the hypothetical craft for Mars. Think they will enjoy the inevitable stench?

If you really want to get there in an efficient way, a system for recycling human waste as soil is far more efficient.

In Britain, 'night soils', used as fertiliser around population centres. In Japan also, the collection and use as fertiliser probably predates the British.

What a waste and a destruction to flush it into the ocean.

Lessig quits presidential race to spend more time with his idiotic ideas

Re: if history has taught us anything

To describe Lessig's ideas as 'idiotic' is a little short-sighted.

His initial action against the endless extension of copyrights and trademark rights was very sound, just a shame that the USA supreme court combined incomprehension with being pulled by infuence appliers.

Lessig had all of logic on his side.

So, his action at the time failed, where it should not have.

I have and have read his book after that, where he tries to define the situation, I disagree with much, but at least he tries to define an alternative after the loss at the Supreme Court of the USA, which will pose as the Supreme Court of all countries foolish enough to sign up for the TPP and TTIP, I forget what the Antlantic version of this fraud is to be called.

TITSUP? Trans-International Trans-Atlantic Superiority of bullshit law in USA Project?

Supine is sure the position of governments which will subject themselves to either, and their people.

Rosetta probe delivers jaw-to-the-floor find: Molecular oxygen

Re: Euphemism award

I am sorry to have mistaken you for Little Mouse.

Mainly, I must apologise to Little Mouse, who probably would not confuse euphemism with understatement.

Although my mistaken comment seems to have amused a few, likely including the Mouse.

I am not sure that you know the meaning of 'supercilious', but you have a good line in blowing a fuse.

Re: Euphemism award

Dear Little Mouse.

Euphemism != understatement.

Cassini probe teases with intimate Enceladus snaps

It may be distortion

from my current display, it looks like a giant egg, misshapen, with no endian.

Perhaps it will hatch?

Northrop wins $55bn contract for next-gen bomber – as America says bye-bye to B-52

Re: B52s/B2s...

and ridiculously expensive, *if* it is made, it will be in very small numbers, and make no difference to the plans to maintain B-52s until the middle of this century.

Pork indeed.

Re: replace the agわing B-52 and B-2 fleets?

Clandestine nuclear weapons facility?

Only one around is called Dimona.

Fat chance of the USA bombing that any time soon, let alone acknowledging that it exists.

Not that I am saying it should be bombed, only that their bomb-making should be shut down.

Nuclear-weapons free Middle East?

What a joke, and their USA colony sabotages any diplomacy to that end.

Yamaha unleashes motorcycling robot

Perhaps

this is a little added incentive to make time to go to this year's motor show.

Brit boffins build 'tractor beam' out of sound

Re: Holographic?

I agree. There is no sense in which it is holographic, and they use fake photos to publicise it, the ghostly fingers, there is no way it would make that image.

An interesting contraption, but their claims are bullshit. How is it supposed to work anywhere except, perhaps in the air?

Finally, with W10, Microsoft’s device strategy makes sense

Re: But...

Why do you need anything more than a non-connected microcontroller in a refrigerator?

Actually, why do you even need a microcontroller in a refrigerator?

Really, thermostatic controllers, simple circuits, should be fine.

Manual adjustment of the setting on my old one seems to do alright, too, except on overnight violent changes in temperature, which sometimes ruins green vegetables by freezing them.

I made the

same bleedingly obvious points in a post a few weeks ago, and far more concisely than this article, also with a little history, and a couple of comments about the possible scope and results, a little deeper than those in the article.

Does not mean that I will be buying integrated MS technosystem, but as I said in the earlier post, kudos to them for really trying.

We suck? No, James Dyson. It is you who suck – Bosch and Siemens

That Dyson man

seems much more fired up about his vacuum cleaners than his brief career in nuclear WMD development over half a century ago.

Mr. Dyson, this is a healthy advance!

TalkTalk attack: UK digi minister recommends security badges for websites

'Talk Talk' was the name of a very dull band I never willingly listened to. Just hope this company had to pay to steal the trademark at some time.