Posts by CRConrad

80-characters-per-line limits should be terminal, says Linux kernel chief Linus Torvalds

Re: “I have wide balls ”

Yeah, right, Senator Craig, that's why you have such a wide stance.

Re: “which functions are meant as internal or external. Function names get exhausted..."

And that (among other reasons) is why you need to be able to nest subroutines: Declare functions and procedures within each other.

The only class of languages I am certain you are able to do that in are the Pascal-descendant ones.

Re: “I'll display my whitespace how I choose”

But not all whitespace is “your” whitespace. In code I write, it's *my* whitespace, and I'll type my whitespace how *I* choose, thank you very much.

Stop worrying – Larry Ellison and Prez Trump will have this whole coronavirus thing licked shortly with the power of data

Re: Why, oh why did HBO end "Silicon Valley"?!?!

Only two of those are islands.

German IKEA trip fracas assembles over trolley right of way

Re: E"ven with dinner..."

I think the "door to door" time he claimed was not for the shop doors but his own front door.

Re: "An hour from start to finish"

I think that was "door to door" as in, not the shop doors but his own front door.

Your McDonald's demo has expired. For full functionality, please purchase a licence or try another fast-food joint

Re: "...mentioning the starting."

You want to run on regular diesel fuel the last bit of the previous drive precisely in order to facilitate starting the next time: Have the pipes from tank through fuel pump, injection pump, high-pressure lines and injector nozzles all filled up with the regular stuff, so you won't have to expel the canola oil and saturate the whole pipeline with filling-station stuff while grinding on the starter motor. I'd guess.

Auf wiedersehen, pet: UK Deutsche Bank contractors plan to leave rather than take 25% pay cut for IR35 – report

Other way around.

DavCrav:...we could, if you wish, call it all NI.

katrinab:If my employer only deducted NI, I wouldn't get any deduction at all from my Irish tax bill

Yes you would, if that "NI" was as much as the total you paid before. Which is what DavCrav suggested.

You'd only get a heck of a lot of NI booked in Ireland.

Third time's a charm, maybe: Bankers suing Oracle over claims of exaggerated cloud sales have another go at convincing skeptical judge

A quandary indeed.

One does so wish for some way to side against both, doesn't one?

Super-leaker Snowden punts free PDF* of tell-all NSA book with censored parts about China restored, underlined

Re: bet rhere is no copy

Mine has it in three languages.

Little grouse on the prairie: IBM's AI facial-recognition training dataset gets it in trouble... in Illinois

Re: CC is not Copyright

Judging from your headline and first paragraph, you seem to have fundamentally misunderstood what a license is.

Blackout Bug: Boeing 737 cockpit screens go blank if pilots land on specific runways

What's with the nick?

Come now, from all I hear Forth is pretty cool and nifty little language?

We strained our eyes with Lenovo's monster monitor: 43.4 inches for price of five 24" screens

Who gives a fsck...

... about “music fidelity”? Even the cheapest shit headphones or earbuds are good enough to hear what's going on. The problem with listening to music isn't sound quality; it's that the sheeple do it ALL THE TIME, in an effort to drown out the silence between their ears — in order not to have to think, and not to notice that they aren't.

There, now you know; you're welcome. You can now go back to your regularly scheduled 24/7 muzak (on your 800£ over-ear headphones with the gold-plated lead), so that... Well, you know. Now.

VESA mount on a stick,

Attach the stick to the rear of your narrow cabinet?

Not a death spiral, I'm trapped in a closed loop of customer experience

Donald Trump?

No, it's Europe.

You know SAP's doing a great job when a third of German users say they 'have no confidence in it'

Re: Difficult

Exactly. And people STILL buy that crap today?!? Who are these (presumably) CIOs / COOs / CFOs; don't they know anyone else in the industry, or how the **** have they managed to miss hearing of this?

Stallman's final interview as FSF president: Last week we quizzed him over Microsoft visit. Now he quits top roles amid rape remarks outcry

"Unix ... was already open source"

AFAICT, the Unix software on the tapes in circulation back then -- which, if I understand correctly, *BSD is ultimately based on -- wasn't[1] LEGAL "Open Source"[2], but basically pirated AT&T property.

1: At least not unambiguously.

2: Or "Free Software", if you will.

Re: Le Dîner de Cons

And to drink, a can of motor oil...?

He should have converted a bit sooner

"He had a bad idea about underage sex. People argued the point with him and he changed his mind. This is commendable."

He had had this stuff pointed out to him for decades, and if I understood correctly only came out with a mealy-mouthed statement within the last week. Conversions under the gallows aren't particularly convincing.

Or, if I'm misremembering and it was earlier -- I have a vague visual memory of the timestamp on that post I saw flickering by in some stream; I think it was a few days ago, or was it the corresponding date in 2016? -- then it doesn't logically square with him defending Minsky the way he did now.

Looser =/= Freer.

1) The GPL prevents taking stuff un-free; the BSD/MIT/etc licenses allow it. If I emancipate my slave with a notarized affidavit to the effect that "this is a free man, he is not to be enslaved" I've set him free; if I tell him to go out in the world and then put up a poster saying that he's free for the taking I've set him loose. The BSD/MIT/etc licenses are looser than the GPL, but arguably not freer.

2) Yeah, if you have such problems with Microsoft (et al) EULAs that you refuse to abide by them, then you'd be in breach of the license terms if you used the software the way you want to (i.e, not abiding by whatever license term it is you've got a bug in your bonnet about), so don't do that.

3) I'm critical of most EULAs (or at least used to be more so), but abide by them. How does that invalidate my voicing of this criticism? (If I could be bothered to any more.)

4) Even if I were to breact the terms of the EULAs, how would that invalidate any other criticism -- NOT related specifically to their EULAs -- of Microsoft/Apple/<insert any topic of choice>?

Re: He should have stuck to what he knows

you misspelled OCD.

Linux Journal runs shutdown -h now for a second time: Mag editor fires parting shot at proprietary software

Re: Reality is a bitch!

One does that by taking the source code for the “University of California, Berkeley” Unix version and distributing it on the Inter- and Sneaker-nets.

FYI: Yeah, the cops can force your finger onto a suspect's iPhone to see if it unlocks, says judge

Re: friendly faces in a single Court of Last Resort

"I like beer."

Trump, Brexit, and Cambridge Analytica – not quite the dystopia you're looking for

The Vulture seems to have missed the main point:

From the article:

[Kosinski] believes that online personalised political messages can be more interesting and relevant than general ones, and the recipients are more competent to judge their quality. It also makes political communication far cheaper because it is highly efficient.

[ . . . ]

And it could allow politicians to reach groups who have previously been ignored and may not have bothered voting as a result. "With both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, they attracted huge followings among groups of people who previously were not politically active," Kosinski says.

They attracted huge followings among groups of people who were misinformed. Deliberately, because just as well as you can use these tools to target recipients who are more competent to judge the quality of your message, you can use them to target recipients who are less competent to do so. That way, you are free to target them with a "less than perfectly truthful" message, and don't need to worry that they'll refuse it. And by targeting these people specifically, you make sure that those who would be more likely to see through it are less likely to ever even see it in the first place, so it won't get debunked as it deserves.

That is the nefarious aspect of how this works. And frankly, it baffles me how Kosinski seems to have totally missed that.

Re: "money spent for such highly tailored adverts seems to have been largely wasted"

As has been revealed since (yes, I know I'm commenting on age-old "news"; just correcting the record), one of the main uses of this technology was to target indecisive voters ( = especially ones possibly leaning Hillary, I'd assume) and just throw so much confusing shit at them that they'd get frustrated with it all and not vote. An old technique, dunno if it was invented or just perfected by the Soviets, getting people to think there just isn't any truth to be had among all the contradictory messaging; perhaps that there is no such thing as "truth" any more.

So no: Fewer votes is not necessarily a sign that the CA-supported campaigning failed; on the contrary, perhaps more of a testament to its effectiveness.

IBM insists it's not deliberately axing older staff. Internal secret docs state otherwise...

Re: they have less time outside work to ...

... above all, less time to look for a better job.

Re: Just to play devil's advocate here

Yup, Javascript is just like Cobol: Just another programming language.

Actually not all that ungrammatical.

Kubla Cant:

quotes BigSLitleP:

The amount of times i've stopped older members of IT doing something stupid because "we used to do it that way" is a common phrase are too many to count.

Although there's no way to know their respective ages, the opinions suggest Tom 7 is the elder. Tom 7's comment is well-phrased and makes sense. BigSLitleP's reply is ungrammatical and incoherent.

Nah. Just clumslily phrased; a few commas might help, but perhaps it should have been ordered some other way. I'll try to illustrate which elements go together:

The amount of times i've stopped older members of IT doing something stupid [because ["we used to do it that way" is a common phrase]] are too many to count.

But, yeah, supports your hypothesis about their respective ages, AFAICS.

Julian Assange says Cambridge Analytica asked WikiLeaks for something

Got your reputable sources mixed up

It's the New York Times and the Washington Post; NOT the New York Post or the Washington Times. HTH!

WikiLeaks is wiki-leaked. And it's still not even a proper wiki anyway

Re: "What Putin has on Assange"

Rape tape?

'Incommunicado' Assange anoints new WikiLeaks editor in chief

What utter fucking bullshit.

NOTHING has been "proven to be wrong". He's a rapist under Swedish law, and in all probability guilty of inciting crime (i.e, urged Maninng to hack or leak), which is itself also a crime, under US law.

The only thing that has been proven to be wrong is Julian Asshat; he's surely proven himself to be a wrong'un.

Re: passed the statute of limitations' deadline

No, I'm afraid that isn't how it works; it's ticking down.

Kind of makes sense: If that were the way it worked, the prosecutor would always find some reason to put it on hold, and then you wouldn't, in practice, have any statute of limitations any more.

Re: "he'd have been deported to Sweden, now he's just got his bail jumping to sort out"

Nope, he may still have to face Swedish justice.

The statute of limitations has run out on the charges of sexual assault, but the rape charge(s?) can still be re-opened until some time in 2020. The Swedish Crown's Counsel (? "DA", in Yank) can still re-open that. They never closed the case; only put it on ice because with him holed up in the embassy they weren't likely to get anywhere with their investigation. Now they are.

Re: "defence in court"

Fortunately, this isn't a court, and colloquially referring to a self-confessed -- just not yet convicted -- committer of the act as what he is on an online forum isn't a crime. Unless and until you're convicted of slander or libel or whatever, which is... Not exceedinglly likely; ISTR Britain is one of those "it being the truth is a valid defense" jurisdictions.

Hitler was never convicted of genocide either -- not by any court, he wasn't. You gonna be vewwy, vewwy careful what you say about him? Nope, you'll go "Are you crazy? He obviously was!" Yes, exactly.

London's Metropolitan Police arrest Julian Assange

Yeah, that should have tipped you off.

Capitalized "They" in the X-Files-the-Truth(1)-is-out-there style sentence about "that's what they to think".

After a long post of semi-sceptical "conspiratorial" musings, *and a final paragraph of "Or maybe the simple explanation is that he's an asshat".* After all that, this single, *italicized*, ooo-wee-ooo-eee Twilight-Zone sentence.

Grow up; learn to recognize sarcasm without the over-the-top delivery, hashtags, or emoti... Uh, -jis. I totally meant to say emojis. I'm not that old!(2)

1: Yet another capital 'T'.

2: Yes I am.

Re: "...exactly what They want you to think..."

"So said every conspiracy theorist ever."

Jules was being sarcastic, you nincompoop.

Yes, *Justice*

It's telling that so many of the Anonymous Cowards think (or are trying to make it look as if they actually think) that the reason for the general glee is "for him to be prosecuted for upsetting the Yanks".

I'm a Swede, and as a law-abiding citizen, I'm happy as Hell that the rapey asshat is finally (hopefully) going to be brought to justice for raping at least two women. (Fuck knows how many else he's done it to over the years, and too bad that the sexual assault charges are already past the statute of limitations.)

On a personal level, I'm also satisfied that he'll get his comeuppance for turning WikiLeaks, which could have been a genuine global whistleblowing resource, into first his own personal cult and then a part of the Russian troll-factory operation.

Sure, you might think that's "vindictive", but:

• Have you ever considered that you might be just plain wrong on that?
• Being a rapist and sexual molester, he deserves any "vindictiveness" he gets.
• Being a general narcissist cult arsehole and Putin-lackey-troll, he deserves it even more.

So, no, when it comes to many -- probably most -- of us, your "for upsetting the Yanks" prattle is just so much Putin-troll propaganda. Do you genuinely believe that shit, or have you, when you think about it, perhaps just been duped and will make an effort to stop being used that way? That's the difference between having temporarily been a "useful idiot" and actually being a full-blown troll. Which are you?

Re: "Releasing hacked documents is what Wikileaks does"

Yeah, that's why they were clamoring to be the first to release the Panama papers... Oh, no, wait -- they actually protested that and tried to paint it as propaganda.

Releasing some hacked documents and doing their best to bury others is what Wikileaks does nowadays. The reason is all in Julian Asshat's twisted little mind.

There, FTFY.

Re: Sweden's judiciary...

...is exactly as dependent or independent of the state as it was ten, fifty, or AFAIK a hundred and fifty yeasrs ago; nothing about that has changed in the comparitively blink-of-an-eye timespan since Asshat raped those girls.

Who are you, esr?

My ring fingers are longer than my index fingers too, but I don't strut around gibbering about what a "PROUD hyper-male" I am. Is that the same as the mythical "alpha male", Eric?

Those aren't necessarily opposites.

Some people voluntarily become agents based on greed; others let themselves be used as such because they're stupid enough to do so. In practice, they are agents too, albeit perhaps unwitting ones. The phenomenon didn't begin with Putin; the name "useful idiot" goes back to at least Lenin or Trotsky or some such. The phenomenon itself... I'm betting Julius Caesar was familiar with the idea. And probably Hammurabi too.

Re: Does he yet have a ticket to the USA ?

I asked that in early 2018 too. Because in 2017 he tweeted that he'd go there if Manning was granted clemency.

Clemency, which means pardon or commutation, was then granted by President Obama in the form of commutation of Manning's sentence.

So if Julian Asshat hadn't been a fucktard liable to go back on his word, he should have bought himself a fucking ticket and hopped on the next plane to DC.

OTOH...

...seeds, if fertilized (as they would probably be, if planted into a seed bed) are living creatures too. Ask any American fundie.

"bet you spent ages proofing that sentence"

Pretty much every media outlet picked up on it and added a sarcastic "[sic]" to their quotes of it.

If they don't want the world to think of them as chumps, perhaps they shouldn't present themselves to the world as chumps.

Interestingly, back in 2017...

...Assange tweeted that he'd go to the USA if Manning was "granted clemency".

Clemency is a wider concept, which encompasses two other things: Pardon and commutation. So, Obama commuting Manning's sentence was clemency... But did Asshat hop on the next plane to DC? Like fuck he did, the weasel.

Wrong, it's hilarious.

"ah umaway" claims:

What a horrible thing to say without knowing the facts. If he is innocent, there is nothing fun about what he suffered through the last seven years.

What he's "suffered" -- and, much more, made others suffer -- was all totally of his own making, so the delicious Schadenfreude we're all enjoying now is not "horrible" at all but well-deserved. Nobody ordered him to hole up in that embassy, and nobody certainly ordered him to behave like a fucking skunk while in there. It's all on him.

Yup, self-imposed...

...imprisonment. Won't count as time served, though. Had he submitted to the legal proceedings in Sweden in stead of running in the first place, he'd be out free now... After a term in Swedish prison that would no doubt have been much nicer than what he got at the Embassy. Which only goes to prove what a stupid fuck he is.

"my original comments were correct at time of posting"

No they weren't, they just relied on bad information. Had you kept à jour with some better sources over the years, you would have known this and not have had to rely on the Vulture's (apparently originally misinformed) recap. Any which way, being wrong isn't "being right" just because you were misled.

The completely rational take you need on Europe approving Article 13: An ill-defined copyright regime to tame US tech

Re: EFF, Wikipedia, Google...

"LDS" wrote:

Sorry, you tried to compare patents and copyright

Yes, because they're utterly comparable.

failing to see the difference

Nope, he did. It's just you who are failing to see the immense similarity.

and they don' try to solve the same problem

They try to solve the exact same problem: How to protect for the inventor/author the opportunity to make money off his idea, how to ensure that eventually ideas are equally available for all, and to arrive at a reasonable compromise between these opposing goals.

You keep on attacking me personally ... live just as a parasite ... Sitting on a couch and copying...

Yeah, right, and you haven't been insulting at all.

Re: "...meant for about the same mental age"

Those target age groups seem to have pretty much changed places since I was a kid.