* Posts by scarletherring

67 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Nov 2012

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Don't want to vote for Clinton or Trump? How about this woman who says Wi-Fi melts kids' brains?

scarletherring

Re: She's not wrong

And actually, I think this article (uncharacteristically for El Reg) is a bit of a hatchet job.

Dr Stein is in no way, shape or form an anti-vaxxer in the sense that that McCarthy woman is, say. She has worries about the committees that regulate and approve vaccinations -- which seems like valid concern in a country where corporate lobbyists have their finger in every single pie. But that is a far cry from suggesting it causes autism or whatnot.

Likewise, I just took her statement about WiFi to underline her broader argument that "It would be better for kids' development to not spend all their time looking at screens". Obviously ubiquitous WiFi would tend to increase that slice of kid's time. The fact that she points out again, correctly, that regulators and public safety committees are stacked by corporate interests, is hardly the same as believing WiFi melts brains.

The article starts with an observation that, certainly compared to earlier editions, the current election cycle has many Americans looking beyond the two major parties. Maybe do them, and everyone else, a favour and not blindly assume that all third party politicians are fringe lunatics.

The very latest on the DNC email conspiracy. Which conspiracy? All of them, of course!

scarletherring

Re: A sad day for conspiracy theorists

"That would imply we are ALREADY the Idiocracy and just don't know it yet."

Well, yes.

You see, not knowing is kind of what defines the Idiot.

WikiLeaks fights The Man by, er, publishing ordinary people's personal information

scarletherring

Re: Whew that was a close one

"For instance, British politics seems insanely complicated. We have nothing like this."

What makes you say that? There's a similar shortage in different parties, and none of the madness with delegates, super-delegates, meta-delegates and whatnot.

Check out John Oliver's rant, and see if you still feel the UK is the complicated way to do it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/23/john-oliver-explains-why-the-u-s-primary-process-is-an-irredeemable-mess/

Fear not, humanity – Saint Elon has finished part two of his world-saving 'master plan'

scarletherring

Re: Reaching

I don't know the first thing about space-based solar -- but it seems to me there is no shortage of Earth surface area available for solar panels (Sahara, Gobi, fly-over US, you get the idea). Also, given the cost (and fuel consumption) of lifting stuff into space, would take quite some time to offset. What am I missing?

Microsoft ordered to fix 'excessively intrusive, insecure' Windows 10

scarletherring

Re: Faint hope... very faint....

"... promise to keep the data in their data center in the EU"

Yes, especially if the recent decision declaring US govt having no authority to demand data off Irish servers holds up.

I find this phrasing on the part of MS's deputy counsel interesting:

"In the meantime it had adhered to the old Safe Harbor rules despite the agreement being struck down."

He says this like Safe Harbour was struck down for being too strict!

Kremlin wants to shoot the Messenger, and WhatsApp to boot

scarletherring

Re: Is this even practical....?

Sheesh this makes me feel old.

I remember when the west would jump on something like this and crow about how superior our "Free World" is. Of course it was a fable even then, but I do kind of miss the cold war... At least there had to be some pretense of being the good guys, which restrained the actual wickedness quite effectively, it would appear in hindsight.

UCLA shooter: I killed my prof over code theft

scarletherring

Re: Nonsense

Nonsense. UC's are gun-free zones.

Right. And murder-suicide plotters really worry about that. The point, as if you didn't get it, is that you only have to wander off campus to trip over firearms.

Tech titans demand free speech law to head off President Trump

scarletherring

Re: vexatious litigant, eh?

"... but the corporations making loads of money in the US system won't let that happen."

And the root cause underlying this, and many other problems virtually unique to the US, is exactly that such corporations are able to block progress for the vast majority to protect the profits for the already filthy rich.

A Princeton study of a couple of years back found that there is essentially zero correlation between public support for proposed laws and their chances of passing, while finding a disproportionate correlation with special interest's support. In other words, the US is not a democracy in practice. And that was even before Citizen's United and McCutcheon!

But don't worry: with TTIP and TPP, this kind of thing will arrive at theatres near you!

Just how close are Obama and Google? You won’t believe the answer

scarletherring

Re: Downvotes?

Having just finished the latest House of Cards series, I am wondering if Google doesn't have a lot more to offer "their" candidate, like information on what voters are searching for and discussing. Or even tweaking their search and advertising voodoo.

'No regrets' says chap who felled JavaScript's Jenga tower – as devs ask: Have we forgotten how to code?

scarletherring

NPM (the package repository) doesn't pull from github, but it's certainly possible to configure your project such that NPM (the commandline tool) will fetch dependencies from github.

Revealed: Mystery 7-year cyberspy campaign in Latin America

scarletherring
Devil

It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you...

Vote imminent on controversial US cyber security 'sharing' bills

scarletherring

Re: You can have any opinion you like...

In fact, it seems to me that this kind of bi-partisan support is a fairly robust indicator of 'the people' not supporting it.

Snowden leaks latest: NSA, FBI g-men spied on Muslim-American chiefs

scarletherring

Re: Muslim-Americans?

> Do you think it appropriate that a Muslim should be elected President?

Well, I think it was Sam Harris (but might be wrong about that) who suggested that they would much prefer a Muslim President over an atheist one.

Dr Wolfram touts coding language to revolutionise mankind ... just like Wolfram Alpha did

scarletherring

Hubris

Indeed, he does seem to be a bit of an arrogant prick. I remember when his megalomaniac New Kind Of Science came out, in which he basically attributed a lot of cellular automaton theory to his own greatness. No references, no attributions, no shame.

It quickly turned out though that the only really new result in that huge book (the Turing completeness of one particular rule) was actually proved by one of his research assistants. He then tried to prevent this assistant from claiming this result with various nasty lawsuits.

So is Stephen Wolfram a brilliant man? Yes, no doubt. But his brilliance is basically eclipsed by his hubris, in my estimation.

Still, let's wait and see if this new language is actually interesting, independent of Wolfram's personal character flaws.

Iranian cyberwar chief shot dead. Revolutionary Guard: Assassination? Don't 'speculate'

scarletherring

Re: "Any assassination could be seriously damaging to this nascent diplomacy"

"Which could be most convenient for those Iranian leaders who oppose any diplomacy."

It would be equally convenient for the more hawkish types in Washington and Jerusalem. So there's that. Machiavelliean scheming is not limited to the ME, in case you hadn't noticed.

Apple updates iOS 6, Safari

scarletherring

Re: You're updating it wrong.

I stand corrected, my bad... Download is indeed quite small at 47.6 -- for me it complained however that it needed ~700 megs of free space, which I don't have at the moment.

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