Posts by Cipher

Microsoft staff brace for next round of layoffs – expected Thursday

Re: @billat29

@fihart

Assumes facts not in evidence. billat29 may clean cruft as a part of a daily routine, his file corruption may approach zero for all we know...

Court flushes VirnetX's $368m check from Apple down the toilet

Reminds me of...

Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes

Right, heading for the door now...

'Windows 9' LEAK: Microsoft's playing catchup with Linux

Forget about multiple desktops, has MS (in Win 7), fixed the folder sizing issue that Shell Folder Fix takes care of? Or implemented a native windows rollup?

Or the infamous "Must Refresh to see changes to the desktop" on folder creation/deletion or downloads to the desktop? Literally thousands of posts over the years on this and no MS fix...

Additional monitors, IMO, are much better than multiple desktops. This minor feature, unused by most and likely to stay that way, isn't going to change minds...

Comcast exec: No, we haven't banned Tor. I use it. You're probably using it

Re: Tor

They most likely don't care about your traffic, absent an IP complaint regarding P2P traffic over the latest movie/music.

That said, it is probably a good thing to have this discussion, let ISPs take a public stand on their TOR policy.

Read The Gods of War for every tired cliche you never wanted to see in a sci fi book

Re: Want to see the film version?

The BlinkenLights?

I wondered what became of them...

Makes me appreciate Edmond Hamilton all the more...

Although dated in many respects, The Stars, My Brothers is military scifi done right...

There was a time when most scifi was good or better, the ideas reached out, touched new ground. Today one must sift through much cruft to find good ideas/stories.

Net neutrality fans' joy as '2.3 million email' flood hits US Congress

Re: Unfortunately ...

Phone calls to Congressional offices are also effective. You need to call or write your Congressperson and your two Senators. Ask for a reply, demand they spell out their position, remind them that you vote.

And then do vote...

Italy's High Court orders HP to refund punter for putting Windows on PC

Re: Well done!

Good point. Microsoft, via Secure Boot, was/is trying to get the OEM to do the dirty work of making it nigh on impossible for the average user to install Linux. Average users install software everyday, they restore Windows everyday, they are perfectly able to install an OS with a gui interface.

Leak of '5 MEELLLION Gmail passwords' creates security flap

Odd...

on a throwaway account I use for registrations, haveI sez 1 owned, Isleaked sez no owned.

Are they using the same database?

FTC: We didn't robocall you and thousands of others asking for bank details. IT'S A TRAP!

Re: FTC can't find its fanny in a phone booth

Agree. NSA: Think of the public relations bonanza this would be for you! I suspect you've dug your heels in on your spying programs to insure continued funding and long term organizational viabilty, so go after the scammers.

You'll have plenty of work, no poltical opposition, and secure the thanks of many grateful nations...

You could then drop your massive storage of everyone's private data and be the good guys again!

Heavy VPN users are probably pirates, says BBC

Re: BBC Worldwide

You fail to define manipulation in any meaningful way, it appears to me that any position you disagree with falls under the umbrella of postions being somehow forced on people. Choice? Are you saying people are forced to read/listen to these positions you dislike? OP ED pieces are somehow mandatory reading, watching certain newscasts required?

How exactly would you prohibit such "manipulation?"

Who decides which opinions are "manipulation" and which are attempts at persusasion?

Who decides which thoughts are good, which are bad?

You?

Citizens United was affirmed as correct by minds who saw that political speech should never be regulated or muted. I'm certain this angers many who wish it was and see it as an impediment to the furtherance of their agendas...

I for one claim no special powers to know what the workings of other minds entails, wether they are being convinced or if they are being manipulated. Anyone who claims they can is delusional. Those who wish to stifle the political speech of another, for whatever reasons, are tyrants.

Your defining me as a US Republican, while wrong, is nothing more than ad hominem. You wish to paint anyone who dosen't agree with your nebulous definitions, or your political agenda as a bogeyman and have choosen that particular stripe to paint them with.

It is not your place, or anyone's for that matter, to decide/define "thought manipulation." Elitists love to try, after all they know better than others and do these things for the people's own good, being superior to them and all...

Your worldview leads to a totalitarian state...

Re: BBC Worldwide

" I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're probably one of those who believe that freedom of speech should be absolute because you don't believe that "manipulation" of others is even possible."

The act of attempting to persuade another to see your point is now the heinous crime of "thought manipulation?" This can be applied to anyone making an argument for their side. But some arguments are more equal than other arguments, eh?

And BTW, Citizens United also allows Labor Unions the same rights as it does the evil greedy corporations.

Yes count me amongst the free speech freaks of the world.

Short of inciting crime or putting people's lives in direct danger, freedom of spech should approach absolute. Tryanny is otherwise...

Re: BBC Worldwide

So your idea of "dangerous" is a man, using his own money, supporting an elected Governor? Who won the recall by an educated and more liberal than most electorate? Whose point was to require that union members pay a bit more, more in line with what their counterparts in private enterprise pay for their portion of a benefits package?

My God, thank you for fighting this fight! Where would we, the unenlightened great unwashed, be without our betters doing our thinking for us.

I was wondering what it was that the AC had written that had you so disturbed you would spare no effort to silence him. I thought maybe he was advocating murdering people or something, but gasp, it turns out it is far worse than that. The evil doer dared have a different political persusion than you.

Clearly he needs to be named and shamed and put in the public stocks for his thought crime!!

Re: BBC Worldwide

"You're free to accuse me of anything you like, but the difference here is that I have no more access than that anonymous coward. I must unmask him through unearthing sources, analyzing his writing, catching him up. "

And this would prove what? That you stalk people you disagree with and NetKop them? You're proud of this? All because *you* claim what the AC sez is wrong? Doesn't the AC have the right to his opinions or take on matters? Or is it just you that have that right?

Might I suggest you make your case, refute his points and let the marketplace of ideas pick the winner. You sound more than a bit obessive...

BONEHEAD FANBOIS encamp outside Apple Stores

Re: Hang on,

It adds nothing to GDP, it is merely a transfer of money, not a production of anything...

Enigmail PGP plugin forgets to encrypt mail sent as blind copies

Re: Surprising

Good point, I imagine that sending BCC only mail is rather rare though. I can't remember ever doing it, its not something I would consider doing...

Why not...

...encrypt the mail content outside the mail client? Wouldn't this remove a point of failure? Easy to do, and one never has to worry about things like this...

Google flushes out users of old browsers by serving up CLUNKY, AGED version of search

Re: This is great

Surprised this idea took so long to make the comments, editing the user agent your browser reports is so easy to do.

Duckduckgo it to find out how...

Limits to Growth is a pile of steaming doggy-doo based on total cobblers

A modest proposal...

Human beings produce heat. Heat can be used to produce electricity...

The excess population could be required to produce heat for us...

We should do this Swiftly...

SHIP OF FAIL: How do we right capsized institutions we thought would NEVER go under?

Re: Call Up

Sorry, but I was raised not to associate with known liars and thieves. This precludes any thought of running for political office...

Rewarding Failure...

...leads to more rewarding failure. If an institution or business fails, then so be it. Demand will prod Supply into replacing it. Or not. The people shouldn't be picking winners in the marketplace via taxes administered by people who have no experience in the matter.

Decentralization of power is the key to survival, not 5 Year Plans.

Cyber-hoodlum tripped, fell, landed in Obama's Healthcare.gov server

Re: "If this happened anywhere other than HealthCare.gov, it wouldn't be news"

Of course. If it happened to NORAD or the IRS, no one would be talking about this.

It is only because it is Obama's pride and joy that journalists are covering this attack, move along, nothing more to see here...

Something smells PHISHY: It's the celeb nudie iCloud PERV trap...

What if the two things are connected...

...the snag and release of the pics was phase one., the *real* op is the phishing...

Isis Wallet, NOT an Islamist militant group, reborn as Softcard

Re: "In a bid to distance itself from a violent Islamist militant group..."

"Are people *really* that stupid..."

Yes Marsden, they are. And this may come as a shock to you, your knee jerk/crowd pleasing anti US remark aside, they exist and flourish in all countries. Even your country...

Why some people feel the need to insert non-sequitor ad hominem attacks for chuckles or to establish their proper credentials is beyond me.

Sigh...

NATO nations 'will respond to a Cyber attack on one as though it were on all'

"Cyber attacks are best handled through diplomatic channels, according to one seasoned IT security pro"

Because diplomacy always works so well...

The correct response would tit for tat, with tit being > than tat by a factor of 10...

Facebook, Google and Instagram 'worse than drugs' says Miley Cyrus

When I want know what's bad for my brain, I ask a doctor, not a tart de jour...

Comcast merger-bait spinoff to be known as GreatLand Connections

The last and next to last place companys in customer service ratings wish to merge. Customer service is bound to improve, right?

This merger is not good for consumers and should be nixed...

We're not on the Gartner Magic Quadrant? Just imagine our concern, says HDS

I can't believe so many pay so much attention to Gartner. Like the folks above me, there is no substitute for doing your homework. Not mention possible conflicts of interest that may exist with their ratings...

CNN 'tech analyst' on NAKED CELEBS: WHO IS this mystery '4chan' PERSON?

As long as they never see...

... xkcd on passwords there should be plenty of work for all...

The IT kit revolution's OVER, say beancounters - but how do they know?

My take is that Y2k fueled a lot of hardware investment 1998-1999, while needed, far exceeded the normal/average amount of spending one sees in 3 year/1 third of hardware replaced each year system. The overall economy fairly boomed in the years leading up to Y2k, and tech spending quickly receded for a time after that.

el rupester's comments about cloud usage skewing the investment numbers is right on, Big Cloud is spending less than its customers would individually. Short of some Y2k neccesity situation or some dramatic advance in tech, I would think that tech hardware investment will show "normal" growth compared to the past. Also, there are far fewer existing companies with no computerization fueling new investment as there was in days gone by. Maturity has it advantages and drawbacks economicaly...

Govt waves stick at pirate-friendly Google search

Hmmmmm...

"Taylor said the scheme-formerly-known-as-VCAP, Creative Content UK, which will email visitors to pirate sites with educational information"

So a visit to a p2p site, not the act of downloading a torrent or content, will trigger an educational email. And they know you visited the site because? ISPs providing the information? Packet sniffing?

Will Taylor be forthcoming on how they determine who gets the re-education email?

Second hacking crew joins Syrian Electronic Army on Team Assad

"According to Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit,"

The same group that put Vista into the wild?

China: You, Microsoft. Office-Windows 'compatibility'. You have 20 days to explain

Perhaps this gets sorted when...

...Microsoft offers Chinese State Security their own set of NSA Keys

IBM: OK, Watson, you've won Jeopardy. Now, CURE CANCER

Re: "..research paper is published nearly every 30 seconds.."

What gets me is that at a public University, taxpayers pay the author salaries for the papers produced. Then if John Q. wants one of these papers he paid for, he must pay again. And the cost is not for printing, etc.

Papers produced at taxpayer expense belong in the public domain...

BOFH: The current value of our IT ASSets? Minus eleventy-seven...

Re: Budgetary crazyness

And the work arounds...

Removing electronic components from Bench Stock to show usage, hiding these parts in a box somewhere away from the eyes of inspectors. Padding job sheets by 1/2 to 1 hour to protect staffing levels. It goes on...

But the killer was the part about the list of serial numbers matching up. Since the equipment is delivered to sysadmins to start with, they fill in the bean counter sheets AND have access to said sheets afterwards.

The bean counters are outmanned, outgunned and surrounded...

Vulture News anchor Regina Eggbert is (sort of) LIVE from London

Re: Audio

Regina sounds loud and clear on my Tab 10.1

Also, looks very Hawwtttt.... :-)

KER-CHING! CryptoWall ransomware scam rakes in $1 MEEELLION

No mention of existing prevention methods?

Preventing CryptoWall

We need less U.S. in our WWW – Euro digital chief Steelie Neelie

Specifics?

Has anyone stated exactly what the problem is now, and what this nebulous proposed shift would do better?

Didn't think so...

New York looks to PROBE TWC over US outage

My experience was...

Last night, Tuesday, around 10PM EDT I noticed my speed had dropped to about 1/4 of normal. So I call TWC support and am told that they are seeing packet loss of about 1%. We go through the usual reboots, no joy.

By 2AM EDT nothing. My Win box reports DNS errors, although I don't use TWC DNS.

7:30 AM, all is well...

Boffins attempt to prove the universe is just a hologram

In 2003, Nick Bostrom, a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford, published a paper called The Simulation Argument, arguing that it is most likely we live in a computer simulation world.

Bostrom paper

Why has the web gone to hell? Market chaos and HUMAN NATURE

Re: On what planet does The Guardian recruit?

Might the reason be for listing the not so new problems really be a control issue?

Recall Hillary Clinton's line of thought when the news of Bill's dalliance was revealed on the internet? It was not defamation, as she wished it to be characterized, it was news.

Hillary's Remarks

Re: Human Nature

>Easy communication favours the nutter, whether of the cold fusion type or the Nazi type.

>So, the question is: should tolerant society tolerate intolerance? The answer is, I think, not if it wishes to continue.

The real question here, to follow this line of thought to completion, is: Who gets to decide what is right thinking and what is wrong thinking? Which ideology is allowed and promoted to the exclusion of all others? Does a free and tolerant society ban certain viewpoints in the name of the common good? Is said society then really free and tolerant, or is it just as repressive as the evil it claims to be saving us from?

Are some animals destined to be more equal than other animals?

Will It Blend? Maybe. BlackBerry’s secret comeback weapon

Didn't Al Gore...

...invent the BlackBerry?

GitHub.io killed the distro star: Why are people so bored with the top Linux makers?

Re: You may not want to read this

What I see regarding newbie questions in the various Linix forums:

1. Answers that don't address the question, "You don't want X, you want Y"

2. RTFM

3. Good detailed help, solving the problem

4. No answer at all

Too much #1 by advocates of particular software/methods, a fair amount of #2 by The Priesthood, and although there is a good amount of #3, not enough to overcome the perceptions left by the others.

Windows users fare a tad better, once they learn to not use MS sites that tell you you have malware and to boot to safe mode as a stock scripted answer.

Flawed Premise?

Since the article seems to say that declining numbers of Google hits = declining interest, I would suggest as others have, that Linux users may be using DDG.

Also, Linux users know to go to Distro Watch, and the LiveCD pages, plus many other Linux websites to get the information they need. When I recommend Linux I send the user to either DDG or a direct Linux link.

Last, how Mint was left off the graph is a puzzle. Maybe the same mindset that equates Google hits with popularity is at work here. Mint has been number 1 or close for quite a while now. Cue Jethro Tull now, because it appears that some are Living in the Past...

The police are WRONG: Watching YouTube videos is NOT illegal

If they want to stop terrorists...

...by mustering overwhelming support for their actions against these animals, they would put the video on the evening news. Force the moderate muslims to respond to these barbaric actions, see what response the anti Israel crowd has to say. Remind everyone exactly who and what these murderous thugs are up to...

In a broader sense the video is news. In a free society how can one justify such censorship? It is a slippery slope to total government control of what we can see and read and what we cannot...

Brit Sci-Fi author Alastair Reynolds says MS Word 'drives me to distraction'

Some text editor fanboi war this is...

Not a mention of emacs or ed...

No, thank you. I will not code for the Caliphate

They only needed to add...

PBR, aka Blue Ribbon Beer, to the hipster mix side of it and they would have shot to the top!

Vampires and Ninjas versus the Alien Jedi Robot Pirates: It's ON

Aeon Flux

And her pal, the chick with four hands.