* Posts by JLV

2252 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2013

Dodgy software will bork America's F-35 fighters until at least 2019

JLV
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Ditch it already

Skip this generation and go to gen 6 jets. Selective acquisition of proven gen 4 airframes + better avionics and weapons should be able to hold the fort against China or Russia until 2025-2030, which is getting awfully close to F35 release. And remain amply sufficient against low tech opponents.

Cut the Marines and their VTOL out.

And whatever you do, write affordability into the reqs. While keeping a lookout for the possible rise of disruptive autonomous air combat drone capability.

Won't happen. The US is committed to this massive $$$ black hole that sucks up funding of any alternatives and too many careers would be ruined by ditching it.

Don't – don't – install iOS 9.3 on your iPad 2: Upgrade bricks slabs

JLV

>Unfortunately the old iPad 2 does not get Night Shift functionality

Really? This is becoming a regular scam of Apple's, purposefully throttling new iOS features on older HW so that you are pushed towards upgrades.

I mean, maybe it is due to their newer graphic chipsets being able to bit-shift RGB values more efficiently and those not being available on older stuff. Maybe.

But they are not coming out clean about it and only letting you know after you install the slower-on-your-older-device-release. Ditto for the gushing reviewers.

How one developer just broke Node, Babel and thousands of projects in 11 lines of JavaScript

JLV
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Re: Thames

>Indeed. No one of clue

Generalizations, the hallmark of brilliance. Not.

https://www.shoop.io/en/blog/25-of-the-most-popular-python-and-django-websites/

There are plenty of big uns on Django. This was the first link I found and some claims seem dubious, but the fact stands.

Or would you code a site in C++?

Java? Please. Much as a missing lpad in JS is silly, didn't Java programmers have to wait till java 7 for a built-in File copy?

JLV

>Thankfully I wrote my own padStart function

This chimes with me as well. How often, in Python/Django you see an SO question that requires 20-30 lines of code.

With the recommendations to pip in package XYZ that does it for you. Now you have an external dependency for something super trivial.

JS should really tweak some basic stuff though. Even the humble sprintf seems missing. I use Handlebars for that now* but it's like swatting a fly with Yamato's 18"s.

* and mostly for templating

Adobe will track you across all your devices with new co-op project

JLV
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Adobe + Marketers - Privacy => what's there not to love?

Title says it all.

Oh, I forgot. Cross-device vulnerabilities.

A Logic Named Joe: The 1946 sci-fi short that nailed modern tech

JLV

Re: *Remarkably* sharp prediction?

>Try 'The Forever War'

Ah, very good point.

I didn't think about it because Forever War was more about the strategic relativity effects than about space tactics (which is what I was thinking of).

I'll also add Vernor Vinge. "True Names", 1981, has an eerily prescient and elegant take on the internet.

JLV

Re: *Remarkably* sharp prediction?

I agree that Gibson seems quite naive in his actual grasp of technology. So you ain't wrong in calling me out on it.

He's by no means a Vernor Vinge, for example. Doesn't mean he doesn't have some clever takes on the likely impact of tech, especially in his early writings:

Using VR as a programming/visualization aid. As devs or sysadmins, we are often drowning in complexity and struggle to grasp all the aspects of what we are looking after. Think of how many consoles, logs and screens you are looking at. I know that is one thing I'd like to be able to do with a suitably mature VR headset.

In Burning Chrome, you have, IIRC, an intrusion on the back of somebody masquerading as an IRS automated audit. The way things are going, you sure we ain't gonna be getting mandated government-access automated audits? For security, kiddy-porn, tax audits? And those won't be spoofable, of course!

The other thing you are missing is not so much the level of detailed prediction that Gibson got right as the extent to which his writing have influenced contemporary society and our thinking about tech.

And that gets us right back to

>The co-option of the once useful prefix "cyber" into a score of meaningless terms is an affront to the language.

among others.

He's had a big influence*, like him or not.

* Note to self: use "influencer", more hip.

JLV

Re: *Remarkably* sharp prediction?

SoZ is the one with the muckers right? Public mass killers a la Columbine et all. Second it and Shockwave.

I also nominate Neuromancer and Burning Chrome for intrusion tech and cyberspace.

Forever Peace for remote controlled military assasination cyborgs. Aka drones these days.

Too early to really tell but I also think Suarez's Daemon is likely to hit some bullseyes.

But, honestly, given the sheer volume of SF lit and its avowed goal of prediction, they're not batting so hot in general. Space warfare esp is a subject with a perennial lack of plausibility.

Microsoft's equality and diversity: Skimpy schoolgirls dancing for nerds at an Xbox party

JLV

Re: OK, Micros~1...prove it!

Errr... despite me agreeing it's a fuck up, overreaction much?

A serious public apology and better event vetting should suffice and is better than mere scapegoating.

Plenty of other, guiltier, parties @ MS to have walk the plank: ribbon ui, metro ui, charms, win 10 telemetry, win 10 nagware, whoever gratuitously rearranges settings dialogs from release to release...

JLV

Re: Sex is a marketing way to sell stuff? What a news!

Man. Who has been to strip clubs before, on his own decision, with friends.

Is that so difficult to understand, that a woman might feel uncomfortable going to a strip club? Especially with men she doesn't know? Or her colleagues.

Like I said, flip it around. You go to a vendor event and they take you all out to see the Chippendales. Now, imagine doing that as a young guy with a bunch of older-than-you'd-prefer women. Just so that the sexual tension might not be totally appreciated on your end. Lovely time, right?

If you chose to go see male dancers with your significant other, she might find ways to show her appreciation later on. Or if you like male dancers yourself. Who knows? Very different situation.

MS fucked up*. End of story. Guy who did this doesn't deserve to get fired, but learning from other folks' mistakes is smarter than making them yourself. And making people uncomfortable is not cool, PR or no PR, feminists or no feminists.

p.s. if this was a logging company event or an oil worker convention, this might be different. It wasn't.

JLV

Re: Sex is a marketing way to sell stuff? What a news!

You fail to see the difference between something done on private time and something on an official company event. And intended as a PR event to boot.

No censorship or prude intent on my end. It's just not good biz practice. And it is a tad obnoxious to women employees and attendees. Or would male dancers be welcomed by you and the lads?

Do it on private time, with like minded folk if that's your thing. I ain't gonna throw stones.

Telling your wife why you were fired is the only punishment

JLV

Re: Computer repair and porn

That's also what a TrueCrypt mount is for. Unlike a full-drive encryption unmount it and the rest of your machine is available for troubleshooting.

I think, but I am unsure the trade offs, that it may also be secure than a full-drive encryption. You lose in non-encrypted swap memory files and on stolen machines. But you gain when you consider that your drive is only decrypted when you mount it. My TC is only open while I need to access confidential files (not porn, that's another story) and malware can only get in then. If you get infected, but subsequently quickly find the malware, you've dodged the bullet.

Unlike full disk encryption where anything running with your rights can look at your files.

Doesn't help with encryption ransomware however.

How Microsoft copied malware techniques to make Get Windows 10 the world's PC pest

JLV

Re: oh I dunno

You can upvote a downvote in Reg, but you cant put it back to neutral.

No pbm either way ;-)

JLV
Trollface

oh I dunno

If it's as bad as all that.

I have the perfect antidote.

1 buy laptop w win 8 home

2 upgrade (bitch to find) to win 8 pro. Why is it not in the app store???

3 want a win 10 upgrade (I hate 81)

MS seems totally confused about upgrading pro upgrade packs. It doesn't nag you and in fact if you try to do it manually it insists on steering you to the Home upgrade which stops without indication of a solution.

Own goal much?

I did get that you can bring it to a MS store and they'll be it. Very nice folk, unlike the harried Apple staff, they have plenty of time. Haven't done it yet.

When I do get 10 ill probably block telemetry via settings AND router hosts.

'Just give me any old date and I'll make it work' ... said the VB script to the coder

JLV

Dates are a bitch

For example, much as I love Python, I find it quite galling that you have to jump through hoops to json-ize a simple datetime. That's one big thing javascript got right, having a native date type.

Dates are also another subject of frustration in writing cross-db portable SQL. Every single rdbms has its own cruddy take on it, with mssql being one of the worst with their stupid numeric codes for formatting. Heck, even within one database, doing anything more trivial than >, <, = comparisons is much more hassle than necessary.

That said, the one worse thing than being overly picky with the parameters you accept is being sloppy and inconsistent in your handling of the ones you don't reject. You suck, VB, you suck.

</rant>

Mozilla will emit 'first version' of Servo-based Rust browser in June

JLV

Easy quip to make, from the safety of critic-dom, innit?

A 2016 browser isn't quite your 1994 beastie, neither in terms of capability, expectations, nor its horrific tendency to be a magnet for all sorts of attacks.

Maybe some more modern tools would help. I do hope the Rust language's feature set and maturity is up to the task. Incremental re-implementation is a fairly pragmatic way to mitigate that risk. Also a good way to jettison cruft.

I like FF, even in its current state, and I hope this is a new focus on cutting on bloat. Well done, that would put them well ahead of their equally lardass, as phuzz pointed out, siblings.

"if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"

JLV

Oh, I dunno. Since Rust, the language, is all about low-level memory management, I could see that playing very well with my primary FF gripe - memory bloat.

I agree that FF should aim to constrain its RAM usage ahead of adding new stuff, but Rust may help there. At least, I hope that's one of the goals.

Also, FWIW, Chrome for example ain't exactly svelte once you add up all the various processes' RAM use.

Microsoft traps and tortures poor little AI in soulless Minecraft world

JLV
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Re: Turing Evolved

That was a pretty good book. More about testing than learning like here, but excellent. Makes you think.

Wish more cheap Kindle SF was like that, rather than the crap Military SF published by the ton. By guys who probably wouldn't know actual tactics if it bit them on the ass.

A typo stopped hackers siphoning nearly $1bn out of Bangladesh

JLV

Re: I just checked my account

>The history of anti-Semitism in Europe suggests that the Jew in the street has paid a high price for the excesses of their peers in the mansions

Yeah, 6 million. Jews generally were banned from a lot of activities in Europe, by the Church and xenophobia. They turned to money making pursuits, such as the professions and banking (also banned specifically by the Church). Too successful? Gas them. Excellent way to get a banker off your back, wouldn't you say?

>Hitler was no saint however

>...with a number of Jews serving in Hitler's military up...

Nice. Always open to abuse by cutting out of context, but, still, nice.

Despite launching the National Socialist Party, Hitler was supported by many of the rich industrialists you despise. Why? Because he was anti-Communist. And because they stood to make a killing from re-industrialization and re-armament.

I am much more into the military side of WW2, so I am not too qualified, but some have claimed that going to war, or rather pillaging even without warfare, was necessary for Germany. All the IOUs he had accumulated from 33 on were going to bankrupt Germany unless he found some $ elsewhere. In Czechoslovakia without a fight. In Poland, France and Holland later. Ever read about the 44 winter in Holland and its mass starvation because all the food was getting sucked out?

And certainly, Germany partially lost the war because it tried to wage it on the cheap. Why was Nazi production rising in 43 and 44 despite bombings? Because Speer was finally putting them on full-on war footing which AH had avoided before for PR reasons.

Hardly signs of super economic management by AH & all. AH's rise and WW2 might have been caused by excessive Versailles punishment. But that's not your debate, is it? Nothing like a good conspiracy theory in the middle of a security breach article.

JLV

Re: I just checked my account

Are you claiming Adolf was just a poor misunderstood soul? And that we got tricked into fighting him? Really? Chamberlain, anyone?

Plus, your central premise, "nationalizing a currency" makes no sense. Currencies, absent special cases like the Euro, pegs or just using someone else's currency, are inherently a national concern. Did you mean something else? Maybe whatever steps they took to stabilize hyperinflation? Defaulting? If so, why not be clear about what you meant?

JLV
Facepalm

Re: I just checked my account

>Hitler nationalising his currency was what triggered the war.

And here I was, thinking that invading Poland had something to do with it.

Yahoo! kills! search! APIs!, games! and! Astrology! site!

JLV

bye, bye, won't miss you.

I was going to ask about what was happening to dev-facing stuff like the YUI js library.

But...

"""

yuilibrary.com

IMPORTANT: The YUI library is no longer actively maintained. Please see this announcement for more information. YUI is a

"""

Died sometime in 2014 apparently.

I have no real antipathy towards Yahoo, but they've been irrelevant for a loooong time now.

Microsoft SQL Server for Linux is a brilliant and logical idea

JLV
FAIL

Re: Sounds good until...

>You see the system generated slup triggers, slurp SQL Agent job, slurp tempoary tables, slurp datatype, etc...

>As Linux lacks so many enterprise-scale features compared to Windows Server, it's no wonder only SQL Server lite can be hosted on the shareware OS

That's you, both times, same subject. This time with a cute penguin moniker.

OK, we know you are fairly ignorant, prone to generalizations and a fanboi. What I fail to understand is whether you are an MS shill (seems like it from #1). Or a Linux wannabe. Anyone know?

Right now, I am tending to the amanfrommars absurdity typology.

But unwittingly absurd & strident, a la Eadon.

JLV

Re: Increase in Microsoft shill propaganda

>legion of dupes

>any serious Linux shop would adopt SQLServer

Correct. But I think you are missing the target demographic. It's existing SQL Server users that want to dip their toes into Linux or cloud-but-not-using-Azure. Or users who require (whether justifiably or not) a commercial rdbms. Not existing users of postgres/mysql.

And certainly not the open-source-only crowd.

I don't necessarily expect a stable/fully-performant SQL Server any time soon. But if MS sticks with it, it'll give that type of users an option to migrate certain stacks to Linux. And it also gives Oracle users something to nego$iate with.

I see that as a, small, boon to Linux use and adoption. But hey, if you see a Ballmer and MS fanboi behind every tree, I guess we can agree to disagree.

p.s. I think the poster who cautioned about all the availability of ancillary MSSQL-supporting software on Linux (i.e. not mssql itself) is much closer to the mark.

JLV

Re: Why

I've seen several times, first hand, MySQL 5.x do really weird and non-obvious sql processing. Errors, in other words.I accept that MySQL is fine in 99% of the ORM-mediated web CRUD stuff, but I wouldn't trust it on mission-critical stuff that doesn't fall in that category and/or uses complex queries.

I definitely trust Postgres a whole lot more than MySQL. Does it fit all cases? Probably not. Not least you need to consider the question of company culture and available dba skills. I.e. you don't become a top dba on the fly on a new rdbms and Postgres is just not as widely used as MSSQL/Oracle.

On the other hand, I've worked for years on MSSQL (as well as Oracle) and I find it a fine database. It might be less amenable to huge volumes than Oracle, but even that might have been caused by incompetence in DBA/hardware configuration.

My opinion as a long time db pro. And a preference for open source/Linux over Windows. You don't have to agree with it.

So, once it is stable, I think MSSQL will be a fine alternative rdbms to those who prefer to have a commercial vendor and who prefers MSSQL over Oracle.

Choice is good. Nothing wrong with mysql if it rocks your world. Doesn't rock mine.

p.s. Note also that "having a vendor" is not the same as "getting your rdbms bug fixed". i.e.The chance that 1) you encounter a problem in the rdbms engine itself, not caused by your code, and that the 2) vendor fixes it promptly is pretty low.

1) is unlikely to happen on a battle-tested, 20 yr old rdbms. 2) rdbms and their optimizers are incredibly complex and need to allow for all the existing userbase, i.e. It is unlikely a vendor will ship you a non-security fix on short notice. They'll call it a feature and give you a run around. Been there, done that, with an Oracle bug.

Linux fans may be in for disappointment with SQL Server 2016 port

JLV

Don't forget cloud stuff as motivation. A lot of the sexy/hype-y AWS, Docker, devops & all activities tend to mostly be carried out on CentOs, Ubuntu, etc... Not Windows. So if you want your rdbms engine to be considered in that space...

JLV

Re: Perfectly understandable

>He (J J) was joking...I think?

I don't think so. J J is frequently funny, less often intentionally so.

Web servers should give browsers a leg-up, say MIT boffins

JLV

Re: I'd let the market sort this out

Weather Network is a special case outlier of worst practices and info overload. I could almost understand if it was just the ads, but it's their overuse of clickbait articles and trivia that I truly loathe.

Surprisingly, Time and Date has a pretty good weather section. I suppose all the raw data is more or less the same anyway for those sites so the presentation is what counts and theirs is very stripped down.

+40 summers, -40 winters. Yay!:

http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/canada/winnipeg

Solus: A welcome ground-up break from the Linux herd

JLV

Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

Ah, yes. I get what you mean. I responded that way because Gentoo itself prides itself on its speed so I assumed OP was citing Gentoo as good practices.

Taking that tack instead, if Gentoo packages install slowly, via Portage, there are several possibilities off the top of my head:

- repositories searching and downloading is slow

- due to Python Portage is slow and causing the bottlenecks

- Portage and Gentoo compiles from source, rather than installing binaries (which is well known since it is also a matter of pride for Gentoo folk)

Of course, OP jumps on #2, doesn't think about #3 and wants it done in C instead. Ummm....

JLV

Re: "It's written in slow-ass Python"

>If you don't think speed matters for a package manager, you haven't used Gentoo.

I haven't, true. But are you willing to eat crow? Its package manager is in Python ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux#Portage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portage_%28software%29

Portage is written in the Python programming language, and is the main utility that defines Gentoo.

Look, the main things I want from a package manager is cleverness, robustness, flexibility and ubitquity. Sheer speed isn't high on the list.

Clever programming can make even slow languages fast in appropriate contexts. Bittorrent, for example also originated in Python. Because upload-slicing was clever and easier to implement in a high level language. Think of it in C first? Sure, but not too many people will have the programming chops to carry it to fruition.

JLV

Re: "One thing that's less clear, is who Solus is really for."

Don't be an idiot. The language doesn't really matter, because the package manager should shell out to the system for any build/make activity and will be bound by network i/o on the query/downloading bit as well. I.e. Python is mosty really slow when you do a lot of things in Python itself (which you should avoid) or if you have a truly CPU-bound program.

On the other hand, is this package manager, whether written in C++ or Python, ready for prime time? How good is the support for scripted/config-managed installs via Chef/Puppet/Fabric/Docker? Heck, just finding troubleshooting tips online for package xyz won't be fun. And how good are the repos?

The wiki entry doesn't inspire confidence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardus_%28operating_system%29#PiSi_package_management

PiSi (/ˈpiːsiː/; Packages Installed Successfully as Intended; also a Turkish word meaning "kitty", intended as a pun on the distribution's name, which is derived from pardus, the species name of the leopard.) is a package management system that was developed for Pardus. It was used in the initial versions of the distribution, but abandoned in favor of APT since the project moved to Debian base. Pardus 2011.2, released on September 19, 2011, was the last Pardus release that used PiSi.

Yelp-for-people app Peeple is back – so we rated Julia, its cofounder

JLV
FAIL

>bigger specialist

Yeah, because this article is clearly related to MS. Somehow.

First working Apple Mac ransomware infects Transmission BitTorrent app downloads

JLV
Facepalm

Re: Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

>Nothing to do with not wanting to pay for media. No, no, thats a vicious rumour put out by The Man. Right?

Totally agree. Let's shut down the internet because people use it for piracy.

Moss - "Jen - hand over 'The Internet'. We need to take it down"

Now, what I am more curious about is whether you could catch this kinda crap via HomeBrew/Port of innocent proggies. Hopefully the folks looking after those repositories are on the ball. This particular snafu sounds like a good wake up call for all.

Hacker 'Guccifer' extradited to US

JLV
Pint

Re: Prison time?

>Lahel, 42, is best known

>He began hacking at the age of 35 and in 2011

>The Romanian citizen and unemployed taxi driver and paint salesman served seven years in the Arad maximum security prison

Well, it didn't state that he served the 7 years for hacking, but otherwise, the timeline bits of this article are about as clear as Perl code written while on a bender.

'Boss, I've got a bug fix: Nuke the whole thing from orbit, rewrite it all'

JLV

Re: Interesting

Outsourcing might be a good idea with those particular coders, dontcha think? I mean, a suitably screened replacement is unlikely to do worse.

Evolution in action

JLV

Evolution in action

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/washington-state-man-fatally-shoots-himself-while-taking-selfies-1.3474672

Sad, but also really dumb.

Dwolla dwamned for destroywing defwences: $100k fine for insecurity

JLV

Shoulda made them take out an ad in a national paper and explain those findings instead. How much is 100k$? A month's salary for the low level C-levels? A week's fee for the legal team?

Still good job doing it.

Yelp minimum wage row shines spotlight on … broke, fired employee

JLV

Re: BUT

>taking jobs at such a low paid employer

Well, I dunno. She could have maybe gotten a job somewhere else, true. But public naming and shaming of company behavior is not a bad thing per se.

First, Yelp could try to act a bit more ethically and with more empathy and pay more than minimum wage. Second, I personally dislike companies that run up huge employee-related expenses with perks rather than putting the same $ in your pocket. Third, I doubt the interview process was crystal clear about her prospects & low pay - "yeah, we pay sh.t, and you don't get promoted quickly. So in that economic sense, transparency's a bit of a one-way street - Yelp knows exactly how little it pays, applicants do not know that as clearly.

Now those same applicants, and Yelp customers and users, are more aware of Yelp's behavior. But, hey no problem for Yelp since they are white as snow, right?

As to blaming Trump. Please, much as I hate the jackass with the toupe, it's difficult to argue that this article was not, at least a teensy weensy bit, taking a poke at him specifically.

Hey, I don't mind if they do, but let's call a cat a cat. Personally, not sure at this point how all the "5 ways to stop Trump" articles popping up left and right in the press are helping getting rid of him. He's riding a powerful stream of narrative BS about his being the underdog and the champion of the downtrodden and waving a magic wand of fix-it.

I think he's gonna remain a nuisance until he's facing only one other Rep candidate. Or even until Hillary. But then? I expect something like the Chirac vs Le Pen French vote of 2002. 80% for Chirac, 20% for Le Pen. Amazing, considering how much Chirac was a jackass, but representative of how 80% of the country just hated Le Pen. Like Le Pen, he's full of easy-sounding solutions that would achieve nothing but appeal to 20% of the electorate.

Surprise! British phone wins Best Product at Mobile World Congress

JLV

Re: Back on track...

Sweet. Even the price is reasonable.

720 x 1280 pixels, from http://www.gsmarena.com/cat_s60-7928.php

However... RRP €649 / $599

With the exchange rate at 1.1 USD/Euro, is it customary for Europeans to get "overcharged" by their own manufacturers?

Apple hasn't announced the new iPhone 5SE and pundits already hate it

JLV

>They don't. They're quite happy having just a massive slice of the high end of the market to themselves.

Actually, it's pretty amazing how many people who, from their job, don't seem to be rolling in the $$$$ do have $800+ phones. I guess that is what bling & selfie culture, combined with the costs being all safely swept under the rug by a nice long contract does for you. And not just Apple, all the flagships aside from MS seem to think that's the entry price.

If Apple brought back a <= $700 phone I might consider it. Otherwise... it's just a phone.

Reminder: How to get a grip on your files, data that Windows 10 phones home to Microsoft

JLV

naive question

Couldn't you just set up the hosts file so that MS telemetry ends up @ 127.0.0.1? At least most of the time?

Or does that interfere with checking that you have a valid license and therefore lock you out somehow? Still, I assume Windows 10 doesn't stop working when it's disconnected.

You know, you could almost tolerate this crap if they actually acted usefully on the info. Such as:

1. allowing users to get rid of ribbons everywhere, if so desired. don't need no telemetry to tell them how many of us dislike ribbons.

2. getting rid of Windows 8 style system settings dialog.

3. etc..., etc...

As it is, it seems like a lot of spying without much user benefit. And I really wonder why MS picked another fight with its user base.

Top new IoT foundation (yeah, another one) to develop open standards

JLV

Tsssk, tssk, y'all Luddites. Some of this will end up being useful. In 10 years. Maybe.

I agree with most of the doubters. Count at least 10 years for all of the following to come to pass:

1. getting a clue about security

2. actual inter-operability of devices across manufacturers

3. prices to be reasonable on basic devices rather than early adopter$$$$.

4. sorting out the wheat from the chaff in terms of usefulness (i.e. smart heating vs smart toothbrush)

5. incompetent vendors going out of business. possibly after having fleeced Joe Investor.

6. reliability issues sorted out.

7. see point #1.

8. see point #1.

Heating? Yes, it would be nice to have smarter thermostats. Right now, I have 5 independent wall manual thermostats in my rental apartment, with no brains whatsoever. Replacing them with a programmable runs at $30-40 each. It'd be nice if houses were being built with smart programmable thermostats - I ended up saving 20-30% a month installing just regular programmables in my previous home.

However... there is a lot of useless crap being thrown out as well, such as smart lightbulbs and smart fridges. Seriously, how much sensor horsepower would you need to pack in a fridge to catch spoiled milk? Or tell you you need buy some milk? How reliable would they be and what would the effect be on device lifetime and/or device cost?

JLV
Thumb Up

Re: Mee too!!!

>are not traditional standards bodies

>only make their publications available first to paid members

If only that meant that traditional open-standards orgs did make their publications available to the public at some point. Looking at you, ANSI, in the context of the where-the-heck-do-I-get-one-without-mortgaging-my-first-born SQL standard* (+/- $350).

Mind you, the absence of easily consultable SQL standards docs does facilitate the PR work of database vendors in claiming their creations are standards-compliant :-)

As to this article, I think XKCD needs to step up and revisit https://xkcd.com/927/ with a meta twist.

OpenBSD website operators urged to fix mind-alteringly bad bug

JLV

Re: Closet? The psychiatric ward, I say.

Maybe he meant psychophont?

Under-fire Apple backs down, crafts new iOS to kill security safeguard

JLV
Thumb Up

>previous version of iOS didn't check for the hardware approval stamp.

Upvoted. Finally someone able to use his brains.

We've had so many "it's not security if it only freaks out on the iOS upgrade" bleaters.

Would you all have somehow wanted that security check to go back in time to before it was installed and magically freak out at first reboot?

Glad Apple backed down. This whole thing was about as stupid as they come and would have just opened the door for more Apple-only service and hardware abuse if customers had put up with it. No thanks for my fellow Apple customers apologists who were happily willing to let themselves be fleeced (but they did get a fair bit of justified abuse when doing so).

Reality is, anytime you bring any device in for repair, you are at some risk of dodgy behavior. For example, you will often get asked for your login password. Which is logical enough if work is being done on device software, not just hardware and the repair guy needs to check things work. But still leaves you open to abuse. Locking the door like Apple was trying to do was never going to be very helpful in terms of security.

My take on it is: keep your actual secure info encrypted separately from device operation and access. For example, use a mount-on-demand TrueCrypt partition, not encryption that is tied to computer operation. Disconnect from secure apps (and that includes email) before handing in a phone for repair. If you're truly paranoid, reinstall the OS if you know how to.

Worrying about an insecure fingerprint sensor when the device is going to be back in your physical possession (and away from DodgyRepairGuy) afterwards would be much lower than my distaste for Apple $$$ grabs.

Confused as to WTF is happening with Apple, the FBI and a killer's iPhone? Let's fix that

JLV

this position is liable to damage privacy.

What we have in this case is a convicted murderer (well, he would have been if he were alive) and a judge with a warrant, on US territory, in a very open and public procedure. At this point, I see no more expectation of privacy than I would expect in performing a search of physical premises under the same circumstances.

Either Apple is either able to do this or not. If they are not, fine. If they are able to, and it is a generalized weakness in their security, applicable under different circumstances, then they should patch the vulnerability. If, as this article implies, they are able to do it and to do so without putting other users at risk, they should comply with what seems to be an entirely reasonable judicial request.

Apple can choose to fight it. But in doing so, it is, in my opinion, providing ammunition to those politicians who are scare-mongering and requesting encryption backdoors willy-nilly. If a company can't be compelled to cooperate, if able to, under current laws for something as clearly justified as this, then the pressure will grow to limit encryption in general. A backdoor-based approach is much more dangerous than a warrant-based compulsion to collaborate with law enforcement.

i.e. Apple can choose to make its products' unhackable and should be allowed to. But it should not be allowed to ignore the law.

Boffins freeze brains, then thaw them – and they're in perfect order

JLV

>Nanomachines. The magic wand

True, but, if you are not religious, a darn sight more convincing as a future possibility than magically passing through the pearly gates if you've worshiped dutifully during your life.

I think half of the question is actually why would anyone un-thaw you in 200 years. If you are one of the very few, sure. Or if you have very specialized knowledge useful for some reason. If you are one of millions upon millions of folks and if the planet is already crowded, why exactly? Unless you have a special trust fund set up for the purpose, your friends and family will all be dead already.

Anyone remember the Twilight Zone episode (which was ripped off from a non-remunerated SF writer) where someone first gets paid to bring back the dead and then gets paid again to put them back?

JLV

Re: Show me

Good catch, except that I am not sure that they actually meant to convey what you understood.

From the link:

>The result was an intact rabbit brain uniformly filled with such a high concentration of cryoprotectants that it could be vitrified solid and stored at -135 degrees Celsius.

They go on about an intact pig brain. Maybe the slicing is for dissection and required to examine the cell-level impact of the thawing?

Reminder: iPhones commit suicide if you repair them on the cheap

JLV
Facepalm

WolfFanBoi much?

Seriously, they do something like that to a product we bought, just so they can gauge us on repairs and you think it's a great idea? Why do you think Apple owners have the rep of being morons here? Precisely because some of us do act like uncritical gullible suckers.

In almost no other product would people make a statement defending a vendor who screws them.

You like OARS so much? Great, you stick with them - your decision, doesn't require bricking my system, does it?

But let me have the choice on my hardware. I just got my MBP fixed by a non-auth dealer and it was a great deal. Fast and cheap swap of a used keyboard & install of an aftermarket SSD. Choice is good, being brainwashed not.

And, for the record, when I got my iphone serviced, I wiped and disconnected my email account beforehand, because that's the only really confidential bit on it. Not using OARS <> stupid.