Posts by Queasy Rider

Thomas the Tank Engine lobotomised by fat (remote) controller

High self opinion?

I looked up properties for sale in Paraburdoo. Average asking price for 14 homes was $358,000. Doesn't sound so undesirable to me.

Dead serious: How to haunt people after you've gone... using your smartphone

Snopes: Hot Down Here

http://www.snopes.com/humor/jokes/hot.asp

I just watched a video where a terminal father bought an electric guitar for his son's 16th birthday, and filled out a card. The video showed the son being surprised by the posthumous gift and card.

Tick-tick... boom: Germany gives social media giants 24 hours to tear down hate speech

Re: Choices, choices

"Which is better? An obscene, hate-filled rant on Facebook from someone who thinks they're doing harm or a rented van driven into a crowd of pedestrians by someone who no longer has an outlet online?"

But he had an outlet online, and he still chose to drive that van into a crowd of pedestrians.

I love free speech, but along with increasing intolerance, we are seeing a rise in associated violence. When the so-called leader of the free world attacks a judge because of that judge's Mexican ancestry, tries to prevent Muslims from entering the country because of their religion rather than their actions, you can bet that there is a follow-on effect i.e. the haters come out of the woodwork, feeling justified in their multiple hatreds, itching to get at the objects of their blind hate. The more hate speech you allow, the deeper the hate becomes until it is no longer speech but hateful actions. People, did we learn nothing from Hitler and the Nazi party? We don't need a modern day Crusade. Don't get me wrong, I am not defending the Muslims. I want those hateful imams thrown in jail to rot, not expelled. They are the ones hurting us, inciting more hate. The programmer wanting to come from the middle east might also be, but this isn't Minority Report. Until they open their mouths espousing hatred, or are found to be associating with those that do, hold your horses. The 3 letter agencies know who they are. They better, with all their sneaky tricks up their sleeves. I am sick of seeing our freedoms snatched away from us one after another, but enough is enough when it comes to allowing hateful, inciteful speech.

Useful Ajit Pai's lawyer nominated for top US telco watchdog role

So...

...the fix is in.

Ta-ta, security: Bungling Tata devs leaked banks' code on public GitHub repo, says IT bloke

Half Indian names

Have noticed the same thing when searching MS for help. Canned answers are totally useless.

Squirrel sinks teeth into SAN cabling, drives Netadmin nuts

Humane?

I once watched a friend pick up a baby mouse caught in a glue trap and crush the mouse's head between his thumb and forefinger. Shudder.

US Marine Corps chiefs declare WAR on stolen sex snap sharing scum

Re: Bah. This will be spun politically.

To his statement, 'How much more do the females of our Corps have to do to be accepted?'." the general should have added, 'AND RESPECTED'.

having naked photos of you...

or your mother, daughter, or sister.

User lubed PC with butter, because pressing a button didn't work

not like he will have the time to watch them.

Had a thousand dvd collection backed up on the largest hard drives I could buy at the time. Breathed a sigh of relief when hurricanes cost me the originals. Was not quite so pleased when the backups died without warning, but then realized that I never watched the backups so I ceased the practice of backing up (dvd's, not everything) saving me plenty of money not buying any more Seagates.

What went up, Musk come down again: SpaceX to blast sat into orbit with used rocket

it'll be a major kick in the nuts

I read that as "it'll be a major kick in the Musks."

Huawei's just changed the way you'll use Android

The button I miss and want

is the forward one. I use it all the time on my Win computers, and sorely miss it on my phones. It is such a pain to back up, realize you shouldn't have, and be forced to re-enter all that data again to get back to where you just were, especially when you know that it could have been done with a single button push, if only they offered that option. Sigh.

Dropbox: Oops, yeah, we didn't actually delete all your files – this bug kept them in the cloud

Re: Many people think that data is safe once encrypted.

In other words, your data is not, and never will be safe in the cloud. The only solution is to keep that data in house, encrypted, and when it must be deleted, to replace and then destroy the old hard drive. In other words, the modern equivalent of shredding then burning old paper files. Sad times.

Lord of the Dance set to deliver high kicks at Trump’s big ball

Re: Flatley and crew a good choice

Old joke: What do real Irish drinkers call St. Paddy's Day... Amateur Night.

Brilliant phishing attack probes sent mail, sends fake attachments

Re: a friendless loner

Way back when, I never gave out personal info over the net, and yet, a decade ago I searched my name and there I was, loud and proud. I deduced, by various means, that the local phone co. had sold my info. Not long after that, I dropped my landline, and went with a PAYG mobile. Last week I googled myself again and noted with satisfaction that I had disappeared from the web. So you can imagine my surprise when YESTERDAY, I climbed into a friend's car and she handed me a photo and asked me if I knew anybody there; and there, staring me in the face were my sister-in-law, her 2 daughters, and grandchild. I was shocked, and asked how she got that pic. "Oh, I was surfing in the library, and I printed it out for free."

"But how and where did you find that?"

"Don't have a clue."

Well, neither do I. She swears she never entered my name, and she has nothing in common with my sister-in-law who lives 2,000 km away.

I guess I'm not so lonely anymore. Damned Facebook. And no, I don't have a Facebook account, but you can't tell all your extended family to leave you off the web.

Yep. Bitcasa's called it quits

$39.99 @ Best Buy

WD - My Passport 1TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive. Buy 2, one for backup. Replace every 10 months. Why pay $99/year. Are they nuts?

Slim pickings by the Biggest Loser: A year of fitness wearables

Sad times

Just lost a fave uncle (last of his generation)on my little brother's birthday. Yup, it hurts. My heartfelt condolences.

Forget aircraft – now cretins are laser-blinding ferry boat crewmen

Re: effect of lead

A few points to note: It was the crazy Roman leaders that were most DIRECTLY exposed to pure lead, not just their drinking cups, but their dishes, pots and pans, and eating utensils. Thus, not just a higher exposure, but an exponentially higher exposure. You point out that only a relatively few rich were most affected, but since Rome was basically ruled by about a hundred families, that meant every last one of their leaders were potentially bat shit crazy or mentally deficient.

And I'm surprised nobody here noted the existence of lead in modern business practices. Activist scientists were rather distressed not just by leaded gasoline, but by industry's use of anti-fouling paints, solder, leaded paint in the toy manufacturing business, crib makers, playpen makers etc. Everybody knows that there is nothing babies won't put in their yaps and chew on, especially when they are teething, gnawing like rodents. Just glance at the rails of their cribs if you need proof. Sure the use of lead in paints has been restricted and banned, but the damage has been done and it will take scores of years to flush those victims entirely out of the population and the lead out of the environment, like asbestos. And these people are from every economic class. Maybe this explains the tech industry leaders' anti-social bent, too much time spent as youths with soldering irons.

Microsoft, IBM, Intel refuse to hand over family jewels to China

Re: Nice to hear from those experts on security, Microsoft

SVV

Thank you for saving me all that typing. Have an up-vote. I would only add, "And we have removed all the back doors and spyware and replaced it with our own so you are now safe from your imperialist TLAs."

Which would be great because they ought not to care much about snooping on us as private citizens, but our industry, high tech, higher education, military and government have plenty to lose.

Inventor of McDonald's iconic Big Mac dies

Re: Not bitter

Dear B.Bob, to say I viscerally disagree with numerous of your posts would be an understatement, but I wish I could have up-voted your vitamin and aspirin reference over and over again. Gonna take mine right now. Good health to you, and many, if not all contrarians.

Congrats America, you can now safely slag off who you like online

Re: Polarization - another explanation

Yup, see this all the time. Bought a Chinese portable washing machine rated 4 point something from Amazon last month. I read all 370 reviews twice. Mostly 4s and 5s. The few 1s and 2s were like you said, machine failed on delivery or soon after, or the carton was damaged. But it was the abundance of 4 ratings that caught my eye. As the first dozen ratings abundantly pointed out, the water hoses were a non-standard size, and had to be adapted. But reviewer after reviewer continued to deduct one star for this, even though they had well been informed by previous reviews but purchased the product anyway. I finally did a recalculation, mentally converting those 4s to 5s, and came up with an overall rating of about 4.9. Averaged over that many reviews, that is an almost miraculous rating, so I purchased.

P S. Love the machine so far.

Netflix and fill – our coffers: Canada mulls taxing vid streaming giant 5% of subs cash

Re: forcing many to leave the country for treatment

Are you referring to the Clinton era when their attempt at universal health care was sabotaged by right wing TV parading a Canadian woman on screen proclaiming loudly the she had had to come to the States for an advanced procedure unavailable in the Great White North? What they criminally neglected to point out is that the Canadian health care system paid those bills for overpriced American specialists and hospitals to take care of that unappreciative whiny bitch. Or maybe you are referring to the spoiled crybabies in Canada who think they can jump the line of those waiting for expensive elective procedures that are stretching the budget to the limit.

As a strongly anti-socialist friend in Canada said to me four decades ago, "Socialist Canada won't allow anyone to die for medical reasons." I can only sadly add: "But they will let you suffer, it's all they can afford." I speak from the point of view of a person whose 55 year old sister in Canada is presently painfully recovering from her long awaited third hip replacement.

I encountered a man in a cast, a decade ago in Louisiana, angrily waving a crutch around while arguing that he wouldn't have that leg anymore if his accident had happened in Canada. This was his reasoning: His American plan wanted to simply remove his leg, and he had to fight vigorously with them to perform and pay for the procedures to save it. Therefore the Canadian system had to be worse because they would have just automatically taken off his leg. He was so angry and adamant that I didn't dare point out to him that he was presuming, and conversely, maybe the Canadian system, not being profit oriented, would have first tried everything possible to save the leg before suggesting it come off. No health system is perfect, I just believe the Canadian one is less imperfect than the American one.

Shhh! Shazam is always listening – even when it's been switched 'off'

Re: any number of those, "Damn, just missed!"

If that is happening that often, then just leave the damn app running, after all, as has already been pointed out today, all your personals have already been slurped by multiple entities, led by Google.

Tech Trump: Silicon Valley steps into the valley of unhappiness

Re: The Bull in the China Shop

I had a(late, self-declared redneck) friend who had a stock answer for people complaining about their bitchy other-halfs. Referring to his third wife and her teenage daughter he would reply, "I have two bitches, but," and he would pause for effect, "they're my bitches" with emphasis on the "my".

I genuinely believe a similar sentiment held back any wavering Republican from seriously considering the "evil Hillary". After all, the right has been vilifying her for over two decades. Maybe a few of them could have voted for good guy Bernie over bad boy Trump, but never, ever Hillary. And that was the Democrat establishment's fatal mistake, pushing her onto the voting public.

copyrighting the term "Forest Trump

... and I want to copyright the term "Il Douche(bag) Trumpolini".

What will happen when I'm too old to push? (buttons, that is)

chicken wire and a car battery

I immediately was thinking along the same lines, but I thought adding one of those shiny brass kick plates to the bottom of the door (with appropriate battery connected) would class up the neighborhood nicely.

Microsoft kinda did OK this quarter – but whatever, Wall Street loves Satya Nadella

Merkin politics?

Right, we want Brit politics, Euro politics etc.

British jobs for British people: UK tech rejects PM May’s nativist hiring agenda

huge variety of reason

Silly me, I thought the reason people voted to leave was because the P.M promised to quit if they did.

'Please label things so I can tell the difference between a mouse and a microphone'

push button on for quick release

I once knew a couple with a partially crippled daughter. I watched them one day struggling to get her walker into their car. When I asked them why they didn't fold the walker, I got a blank stare. I strolled over, pushed the button releases on the legs and collapsed the walker. What was their reaction? "We've been using that thing for years and didn't know it folded!"

Tesla autopilot driver 'was speeding' moments before death – prelim report

Re: ensuring the road was clear

More than once in my driving life I have pulled out into traffic believing I had plenty of time, only to realize that I had underestimated the speed of an approaching vehicle. I managed to always save myself by jumping on the gas and scooting out of the way. I suspect that something similar happened in this case, with the Tesla going 74 at impact, and the truck unable to scoot due to its great mass. I also suspect that if the Tesla had been going 65 then it would have just cleared the truck completely, or have been automatically slowed down when its systems came face to face with the truck's rear wheels. Believing all of the above, I place no blame on either the trucker or Tesla. As usual it is the speeding drivers fault; he asked for it, he got it. Too bad, so sad.

Tesla's Model S autonomous mode may have saved a life

Re: The exception that proves the rule

I suppose you're right. As a youth over 40 years ago I made a cross-continent trip. Was so bored that I set cruise and then played cards with my girlfriend, so I, for one, can't talk about anybody else texting, shaving, eating, putting on makeup, etc. I'd like to think that sort of foolishness is behind me but, the Tesla, and any similarly capable cars yet to hit the road sure make it easy and tempting to backslide into old evil ways.

The exception that proves the rule

Remember when seatbelts became mandatory and people argued about cases where people had been saved by being flung clear from their crashed vehicles, not trapped by their seatbelts. I'll take my chances and belt up. And I'll do the same if I can ever afford an autonomous vehicle, letting it save me if it can.

Tight-wad Apple repair techs swapped our damaged iGear with used kit – lawsuit

So, don't look at it really closely.

Hardball hacker thrown in the cooler for 46 months for guessing rival team's password

giving loans to poor minorities... NOT

I have detected a serious WHITEwash here. Because, although it was claimed that the gov policy was to enable poor minorities to become first time home owners (read: cheap, affordable, fixer-uppers that in those days could be acquired outright for less than $150,000), what I witnessed was young, middle-class couples (read that as white, just out of college, first jobs, no savings) being given loans on the strength of a signature, no collateral, for houses valued at double, triple or even more than those minority cases.

The whole fiasco is truly a classic case of the powerful(rich, politically connected) blaming the weak(poor minorities) for all our problems. I don't know how what percentage of Republicans blamed Clinton for forcing the banks to loan to the lower class blacks, but every last one of them has chosen to ignore, or is willfully blind to the trillions gleefully lent to insolvent( by definition, before they ever put pen to loan application) middle class white folk.

Google slammed over its 'free' school service

We don’t make any claim to it...

...which is a statement belied by every word in the following terms.

Chattanooga mayor credits muni broadband with aiding city's revival

Comcast et al, "Let them eat sh*t."

Apple and Android wearables: What iceberg? It’s full steam ahead!

Re: subtle leap-froggingatch

I think the author is implying that rather than simply naming the Apple watch OS 2.1 to briefly be a step ahead of Android, they chose to leap ahead with the designation 3.0, much like MS did, jumping from Win 8.1 to Win 10.

Re:battery went flat

Bought one of those new-fangled (I think) binocular cameras about a dozen years ago. Cheap as dirt at WalMart, eventually owned 3 of them, have a box of Aiptek pen cameras somewhere. Got some amazing alligator close-ups around home, and candid shots of friends out boating, so I took it camping one weekend. Great shots of kids rope swinging over a pool of water, scaling small cliffs, body surfing in river rapids, all the kind of natural pix you can get with a binoc that the kids don't ham it up for. Sadly the unit didn't have a memory card, and the battery died on the way home, along with the internal memory (old technology). I awoke then and there to the simple fact... digi-cams are stupid without memory cards. Sigh.

FBI's iPhone paid-for hack should be barred, say ex-govt officials

Re: Obvious loophole

...And just because the investigation using the exploit has finished, doesn't mean that the exploit couldn't or wouldn't be useful in any future investigations, so revealing the exploit would be shortsighted in the extreme.

Michael Dell bought his PC biz for a bargain, must get checkbook out for stiffed shareholders

Re: I don't understand

I got screwed that way, even though I voted NO, was forced to sell recently purchased shares at a loss. Made me realize what a sucker's game the stock market is for small investors, and never played again. I have better places for my assets.

Violin faces second NYSE delisting threat

You can jiggle and split the stocks any way you want, but that won't change your under $50,000,000. valuation.

Idiot millennials are saving credit card PINs on their mobile phones

Re: Phones make you stupid

Speed dials and contact lists don't help either.

Obama to admit Moon landing was faked?

Re: Maple LeafsLaughs

That is even more embarrassing than the Maple Loafs. Groan.

On a similar note, about their football team, the Argonauts. A friend was in Florida many years ago, and he would hears the occasional bleached Canadian on the beach let loose with "Argoooos." He said it sounded like a lament.

Microsoft sues US DoJ for right to squeal when Feds slurp your data

Re: a fishing expedition

Yes, these are fishing expeditions, and by being conducted are absolutely no different from allowing secret search warrants to secretly search your home or premises, Stazi-like.

You won't believe this, but… nothing useful found on Farook iPhone

Re: Image (sic) if they just threw it away

Fer gawd's sake, how stupid do you think the people on this thread are? To believe ANY agency would throw away a phone in such a high profile case? Yes, the FBI screwed up the password thing, but your straw man argument beggars belief.

South Korea to upgrade national stereo defence system for US$16m

Re: first visit to a supermarket

Same thing happened with a defecting Mig pilot many decades ago. He had to be shown numerous supermarkets before he would believe they weren't Potemkin village type tricks.

Apple assumes you'll toss the Watch after three years

Truth, whole truth, nothing but the truth

Firstly, full disclosure: I cannot put into words how much I hate and despise Apple.

Secondly, I find it interesting how many of you crow about how old your Macs are, and how you have upgraded them, but not one single one of you has told how much money you have sunk. Add up initial cost, overpriced new hard drives, overpriced new memory, overpriced new batteries, not to mention the cost of any additional overpriced software, and you sure as hell better love (as in ejaculate all over) your Macbook because you could have bought new Windows laptops every 3 or 4 years(or more often if you sold your used machines) for the same outlay.

I have a friend who is a wizard who can fix anything. I have witnessed him repairing motherboards by desoldering and replacing components, but I couldn't even give him my iBook. He wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, so I threw it, a decade ago, with its dead battery, and borked screen into the dumpster. I can't say as I ever missed it because over the year I had it I used it less and less, till I was finally completely back on my Windows machine.

Thirdly: I paid $20 for a refurbished LG dumb phone 18 months ago that works fine with a touch screen, camera, Bluetooth, etc. At that price I could afford to replace it EVERY MONTH.

( As you all down vote me please note I have refrained from using condescending terms like f*nb**s, Cr*pple, K**l**d, W*nbl*ws etc)

Line by line, how the US anti-encryption bill will kill our privacy, security

You have all been bamboozled.

This bill will never become law and they know it. It is really meant to force every rich tech company to open their wallets, not their encryption. This bill will have tech running so scared they they will pour mountains of cash through their lobbyists into congress critters' pockets. Congress, on its part, will equivocate, right up to the final vote, squeezing every last penny they can out of the Googles, Microsofts, Facebooks, etc. of America, before finally, at the last moment, allowing themselves to be convinced that this is a bad bill, then claiming they felt that all along. Everybody will then breathe a deep sigh of relief, and Congress will stash all that windfall cash.