Posts by Doctor Syntax

Astronomer slams sexists trying to tear down black hole researcher's rep

Re: Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Mister

Fair enough. I should have written "women in STEM" in the first place as one of my list is actually an aeronautical engineer. But there's no corresponding occupational noun.

Whoosh.

Re: Heroes and heroines

"So, I'm guessing savvy science bureaucrats actively seek good press."

They need to get better PR people on the job. There were a lot of people involved in a lot of ways and plenty of stories.

An observatory at the S. Pole would be a good story that wouldn't strain the brain power of the Daily Mirror. Imaging S/W would, however but here's a story with a picture that will hit the Daily Mirror's buttons guaranteeing that a lot of irrelevant issues will be raised. If there was ever an angle that would ensure the outstanding achievement would be overshadowed this was it.

Yes, of course it's wrong that we have to consider this but it wasn't at all savvy not to realise what the media would pick up on (some segments of the media being what they are) and what the political wannabes on both extremes would then do with it.

Why have women in science become such a contentious issue?

In my experience - nearly 60 years- they've just been there, starting with a couple of University lecturers and some classmates including a then girl-friend. Subsequently there've been SWMBO, our daughter, her friends, SWMBO's sister, my god-daughter, her friends, another cousin's daughter and numerous colleagues and friends over the course of 20 years in science. Fair enough, a couple of those veered out of science into finance ("that's where they keep the money") but otherwise it's just normal to expect some of the people in science to be women.

I can only assume that those on either side who make a fuss aren't themselves scientists. Not being scientists; now that really is weird.

Re: Heroes and heroines

"Couple that with PR people"

That's the real problem here. PR hangers-on.

PR is always liable to reduce science to a level that overlaps with the under-stone crawlers.

Client-attorney privilege? Not when you're accused of leaking Vault 7 CIA code

"If the material is classfied it will not be released to the lawyer.

This article is a bunch of nothing."

It might not be a bunch of nothing if you'd read it carefully enough to realise that the material being reviewed is the accused's instructions to his lawyer. Having a reviewer interposed to black-hole instructions on the unchallengeable (because black-holed) basis that they're classified is not a good way to have justice seen to be done.

"The government responded ... saying that it had no way to speed up the process because the CIA officer in charge of reviewing the material is independent from its prosecutorial team."

I strongly suspect that if the court ordered that if the review wasn't completed in, say, 6 hours the material would be handed over anyway they'd suddenly find it possible to review it in 6 hours.

What, BTW, happens if the reviewer decides the material is classified?

Amazon boss snubs 'expensive', 'sub-optimal' relational databases. Here's looking at you, Larry

Re: 'Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen...'

"I guarantee you they’d have looked at you strangely and said ‘No, thank you’.”

And some of us will continue to do and say that.

New UK counter-terror laws come into force today – watch those clicks, people. You see, terrorist propag... NOOO! Alexa ignore us!

Re: Always Guilty

"What next?"

Obvious. Get out from under the adult supervision of the ECJ and ECHR. Why do you think the Home Sec in No 10 wants that?

Re: Guy Fawkes Day

"it could apply to much of history including the Troubles"

It's a good job I'm retired. My CV, along with that of my old colleagues and numerous police officers and military would fall foul of it. And those of our ministerial overlords of the time.

They live: The US government is not killing its zombie servers fast enough say its auditors

Policy meets reality.

Russian parliament waves through powers for internet iron curtain

Re: благодарю вас, Товарищ Пу́тин

It goes on to say "if a hostile power attempts to shut down connectivity to and from Russia."

So any power getting fed up with Russia sticking its internet fingers into other people's affairs has only to make a relatively ineffective attempt to block them and they'll take over and do the job themselves. When do we start?

Hole lotta crud: Chinese stock photo pusher tries to claim copyright on Event Horizon pic

What a pity the CC licences don't include a clause forbidding any use of material by anyone who has made a false claim on it.

My HPE-funded lawyer wrote my witness statement, reseller boss tells High Court

Re: Always read the paper before you sign it.

Greetings AL. The circumstances in which I've seen this happen were either the original statement included references to material not before the court (e.g. exhibits relating to people no longer suspects) or the case going through a process where the statement was expected on different forms.

It has led to policemen turning up expecting a quick signature and finding that they had to wait while I went through both versions very carefully and I presume my colleagues in similar circumstances would have done the same.

"or perhaps the Judge is getting close to throwing it out"

I'd be surprised if that happened so early. The case is down for a long hearing so there must be many witnesses to be heard. It would be difficult to throw it out after just two. In any event I'm not sure the judge could just do that without being asked. Of course the parties could agree to settle and cut it short.

Re: Handshake protocol

Is there any witness to this handshake deal. Not just a witness, if any, who saw the handshake but one who actually heard the words spoken as well?

"Agency sending their own version of CVs"

Or agency sending their own version of someone else's CV because they happened to have the same name. That didn't quite happen to me - they just sent me his contract afterwards.

Re: Did I read that right ?

At least he's aware he signed it.

Re: Handshake protocol

"But this is the first time the case hasn't looked like a walkover."

Courts like a contemporaneous account (police witnesses reading from their notebooks tend to be asked to confirm their notes made at the time). A written agreement vs an alleged verbal agreement committed to paper years later? Not so good.

I do wonder how Egan is going to emerge from all this.

Re: Did I read that right ?

"on the right side of the pond you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

The actuality is that you can only answer the questions counsel ask. If the question is along the lines of "tell us in your own words what happened" then fine. If counsel takes the approach of micro-managing (while avoiding leading) it's more tricky. Why would counsel do that? To limit the other side's scope for cross-examination.

"setup for a punchline in a Dilbert comic."

Setup? This was the punchline.

"How do I give the Reg a generic thumbs-up for its reporting of this case? It's become something of a gripping soap-opera!"

Seconded.

Always read the paper before you sign it.

I've had the experience of having had a witness statement retyped* and something significant left out. But having the whole thing written by someone else? Amazing.

* It happens occasionally for perfectly valid reasons.

Silk Road 2 + Dread Pirate Roberts 2 + 1 Liverpudlian = over 5 years in prison

Lucky indeed. Either that or he's shopped a few more.

Pregnancy and parenting club Bounty fined £400,000 for shady data sharing practices

"Bounty shared roughly 34.4 million records from June 2017 to April 2018 with credit reference and marketing agencies. Acxiom, Equifax, Indicia and Sky were the four biggest of the 39 companies that Bounty told the ICO it sold stuff to."

How about a few prosecutions of those who bought the data? If the sale was illegal then the purchase must also have been. In the long run killing the market for illegal PII would be pretty effective.

French internet cops issue terrorist takedown for… Grateful Dead recordings?

Re: General rules for legislation

"aws are implemented / enforced by humans on human behaviour and will therefore be an error-prone"

But if you want to do it really badly, use a computer.

This has been forgotten by the current generation of politicians of all nationalities.

Re: Really?

Politicians everywhere at any time have had a fear of anything which empowers people (actually the worst offenders might not be the politicians themselves but their staffs)*. They also have a strong belief in magical solutions to their problems. The internet combines both of these. We'll need a few more years before this settles down. In the meantime the best solution to this particular one might be to simply throw back the lists asking for them to be reviewed. The faster the requests keep coming in the better.

I remain convinced, however, that the British courts plus the ECJ will do a better job of protecting my rights than the British courts alone.

*The private car has long been an example of this, certainly since the days of Barbara Castle if not earlier.

"I suspect the law enforcement agencies are using bots to identify what they see as terrorist content and no one is manually checking to see what it is actually is before the take down requests are issued."

You're almost certainly right.

The best solution would probably be to ignore them. If they want to enforce the request eventually someone is going to have to take legal action. A bit of common sense would indicate that the material would be reviewed by a human before proceeding. If common sense wasn't applied it would very quickly become publicly embarrassing and if it would they'd be left wallowing in the bots' excrement.

Now that's service: TalkTalk customers enjoy a Friday morning free of pesky emails

I wonder if it had a little snooze on Tuesday. I had an email bounced with a 550. A subsequent email to the same recipient went through OK.

User secures floppies to a filing cabinet with a magnet, but at least they backed up daily... right?

"to indicate where you push/pull"

Don't cover that up. It'll create no end of confusion, especially for people who stick disks to doors with magnets.

Re: Two true stories

Back in the late '90s I was minding a system which needed to receive data from bits of the NHS. Initially all this was on floppy although we got an address on NHS Net so eventually it moved over to email. I guess that office still had the kit from those days.

As the disks weren't returned I built up a nice supply of floppies.

Re: stop me if you've heard this one....

"or 'persuader' if you're talking to a former army man"

Army men have no monopoly on that.

Re: stop me if you've heard this one....

"send them back for a rubber hammer."

And a long stand.

Re: Don't underestimate users...

"this is the process we did use for senior management/executives, but we simply didn't have the time and the spare kit around to do this for absolutely everyone"

Putting the effort where it's most needed.

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

happened to me in support for DWP in the 90's

I'll believe anything of DWP in any of its incarnations at any time. I spent several days (I think it was only days) with one of their suppliers trying to sort out scads of data from their (DWP's) self-billing system which they (ditto) clearly didn't understand.

The classic was back in the days when, in Harold Wilson's self-exculpatory term, I'd been redeployed from one of my first jobs* and I had a job interview miles at the other end of the country on the day I was due to sign on. The erk in the Labour Exchange couldn't get his head round that going for a job interview was a more effective way of making oneself "available for employment" that turning up at his useless office. He finally conceded when asked to explain the steps by which he arrived at that conclusion.

*OK, probably one of the few that wasn't HW's fault at that time. Putting a big investment into new premises for one of your least profitable and maybe loss-making product lines isn't a good idea whoever's running the economy.

Re: Well if the US ships want the Chinese to keep out of the way

"here is one for the few surviving Tuttle/CentOS transcripts."

Thanks for that classic blast from the past.

Motion detectors: say hello, wave goodbye and… flushhhhhh

Re: The non delivery

"Royal Mail are the worst for collections. Their collection site is a 38 mile round trip taking about 1:20 hours."

Ours is only a couple of miles away but only open until midday. Fortunately our posties are aware of the us/daughter addresses (about a mile apart) so sometimes the problem's solved that way.

Re: Why it's important to specify units.

For every day purposes a flush at 37K would be a bit hard.

Re: "the smartphone will need to install and run a specific scanning app and media player"

"From past experience it's normally where the delivery drone has dumped it in the first place for safe keeping so it's dry and protected."

True. But not necessarily your own bin.

Re: "the smartphone will need to install and run a specific scanning app and media player"

left to their own devices to find out that the buffet is taking place in New York there are bears about and they are the buffet.

FTFY

open the window to let the "bad air" out

For the Jelly Roll Morton/Buddy Bolden reference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgmZyImasvA

So you've 'seen' the black hole. Now for the interesting bit – how all that raw data was stored

Re: He filled hard disks

"the backup disk money"

Tape?

It was probably a financial decision. The bigger risk would have been loss in transit rather than H/W failure during transcription. Anything from rough handling via over-zealous customs official to a crash, and not forgetting the packages that disappear into a warehouse and are never found again due to theft or incompetence.

Re: Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

And don't sneer at "spinning rust": Western Digital's HGST 8TB helium-filled drives were used, whereas capacity and cost limitations ruled out SSDs.

"what boggles me ...is the sheer scale of the organisation and admin needed to get all of this together and functional."

Try this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00042l4/how-to-see-a-black-hole-the-universes-greatest-mystery

As Alexa's secret human army is revealed, we ask: Who else has been listening in on you?

Re: Where do I start with this?

'we may share your data with third parties in order to enhance our product and improve your experience'

We, of course, may share their EULA with the local data protection regulator, at least on this side of the pond. I wonder if they'd argue in defence that the EULA for a consumer device isn't worth the paper it's not written so they can't be bound by it.

It would almost be worth buying one to play it Stanley Unwin recordings. Almost.

Welcome your new ancestor to the Homo family tree; boffins have discovered a new tiny species of human

Re: Which is it?

"Or perhaps the classification of these bones is incorrect."

Having watched studies of human evolution develop over a number of years it seems very likely that proposed evolutionary trees will get revised. Or refined according to choice of words.

Ancestor?

Not very probable. Distant and long-lost cousin.

Uncle Sam charges Julian Assange with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion

Re: Good

"I personally hope they don't extradite him if he still holds UK citizenship"

Did he ever?

Re: Is this the best that the USA can come up with ?

The biological features of lettuce and chicken are very different. There are plenty of internal places for bacteria to hide in a chicken after it's been externally washed. If it needs to be washed externally it's a good indicator that the interior might have problems.