Posts by Jimmy2Cows

Tencent in talks for 'longterm solution' to WeChat mess as injunction keeps the app alive

unclear how or if the Trump administration intends to respond

No doubt by trying to undermine or repeal the First Amendment. Pesky thing's always getting in Trump's way.

Safety driver at the wheel of self-driving Uber car that killed a pedestrian is charged with negligent homicide

Re: Distracted Driving

That's fine until they drive into you because, well, they haven't seen you because they're not looking where they're going.

Or until you drive into someone else because you're looking in your mirror to see where the inattentive fool has gone.

No single answer to this one. Except perhaps whatever you choose to do, be safe about it and don't drive like a twat just because someone else is.

Re: highly qualified

The people responsible for driving these things on the road should be highly qualified.

Agreed.

And, if data entry while driving is a requirement, hire someone else to do that, instead of putting the driver in the situation where you practically require them to be distracted.

Yeah of course Uber will say publically the driver should be fully concentrating and in control at all times, while management is privately hammering their lone drivers to do two conflicting jobs at once. Scummy cunts of the highest order.

She doesn't have billion dollar backers and lobbyists buying politicions. Uber does. What's an easier target for the prosecution...?

Re: However

Not a blank screen though, is it. It's the car windscreen (or Leftpondian "windshield") and the safety driver should be observing it just as if they're really driving the car.

I remember an angle to this was that Uber required their safety drivers to do a bunch of other stuff while the car was driving - filing reports and so on. Not clear if that argument was voided, or if the prosecutors just decided it's easier to go after the driver than the company with billion dollar backers.

But regardless, if your job is a safety driver you concentrate on the road at all times. Don't do other shit behind the wheel. You know, just like you should when actually driving.

If Uber want other stuff done, don't do it. If they complain you've not done it, remind them the safety driver's number one job is to cover Uber's arse from errors made by the automated system, i.e. killing pedestrians, because that really doesn't play well in the court of public opinion.

If they still insist, quit and report them for egregious safety violations. Easier said than done, I know. But better than killing someone just so you could keep your shitty job. And from the initial reports it was a shitty job. To much to do, no time to get it done safely, pressue from management to do it anyway, leading to exactly this situation.

0ops. 1,OOO-plus parking fine refunds ordered after drivers typed 'O' instead of '0'

Re: And this ladies and gentlemen...

Holy hell that's bad. Almost as if it were deliberately designed to be confusing and cause mistakes to trigger fines.

Re: And this ladies and gentlemen...

Letter O is common enough in UK vehicle registrations. One of my past cars' registration ended MRO.

UK number-plate format rules do allow a letter O to appear in specific sections of the registration. Permitted sections depend on the format rules for the registration year of the car. The format rules used to change roughly every 20 years to allow for more registrations.

The current format rules are good for 50 years, and, again, allow letter O in specifc sections of the registration.

Bad apples: US customs seize OnePlus earbuds thinking they're knock-off AirPods

Re: One wonders how long it is going to take ...

Isn't this standard politics for a politician and/or party expecting to lose?

Fuck things up so much the next administration has spend their term undoing the damage and further disenchanting the voters, causing that administration to get kicked out at the subsequent election.

Re: Rouge Earbuds

At least if they were rouge it'd be even harder to make the stupid assessment they're trying rip off Apple.

Take your pick: 'Hack-proof' blockchain-powered padlock defeated by Bluetooth replay attack or 1kg lump hammer

Re: Loch Motor?

It's probably not morons that invent this. They know full well how crap it is. They are deliberately making junk products that are just viable enough for a lot of gullible morons to buy them and believe they're secure. In that they don't fall apart while still in their packaging. This crap costs pennies to make and they have massive markups.

Too many people today have no idea how stuff works now, or what is needed to make something physically secure, and are quite willing to believe whatever they see on TV, internet, Facebook or whatever.

No, I'd say the inventers/sellers are smart enough to notice the world is full of gullible morons, and cynical enough to manipulate them for profit.

Re: Absolutely nothing new

These things exist solely to part fools from their money, not to actually secure anything.

Goes with the progressive dumbing down of society. If schools taught kids to actually think critically about things, even better if parents taught their kids to think critically about things, shit like this would be a lot harder to pass off as viable.

Re: Blockchain

Well it's a "chain", right? And chains are strong so it must be good.

Re: I've come to believe

"Smart" product nomenclature is a convenient warning to intelligent people to ignore the product. Smart meters being a great example.

Family wrongly accused of uploading pedo material to Facebook – after US-EU date confusion in IP address log

Re: Anyway in most contracts - at least here - the users accept full responsibility

Just because it has been enforced doesn't make it right.

And in your example the prosecution has to prove it was me driving my car, and not someone else. Burden of proof is on the prosectution, not the defendant. At least in this decreasingly civilised part of the world. For now.

Yes, the cops will give me a hard time and I'll have to provide a strong alibi or evidence that I wasn't involved, but it's still on the prosecution to prove I was driving.

But all this is deviating from the point that an IP address alone should never be considered reliable evidence of someone's involvement or culpability.

Re: Anyway in most contracts - at least here - the users accept full responsibility

I call that an unenforcable contract clause.

Given that many domestic routers are controlled by the ISP not the service user(s), and the frequent discovery of router security holes, as well as the ability to discover, connect to and compromise a router from outside a service user's property, there's no way a user could provably be liable for what happens at their router.

Singapore to test compulsory COVID-tracker usage as condition of entry to some venues

This will enable us to open up safely in the coming weeks and months

Nope, not realy. It won't prevent an infected-but-unknown-to-the-system person entering the high-risk venue and spreading the virus inside. It justs enables tracing everyone after the fact.

False sense of security, and potentially the thin end of a perpetual tracked-by-the-state wedge. But hey, it's Singapore. Something like that'd never be considered here. Wait... No. Of course it would.

QR-code based contact-tracing app brings 'defining moment' for UK’s 'world beating' test and trace system

Re: Yet I could get infected from a pedestrian crossing button

Could just carry and use some handgel. Use it after you touch something. Won't take long to become habit.

Bluetooth proximity is simply the most convenient option available to approximate mass contact tracing. It's probably the one thing most people have on them that can talk with other things.

Is it perfect? Of course not.

Will it work for everyone? Of course not.

Is it super accurate? Again, of course not.

But it's probably good enough to cover 70-80% of a population. Get an alert, get tested, isolate until you get the test result. Testing of course is where it all falls apart, because here in the UK it seems nigh impossible to book a test now (trying all day to book one for my 10 year old son - absolutely nothing available).

India makes buying a used cow easier than buying a used car

Re: At the Cow Dealership...

WeBuyAnyCow.com

(any any any any, WeBuyAnyCow.com, com com com com)

When Huawei leaves, the UK doesn't lead in 5G, says new report commissioned by... er... Huawei

Re: Wait!

Even so, not sure that would get rid of the hostility toward anything Chinese. Needs adults in the rest of government too.

Re: When in Rome

Domestic competitors - hahaha haha hahahahahaha haha haha ha good one!

Apples to oranges

Yeah, obvious vested intertest is obvious.

However comparing projected economic hit to projected telco rip'n'replace costs is comparing apples to oranges. Telco costs are only part of the overall economic hit. That is, if you believe the 5G hype. Which I don't.

Q: How does hydrogen turn into a metal? A: Hang on a second, I need to train my AI supercomputer first

Re: And another confusing point

Squash it enough*, say inside some kind of exotic high-strain metamaterial, and the theory is it should become superconducting a room temperature.

Such a material is metastable at best, and likely to undergo highly explosive RUD with the slightest defect in the containment material. This has been shown with the diamond anvil experiments. Stable under the vast anvil pressure, but relax the pressure and boom.

* For some vast, currently unachievable value of "enough". Think a lithium-ion battery or hand grenade is explosive? IThey'd be like firing a cap gun in comparison. The strain energy stored in the containment metamaterial would be many orders of magnitude greater, not to mention the compression energy stored in the metallic hydrogen.

Astrophysicists and regular physicists / chemists / us mere mortals apply different meanings to the term "metal".

Astrophysicists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallicity

Regular physicists / chemists / mere mortals:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal

Re: Quantum computing

Dead and alive. Simultaneously.

Tech ambitions said to lie at heart of Britain’s bonkers crash-and-burn Brexit plan

Re: we'll have all we want and if you don't like it...

Come on. Both sides go into a negotiation wanting everything and giving away nothing. It's naive to think otherwise, especially at state-level.

Re: well maybe

Well, for instance they could add it to corporation tax. Costs saved by outsourcing, and not invested by employing in this country, could be made to count as profit - a profit attracting a higher rate than other pre-tax profits made in the UK.

Where there's a will and sime imagination, there's a way.

UK electricity and gas regulator Ofgem puts up £30m 'to respond to urgent requests to complete projects'

Re: House!

Damn. So close. So close. I just needed one more.

Enjoy your prize ------->

Under fire for 30% cut, Apple really isn't giving anything away with introduction of subscription offer codes

Re: Too big & too arrogant

All taxes are passed on to the end customer. DST was never gonna be any different. Not without it being written into law that DST must be paid from profits, and there can be no price increases of any kind to compensate for profit reductions due to DST.

Which obviously was never happening. Can't upset big tech or do anything that actually reduces their vast profits.

Brexit border-line issues: Would you want to still be 'testing' software designed to stop Kent becoming a massive lorry park come 31 December?

Yup it'll be an epic cluster-fuck car-crash train-wreck manifesting as a completely blocked border with no trade able to go in or out, with SE England and NE France a pair of gigantic truck parks.

Meanwhile, Bojo and Barnier dick about waiting to see who blinks first. Hint: no-one will blink first. They never do. This will go to the 11th hour when both sides will finally see sense and pull an agreement out of their collective arse. Which of course does nothing to help the little people dependent on being able to, you know, plan for stuff in advance.

Dipshits, both.

Mate, it's the '90s. You don't need to be reachable every minute of every hour. Your operating system can't cope

Re: massive tomb

While I recall PCW being quite hefty, I'm not sure it was mausoleum sized.

Autocorrect unsure what a tome is, perhaps...?

China lashes India’s app ban, calls for return to ‘win-win cooperation’

Such statements can't help the perception (in certain quarters) that this novel coronavirus is not an accidental, natural occurence and the Chinese goverment did everything they could cover it up and hide it from the rest of the world.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, and all that.

Everything's falling apart. The Moon is slowly rusting up – and it's probably Earth's fault

Re: Space wall

So are we building it from Diamondium, or Diamondinium?

[ The Professor ----> ]

UK utility Severn Trent tests the waters with £4.8m for SCADA monitoring and management in the clouds

This is the level of insight I come here for. Great comment!

What are you gonna do? Give me detention? Illinois schools ban pyjamas in online classes

Re: preparing kids for a life of taking arbitrary orders

No arguments here. Most schools seem to actively avoid anything that teaches critical thought and actual individuality, instead forcing kids to toe the line and never dare to question "authority", from day one in primary school.

Seems like an attempt to ensure they are used to doing exactly what they're told and not questioning anything once they get to secondary school. And so they don't beat up the teachers. Grow them meek and unquestioning.

Guess it makes for easier-to-control adults. Mindless drones are so much easier to keep in line.

Time to think about getting up.

Getting up is after lunch. Unless roused by the smell of frying bacon.

Can I get some service here? The new 27-inch iMac forgoes replaceable storage for soldered innards

Did anyone put a gun to your head? You didn't have to read the article.

UK.gov to propose new rules for online political campaigns after last election marred by an avalanche of fake news

Re: So that's Cummings out of a Job then.

But wait... refugees entering the EU are legally required to seek asylum in the first EU country they reach. Pretty sure that's not the UK, no matter what route is taken from the Middle East, North Africa or wherever.

Economic migrants are not refugees, and that tends to make them illegal immigrants anywhere in Europe.

Any illegal immigrant not seeking asylum is, well, illegal, and should be returned to their country of origin.

This isn't some mindless "UK first, no immigrants" rant. Brexit or not, any refugees passing through France should have sought asylum or been returned well before getting anywhere near the Channel. It France seemed quite happy to let migrants pass through on their way to the UK, and yeah, following Brexit they have zero incentive to change that unoffical policy.

Xiaomi turns 10 and celebrates by sitting down to relax in front of its new transparent television

Re: Transparent TV

I'm wondering how it creates black pixels and handles high contrast scenes. Perhaps there's an LCD layer that kicks in to block light from behind the screen. But absence of emitted light from a pixel isn't quite the same as a true black pixel.

First alligators, then dogs, now Basil Fawlty is trying to standardise social distancing measures

Holy Social Distance of Antioch

Two shall be the metre count of social distancing, and the metre count of social distancing shall be two.

Three shalt thou not count, neither count thou one, excepting that thou then proceed to two.

Four is right out. Once the number two, being the second number, be reached, then thou art socially distance from thy foe, who, being safely distanced in My sight, shall maybe not snuff it.

As hospital-based infections set to rise, best not change the vendor behind the system that tracks them, hm?

CGI

CGI huh? Seems Red Dwarf was quite prescient:

Cop : [to Sebastian-Lister] Come out of the shadows, Voter.

Sebastian Doyle : What's the beef? Did she steal your lunch box?

Cop : M... mm... many apologies, Voter Colonel.

Sebastian Doyle : You know me?

Cop : Of course, Voter Colonel.

Sebastian Doyle : Who am I?

Cop : You are Colonel Sebastian Doyle, Section Chief of CGI, Head of the Ministry of Alteration.

Sebastian Doyle : Remind me a little: what do we do at the Ministry of Alteration?

Cop : You... change people, Sir.

Sebastian Doyle : In what way?

Cop : You change them from being alive people, to being dead people. To purify Democracy.

That's how we roll: OWC savagely undercuts Apple's $699 Mac Pro wheels with bargain $199 alternative

patent-pending design

Is it a tray with a wheel at each corner? AKA a trolley, or even a skateboard.

And they say patent quality is getting worse.

Chinese debt collectors jailed for cyberbullying under ‘soft violence’ laws

Re: jailed under 'soft violence' laws

Pick your cliché...

Do as we say, not as we do.

One rule for us, another for them.

Your government is working in your best interests.

'We stopped ransomware' boasts Blackbaud CEO. And by 'stopped' he means 'got insurance to pay off crooks'

Re: "Subset"?!

Typical weasel words to appease the challenged-of-thinking. To a lot of people "subset" sounds small. They've no idea subset is anything up to and including the entire set. So Blackbaud aren't even lying, they're just gaming the average intelligence of their users.

Struggling company pleads with landlords to slash rents as COVID-19 batters UK high street. The firm's name? Apple

Re: I am not an economics professor but...

Many lenders here in Blighty offered payment holidays to mortgage holders. Could have tried to pass a law suspending all rent and mortgage payments, I guess. Unclear if it would have passed though.

Re: I am not an economics professor but...

The warm glow that comes from not worrying about having your home repossessed...?

Re: We should all pull together

I've a few thousand Italian Lira kicking around somewhere. That's gotta help, right? Thousands of anything are good...

Oh. My coat? Yes, umm... that's it! The one with the pockets stuffed with obsolete currency.

Architect of tech contractor tax fraud scheme jailed for at least five years

Some civilised countries (I use the term loosely) have a thing called Faster Payments where people can send money between banks usually pretty much instantaneously, max 2 hours.

There's also BACS. Even CHAPS is only 3 working days. This is UK banks though. Don't know about banks of other countries.

Microsoft to Cortana: you’re not going out dressed in iOS or Android, young lady!

...pointed out that the changes are far from the end for Cortana...

Surely this is another indicator of the beginning of the end, though. Roll on the end of the end. Then dump these privacy invading, life harvesting "assistants" from other devices.

Amazon gets green-light to blow $10bn on 3,000+ internet satellites. All so Americans can shop more on Amazon

Really? I guess someone had to shoehorn in a completely irrelevant political comment. But I think we'd all prefer you hadn't bothered.

Humble-bragging ServiceNow CEO tells anyone who listens: 'Our destiny is to become the defining enterprise software biz of 21st century'

Must proof-read my own posts.

Well that reads like shit and it's too late to edit the post.

What I meant to say is: ...how such paradigm shifts are enabled via...