* Posts by Jimmy2Cows

2258 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Feb 2015

Risk-based algorithm could improve cancer screenings

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Smart poop

It's a pity this stuff (and other excretion diagnostics) can't be built into a toilet to give real-time alerts to, ahem, users.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Preferably without an autopsy which can cause damage

Typo (i.e. you meant "biopsy"), or subtle understatement...?

Mobile-based ID wallets for government are coming

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Coat

XaaS

Sounding nicely close to sex as a service, which should make for some fun product meetings.

UK.gov threatens to make adults give credit card details for access to Facebook or TikTok

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Headmaster

Re: Dead Cat

Tell me who is your favorite scapegoat and I'll tell you for who you vote.

...for whom you vote.

I enjoy a good grammar callout as much as the next man, but it's advisable to check your own.

Still, have an upvote for the sentiment.

UK to splash another £1.4bn on protecting non-existent 'national interests in space'

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: R.U.R?

No chance. SLS has already snaffled those for America's money pit pork barrel home-grown launcher.

Grab some tissues: Meta's share price tanks after Facebook emits latest figures

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Holmes

SEC would like a word with you about insider trading...

It's more than 20 years since Steps topped the charts. It could be less than that for STEP's first fusion energy

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Ludicrous

Plenty of private firms working on their own fusion concepts. Most are not tokamak-based, and many appear to be closer to commericalisation than any ITER follow-up. They may still fail in the long run, but they are far more focussed on producing commerically viable fusion power than ITER, STEPS etc.

Trouble is hardly any are British, so UK government will ignore them in favour of something home grown, which will go at least 50x over budget and be 30 years late.

LG promises to make home appliance software upgradeable to take on new tasks

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Whatever happened to knowing how long it's been set for and returning to the machine once time's up?

Plus my drier is in the garage, so it could ping away to its metal heart's content and we'd never hear it.

Fujitsu wants technology to shape a better future – its technology, of course

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Headmaster

new solutions for challenges such as reducing CO2 emissions and people's wellbeing

We're already damn good at reducing peoples wellbeing. Don't need Fugitsu or anyone elses' help for that.

[Yeah, yeah, I know that's not the spirit of the statement. But the interpretation is open to ambiguity. No one seems to critically evaluate their own work now. Mutter... in my day... mumble... mumble...]

UK government backs away from proposals to remove individuals' rights to challenge AI decision making

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: "to provide human review [of AI decisions] ... not be practicable or proportionate."

Use AI as an initial filter, but any "no" generated in cases with any legal or financial implications must be reviewed by a competent human. Not a bottom-of-the-ladder wage slave. Someone proven qualified to understand and evaluate all the issues at hand.

With personal liabilities for anyone giving a fraudulent, biased, or inexplainable "no" following the review. It's too easy to fuck someone's life up with no comeback for a bad decision.

US mergers doubled in 2021 so FTC and DoJ seek new guidelines to stop illegal ones

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Keep it simple

You assume a slightly smaller corporation wants to acquire them. That's by no means a given.

And slightly smaller corporation may be eyeing other targets, and if close to your blanket ban threshold they would have to pick a target. In your solution, you artificially limit which small biz can win.

Without a threshold, slightly smaller corporation would be able to acquire all potential targets, which seems more beneficial to all the small biz involved.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Keep it simple

Blanket assumptions can never work, simply because it's the nuanced detail that is important when evaluating potential for market abuse. Your approach just seems arbitrary, too broad, and cannot account for details, so would be doomed to fail and simply create a whole other set of problems.

The issue is regulators don't have the necesary tools to determine where some digital businesses get their income and where the market touch points are, thus it's impossible to properly determine potential damage from a merger.

Blanket acquisition bans based on arbitrary value threshold don't help.

NASA's Curiosity finds signs of ancient life on Mars. Or maybe not. More data needed

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Nothing there...

Why do you even read these articles, never mind comment on them?

I own that $4.5bn of digi-dosh so rewrite your blockchain and give it to me, Craig Wright tells Bitcoin SV devs

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: how come his computer was so easy to hack?

Many apparently smart people can be incredibly naive. Chances are there's a Dunning-Kruger effect in play too.

But being realistic, chances are far higher he's litigating out of his arse.

Austrian watchdog rules German company's use of Google Analytics breached GDPR by sending data to US

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Will this ruling apply in the UK ?

As do I, but I wouldn't hold my breath. It'll come down to how much Bojo wants to suck up to the US.

NASA's Mars InSight trips into safe mode and ESA's Sentinel-1B gives scientists the silent treatment

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Anyone up for a private mission to Mars.

Build it (a traffic light) and they will come?

Although, the available traffic seems a little light to me.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Dragging something across the surface could leave scratches, which will both reduce panel performance and hold more dust, further reducing panel performance.

A fan to periodically blow away surface dust doesn't seem difficult or heavy. The air may be thin, but it's still there. Given known problems of dust build-up affecting previous missions I'm amazed there's no such kit on InSight, but then I'm not a rocket surgeon.

Secure boot for UK electric car chargers isn't mandatory until 2023 – but why the delay?

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: ensuring large numbers of devices can't be activated simultaneously at peak hours

Yes indeed, how dare people want to charge at a time convenient for them, rather than a time deemed appropriate by electricity and/or grid companies.

Heaven forbid the government take rational, effective and reliable steps to ensuring our energy security, sufficient generating capacity, and adequate power delivery capability for the peons to have a normal life, rather only changing and journeying when we're allowed to.

It's not like all these impending, and current, problems haven't been known years in advance. But no, let's just carry on taking 25% of everyone's energy bills to put up more unreliable wind farms and inappropriate solar panels, while taking absolutely no steps whatsoever to beef up our energy grids.

Hell, the government should be investing wholesale in a massive grid upgrade, doing whatever they can to ensure everyone can get the power they need, when they need it. Failure to do so is building in a massive uncompetitive disadvantage to UK business, consumers and the public at large.

What's the economic cost of not being able to go to work or deliver goods? Of not being able to take family trips and days out when we want to, because we can't charge the car until 11pm.

Wait, we already know this, because it's pretty similar to having everyone stuck at home for the past 2 years, combined with the massive shortage of delivery drivers we're now seeing. So just more of the same, but forever.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Petrol provides more energy per £ than mains electricity

No argument over SMRs, which are by far the best and most realistic, reliable, viable, achievable, base load and load following generators we can currently make.

Wind and solar maybe have a part to play, but only if they're appropriately situated and aren't 100% relied on for all power. This a time and a place for wind and solar, but the UK is neither for most of the year.

RR is certainly not the only group with skin in the SMR game, and many are much. much closer to fruition.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Petrol provides more energy per £ than mains electricity

Puh-lease. Tokamaks will never be generating useful fusion power, and before you stutter "but.. but.. ITER...!" that's nothing more than a massive plasma physics experiment.

Helion Energy and Focus Fusion have far more chance of producing useful power. Hell even that Rossi twat with his magic ecat cold fusion nonsense has more chance of producing useful fusion energy than Tokamaks or ITER.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: More difficult than necessary

Of course. We aren't allowed anything free, you know. Tax man, middle men must be allowed to cream off their profits.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Secure boot is going where?

Nope they want to entirely discourage us poorpers from owning cars in the first place, force us to walk everywhere and cram ourselves into horribly inconvenient public transport, so they and their rich mates get the roads to themselves.

Only wish I were trolling.

For example, this from August 2019: UK Science and Technology Commitee says ban personal car ownership

There was also similar bollocks from an MP in the news the recently.

Canon: Chip supplies are so bad that our ink cartridges will look as though they're fakes

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Recycling?

The irony of this situation is so thick you could insulate a huge building with it.

This alone deserves my upvote.

Worst of CES Awards: The least private, least secure, least repairable, and least sustainable

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Seriously?

Moving parts that may be in motion while the car remains stationary. Cooling fans, alternator/power steering/AC pulleys and belts, that sort of thing.

Standard warning on most cars for years now, if not decades.

Locking the bonnet against the owner is a new one, though.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Boffin

Re: It is an all out war on ownership by the bilionaires

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Make lobbying illegal.

Make it a crime for any legislator or government official to receive money, payment, goods, services, gifts and anything else from any person or organistion.

Lawmakers' only job should be to make laws, and the potential targets of those laws must not be allowed any influence. If you need industry experts, get them from outside the likely targets, or, you know, learn how shit works before legislating said shit.

Simples.

Electric fastback fun: Now you can surf the web from the driving seat of your Polestar 2

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Flame

It makes sense...

It makes sense; one would not want drivers jabbing away at the touchscreen while their vehicle thunders down the highway.

And yet far too many manufacturers insist on making drivers do exactly that to access HVAC controls and other vehicle functions. Stop taking away our physical controls, morons!

Boffins' first take on asteroid dust from Japanese probe: Carbon rich, less lumpy than expected

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

You're assuming a uniform distribution, instead of stuff being randomly clumped together.

In a clumping scenario the chances of reaching a particular star system is remote, though the chances are reaching any star system are somewhat greater.

Not saying anything either way about panspermia, just noting a potential discrepancy in your statistics.

Of course a Bluetooth-using home COVID test was cracked to fake results

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Bit of a leap...

...we have analyzed all results to-date and confirmed no other results were impacted...

How would they know this?

Do they store all original results somewhere else that can be interogated against the received data? I call BS. A huge steaming pile. Either Alan Fox, Ellume's head of information systems, is lying, or he's been fed some technical word salad by an arse-covering subordinate and doesn't have the appropriate understanding to say "You know what...? That's bollocks mate."

RAF shoots down 'terrorist drone' over US-owned special ops base in Syria

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: A winning strategy?

ISIS and the Syrian anti-government forces aren't the same people, even if their objectives occassionally intersect (as in, they both want the Syrian government out).

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: Nothing there...

Oh FFS, move on already.

We get it; you don't approve of NASA spending its legally defined budget on space exploration. Repeating the same sentiment here, over and over just isn't going to change anything.

So much pent-up loathing for so long. Can't be healthy.

UK's Defra and Ministry of Justice facing £120m IR35 tax bills thanks to inaccuracies in assessing contractors' status

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: Laugh or cry?

Shake head in abject disbelief. Submit an FOI request to determine who, if anyone, at HMRC knows their arse from their elbow.

Governments are notoriously incompetent with many things, but this really is levelling it up to a world beating degree.

Belgian defence ministry admits attackers accessed its computer network by exploiting Log4j vulnerability

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

From personal experience of 24 years as a developer, a few things that might help:

Allow developers to choose the best languages and tools for the job, instead of mandating particular solutions just because they happen to be in vogue. Old doesn't mean bad.

Following on from above, don't constantly switch language with every change in the wind.

"Agile" is not the solution to every problem. If, as a business, you're going to "do agile", take the time to fully understand what it means - don't just read the Agile Manifesto, don't pay lip-service while resolutely resisting any actual change to development practices, and absolutely do not see it as a silver bullet that will magically solve all problems.

Give sufficient time to design and develop a proper solution without scope creep.

Listen to your devs when they say something won't work, is a poor choice etc. They usually know what they're talking about.

Test continuously, as a mandatory part of the development process, not just a tacked on afterthought that can be dismissed if it seems too expensive or clashes with a pre-ordained release shedule.

Let development be managed by people who actually know what they're doing, instead of MBA's that know jack shit about programming.

Of course, there's loads more depending on your personal experience.

£42k for a top-class software engineer? It's no wonder uni research teams can't recruit

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: abominations

"I could care less" become the accepted default

Urgh. Hopefully this never happens. Drift is one thing. A complete reversal of meaning is quite another.

Google joins others in Big Tech: Get vaccinated – or you're fired

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: UK vs US employment law

Doesn't apply to UK Google. Only US Google.

Still plenty of ways around it. Usually making vaccination a job requirement for the safety of themselves and other workers, then refuseniks can be warned they aren't meeting their job requirements as their actions (or inactions) risk endangering others.

Doesn't have to actually be endangering anyone. Just creating a risk the company deems unacceptable. From there on out it's standard disciplinary procedures of increasing warnings up to termination.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: people should be able to choose for themselves

People still can choose for themselves. But all choices have consequences, and one of those consequences for choosing to remain unvaccinated is that some companies won't employ you. They've made a choice based on their risk analysis.

Feel free to find a different employer that doesn't mind, or start your own business.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: persons

How does being vaccinated prevent you living the rest of your life to the full? Seems like it would increase your chances of living a full life.

Mask wearing has little to nothing to do with being terrified. Strawman to prop up your belief system.

You want the freedom to not wear a mask - fine, but expect others to use their freedom to call you out on it should they wish to do so.

Freedom works both ways. Mighty hypocritical of you to bang on about freedoms (no you didn't use the word specifically, but it's implied) then critise the people who want to do the opposite to you.

Crowdfunding platform Kickstarter planning move to blockchain. How will it work? Your guess is as good as ours

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: huge quantum

Simultaneously both huge and tiny, and all sizes in between.

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: GM free AI

Don't forget vegan. Any respectable AI these days is vegan.

Will I inhale coronavirus at this restaurant? There’s an app for that

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: virtually impossible to become infected in open air settings

Citation desperately needed.

Reduced likelihood does not equal virtually impossible.

MPs charged with analysing Online Safety Bill say end-to-end encryption should be called out as 'specific risk factor'

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
Holmes

Re: Ah.....the STASI state moves ever closer...and some EL Reg commentards seem to approve!

Looks like someone can't spot a hypothetical statement.

China's Yutu rover spots 'mysterious hut' on far side of the Moon

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

AWS claims 'monumental step forward' with optional IPv6-only networks

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: quintillion

Don't see the issue, TBH.

Most people know that words ending in "illion", for numbers, means "really big", and enough people understand "quint" to figure out its bigger than "trillion" and "quadrillion".

Frankly 10^18 would be just as unfathomable for the many people you refer to. All it saves is a bit of typing.

Desktop bust and custom iPhone 13 Pro made from melted-down Tesla car for the Elon Musk dork in your life

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge
WTF?

The bold design of the smartphone echoes the outline of Musk's Teslas

Maybe, if you've just bombed some particularly strong acid.

Wait, did they strategically omit "after Autopilot has crashed it into a motorway barrier." from the description?

Apple's Pegasus lawsuit a 'declaration of war' against offensive software developers, says Kaspersky director

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

And assassination is not the same thing as not legging it when someone steps to you with a knife.

High assassination count != tough and/or brave.

Alleged Brit SIM-swapper will kill himself if extradited to US for trial, London court told

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

The US government is appealing that finding.

Parsing error... I misread that as:

The US government is finding that appealing.

Server errors plague app used by Tesla drivers to unlock their MuskMobiles

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: why didn't they use IPv6 so the car and phone can just talk directly to each other

Can't harvest all that juicy location and timing info so easily if the car and phone talk directly to each other.

AI surveillance software increasingly used to make sure contract lawyers are doing their jobs at home

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: I stopped buying from Amazon about a year ago.

The same "UK sellers" that operate out of Portsmouth or Southampton, make a big noise about fast delivery, yet anything bought from them takes about a week to arrive?

The same "UK sellers" who repsond to complaints and questions with terrible English, and always at 4 in the morning? (Sadly I accept that terrible English alone covers a lot of people genuinely in the UK).

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: working at Amazon

I doubt he's forgotten. He just made his money then jumped ship, before it happens.

Lawsuit accusing Robinhood and Citadel Securities of colluding to stop GameStop shares from skyrocketing thrown out by judge

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: But RobinHood did block buying Gamestop

Rittenhouse is white. The people he shot are white.

No black people were involved in the Rittenhouse shootings. Yes, it happened during BLM protests, but that's the only racial connection and it's pretty tenuous. Let's not conflate facts and hyperbole please.

Attacking anyone who's carrying a loaded weapon, especially in the US, is stupid at best, at worst it's outright suicidal.

As a non-US resident it is indeed hard to believe people can carry firearms in public, but that's allowed by US law in some states. Call it a crazy law by all means, but Rittenhouse and who he shot is not a race issue. Regardless of when and where it happened.

Do not try this at home: Man spends $5,000 on a 48TB Raspberry Pi storage server

Jimmy2Cows Silver badge

Re: But overall, the device's performance was ... mostly disappointing.

What's your point?

Are you annoyed that he tried something to see how it would turn out? That it failed? That he's lucky enough to have some sponsorship giving him the fiduciary flexibility to try random stuff? That he blogs wacky ideas to make a buck...?