Posts by Hollerithevo

Confirmed: Facebook shifts away from AI… and like a miracle, the bots start working

Re: Facebook AI

?!? There's a lesbian who doesn't wear Doc Martens or a tidy Oxford lace-up? Standards are falling!

Two-thirds of TV Licensing prosecutions at one London court targeted women

Re: Wait a minute

Don't be a jackass.

Re: Yup. I don't require a TV license, but...

You are a civil collection agency? Wouldn't you have to toe your own line?

Rape as defined

Yes, rape cannot 'officially' happen between two men or two women. Forcible, unwanted entry by body parts or other things can be made, but it is assault, not rape. In a sense, 'rape' is an incredibly old-fashioned view of a crime. Assault is assault is assault.

Re: Equality...

Do you really think a girlish quivering lip would move 99% of judges these days? Most of the 'old school' judges are as misogynistic as hell, and have you looked at how many judges are women?

This ferry is said to weigh 250 cows. We say that is actually 20,600 Lindisfarne Gospels

Re: Bronto error: I see your pedantic and raise it*

"If we're going to use these units lets at least be appropriately pedantic about it."

should be

If we're going to use these units, let's at least be appropriately pedantic about it.

*and yes, "Raise the Pedantic" did spring instantly to mind.

Licence-fee outsourcer Capita caught wringing BBC tax from vulnerable

Re: I never use iPlayer

I am a normal internet user ad I don't torrent, because if we all expect to get things fro free, things I like will stop. The BBC actually needs the money. What news do you prefer watching? Who do you trust?

The Psion returns! Meet Gemini, the 21st century pocket computer

Where do I sign?

I would LOVE one of these. Please, soon. It is exactly what I want: small, but a real keyboard. And NOT a phone.

Toxic Uber sued after driver allegedly tried to rape passenger in car

Re: It's not clear whether taxis and limousines are any safer than Uber

Uber -- I don't know my driver. I don't know his car. I don't know if he has been vetted. I don't know anything about him except he won't know the fast back roads like a black cabbie will, and he won't be able to take my disabled partner (no ramps) and so forth.

Re: If here's something worse than uber, it's lawyers.

Until you are accused of a crime you didn't commit, or your neighbour has trespassed and sawn down all your trees or keeps parking all over your front garden, or when your employer tries to rip you off, or when you are unfairly dismissed, or... but lawyers (at least in the UK) are reactive: you need help, you walk through their door.

I have called on lawyers to help me on everything from immigration woes to a thieving employer and they have always been brilliant. I call in a plumber when I have problems, I call in a lawyer when I need one.

Re: Not an Uber fan, but

No, we don't have our minds made up. We don't know who the worst offender is, but we know who is an offender.

Re: Not an Uber fan, but

I remember two murderers who were London lack cab drivers and raped and killed women who were their passengers.

I have had some dodgy black cab drivers and some dodgy mini-cab drivers, back in the day. In any vehicle, you as getting into a stranger's car.

Brit cops can keep millions of mugshots of innocent folks on file

Re: Theresa Stasi May

I really think you should save this for when it really is that bad. So far we haven't even come up to the boil. Our goose is not yet cooked.

Re: No word from the queen?

The queen's role is to protect the nation from the men who would be king. She stands between autocrats and despots and us. We have all the old-fashioned wording and ceremonies that enforce the idea that the Government works for her, that hey are her servants, and I think that is a useful, tiny reminder that they SERVE her to help US. I would like to think that she would exercise royal powers if it looks as if Parliament were taken over by, say, neo-nazis.

'First ever' SHA-1 hash collision calculated. All it took were five clever brains... and 6,610 years of processor time

A date, for instance?

A delivery date in a contract? A price?

Sysadmin's sole client was his wife – and she queried his bill

Re: A deeper issue

@Terry6, politics aside, you have a good point. When facts are unpalatable, people reject the facts. Unfortunately, neglecting facts ALWAYS has a consequence.

Use a metaphor

I have told people like this: "Imagine eating all the time but having constipation. You get bloated and you slow down. The computer's equivalent of going to the loo is to be turned off. Have a little pity on it." They usually laugh and the message sticks. As i were.

Ad men hope blocking has stalled as sites guilt users into switching off

Re: The ads are bad...

I remember the jingles quite often but don't remember the product. Or I do remember the product as well but I was not induced to buy. They say that advertising works, but unless it's something that has never existed before (e.g. the roomba), do people rally go buy a Nike over Adidas because of comely models or a celebrity face? Maybe they do, and I am a saddie.

Re: Vuture Central - pay heed

I mostly read El Reg at work, and I don't block ads, because it's a work laptop and E.R. needs to justify its revenue with eyeballs. At home I have every blocking device I can have and still have something to read, so E.R. gets hit, but as it's mostly a work-read, I have squared this with my conscience.

And actually, sometimes the ads on El Reg are pertinent and interesting.

Re: You CAN show the ads but block the trackers

Was about to plug Ghostery. You have to block adds and also trackers and all the attendant evils, as these don't just come with ads, as any fule kno.

Re: One word:

@RegGuy1, I think the @Ad Nauseau' was a little joke about what Adverts induce, rather than faulty Latin (which of course it would be, were that the intention).

Swedish politician wants weekly hour of paid sex. For exercise

Now we know what he wants to do...

But could it be that most couples would rather schedule their nookie times when they don't have to account for it? And one hour? That's all? In what universe???

Meet the chap open-sourcing US govt code – Paul, an ex-Microsoft anti-piracy engineer

Re: Go for it!

Manure has been used as a building material since the dawn of time. Check out wattle and daub, for instance. Manure has the straw, um, pre-mixed.

'Hey, Homeland Security. Don't you dare demand Twitter, Facebook passwords at the border'

Re: OK guys, you've had your fun

Didn't Big John pour from his heart a paean of praise for The Golden Donald (I quote) just a few months ago? I am keen to see how Trump is going to work his wonders, seeing that he has backtracked or dropped support of Taiwan, ending of many trade agreements, dropping NATO, getting Mexico to build a wall, need I go on. He is forging ahead with throwing Ukraine under the bus to smooth the road to Moscow, making sure whole groups are stamped with 'evil alien', and trying to speak against anti-semitism while having one of the biggest anti-semites in the USA draft his Executive Orders (which he confuses with orders from a CEO, apparently). I happen to want a few things Trump said he'd do, because two very different planets can be in the same night sky, but he has reneged on all of them.

2nd Amendment gives you immunity?

So the police take you round the corner out of sight of CCTV and beat on you and your defence is to shoot them? What fantasy to you inhabit?

Re: A nuisance, an imposition but not the end of the world

Once you start with the preemptive cringe, where do you stop?

Re: What do you mean 'looming'?

I note a few days ago a news story about a Welsh teacher accompanying other teachers and kids from a school in Wales, was stopped and prevented from flying to the USA as a US customs point in Iceland. He was born British, with a UK passport, but had a 'Muslim' surname. So all the legal protests and all the standing laws of the USA as as nothing compared to one little swaggering jumped-up security guard.

'At least I can walk away with my dignity' – Streetmap founder after Google lawsuit loss

Re: Not as good

I always wanted to use it, but the jumps in magnification were too crude and they offered no way to embed their maps. This was the killer for me. A nice little bit of iframe code generation would have given them a good chance. I was looking for maps that didn't have our competitors and the local chip shops all over it. Could have been them, but no

But the judges who felt that Google wasn't a dominant player in search really should check out dictionaries, where 'to google' is a new verb.

You know IoT security is bad when libertarians call for strict regulation

Re: Your role in a movie is coming soon

@Steve the Cynic, seat-belts protect you and the people in the car with you, and the people in the other cars. A crash that kills you or cripples you, because of what happened when you wore no belt, leaves a burden upon the state: your family, if you have one, or your medical care. A crash that kills of maims you can effectively destroy the life of the other driver. I know a Tube driver who completely went to pieces when a woman killed herself with his train. He had no chance of preventing it, and yet... She took her own life, and effectively his and his wife's, because one small 'individual choice' ripples out to the injury of many. Once you are in a car on a publicly-maintained road that you share with others, you have to accept rules made for the greater good of the greater number.

Re: Former libertarian

@Oliver Jones, yes what they want is for me to give them my books for free. Because £2.00 for an e-book is equivalent to serfdom of something.

Baby supernova spotted, just three hours old and a real cutie

Re: Oh

I would have thought the real information is from spectra not visible to the human eye.

Talk of tech innovation is bullsh*t. Shut up and get the work done – says Linus Torvalds

There are two parts to it

The two parts of real success in creating and sustaining anything are, to me, (1) focusing on solving a practical, actual need and (2) work with a tried and trusted group of people.

This has always got results, in my experience. Sometimes the team came together as a bunch of unknowns and, through the project, we found out who were the good 'uns and who were not, but in the end you have a core of people who do their best, who are dedicated, and who are bright. Now point them to a real, present problem that needs to be fixed. Job done.

Re: Edison and Torvalds

I believe Torvalds was knowingly quoting.

That's how Edison worked. No so Tesla.

Bur we all can't be Teslas.

Inside Confide, the chat app 'secretly used by Trump aides': OpenPGP, OpenSSL, and more

Is a strong dollar or a weak dollar better for the economy?

I'd love to know which aide leaked the fact that Trump asked Flynn (before Flynn did the decent thing) whether a strong or weak dollar was better for the economy. He or she must have struggled to type without screaming, or screaming with laughter.

Co-op Bank up for sale while customers still feel effects of its creaking IT

It seems we Co-op account holders all agree

We stuck by the Co-op, hoped their online banking would be improved and discovered quite the opposite, and now watch unhappily as we await the new owners. I am shopping around for a new bank, unwillingly, but it seems this is the time to jump.

The telephone banking people have always been superb. I hope they are TUPEd over.

Grumpy Trump trumped, now he's got the hump: Muslim ban beaten back by appeals court

Re: Trump is a racist!!!

Humour?

So up until now...

...you've been happy with the reporters and with your fellow Commentards, but as soon as we move onto this new topic, we are suddenly untrustworthy out-of-touch, and stupid. Perhaps, on balance, it turns out that techies are skeptical, don't like bullshit, are suspicious of self-appointed saviors, and are intolerant of bombast? Seems to me we're pretty consistent, whether it is Apple or Microsoft or Trump.

Even if it were true...

...it does mean that those who managed to slip into the USA were caught. Which means your security services are doing their job. Terrorists are not superhumanly smart. You have the NSA and the CIA and the FBI. Do you think they are all so incompetent that only closing your borders will make you safe? The two chaps in Bowling Green were noted as they came in, had an eye kept on them and, as soon as they actually did something, were dealt with. No excessive force, no excessive reaction, simply sensible watchfulness and sensible actions.

But perhaps it is more exciting to think that diabolically clever and cunning evilness is threatening the USA from every corner and only S.H.I.E.L.D.-like reactions can save you all, and that every effort you make is somehow heroic.

Not looking for a 'most powerful person in the world'

The days of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan are long over and not lamented. The world history of strong men dominating others is not a happy one. Can we perhaps grow up and stop looking for a super-hero and just get on with talking and negotiating and all of that? There is no such thing as a saviour.

What?

Shall the United States take pointers from Israel or any other nation? If a country is doing a wrong thing, should the USA follow suit?

Re: Just one small thing

It is a ban of people who come from certain countries as long as they are not any faith but one. Nobody is saying Trump is banning all Muslims from anywhere. And the security forces seem to be interpreting this as an all-out ban, e.g. that Canadian who was born in Morocco who was trying to visit family in the USA and got stopped, and had her phone scanned, because she was Muslim. That is a de facto Muslim ban, albeit haphazardly applied.

Re: Oh dear...

Liberal Americans -- why would they care less about the security of their country? I think anyone concerned with American security would first ensure that nobody came from any country that actually had delivered terrorists onto American soil. That would be Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Russia (which contains Chechnya, which supplied the Boston bombers), to name a few. But these countries have not been blocked.

And why can't security be create through laws coming from Congress? The PATRIOT Act etc have shown that the Govt are willing to act broadly and swiftly. I can't understand why, with a Republican House and a Republican President, the conservatives don't trust the American system that is supposed to be better than any other country's.

Re: Any other country???

Well, no, I think any blanket ban that discriminates against any group and is unfair, especially where a greater good cannot be demonstrated (as opposed to speculated) would have been opposed. If Trump had tried to block all Christians from South America (but letting in the atheists from those countries), it would still be wrong and would still be opposed.

Re: It turns out that, in the US of A ...

Big John, if Trump was working within the system, he wouldn't be issuing EOs that were so easily shown to be unlawful, or liable to challenge.

I confess to being a little blank about the 'filth' of the last Oval Office. It seemed to contain the sort of people that Trump, too has appointed: Goldman Sachs alumni, big business, vested interests (albeit different vested interests). I think Trump has some good ideas: I think all the trade agreements recently structured are bad for countries and good for corporations who do their best not to pay tax. I am all for increasing jobs for Americans in America. But I thought Obama had some good ideas, too, including a healthcare insurance system that allowed poorer people, for the first time, to have access to decent medical care.

Re: "SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!"

Would that Mr Soros had that power, but his spending ability falls far below the Kochs and Wall family etc. I guess the liberals are giving Trump as much hassle as the far right gave Obama. It's called politics.

More tech companies join anti-Trump battle, but why did some pay for his inauguration?

Muslims from certain countries

Trump is banning only the Muslims from seven countries. So this would mean a Muslim ban. The phrase doesn't have to mean every Muslim on the planet.

Re: This is surprising because?

Companies are not people.Their duty is to maximise their profitability, as they are responsible to their stockholders. If they thought greasing the political wheels with donations would help their company, they would and probably should. But of course they also have to look at how public opinion affects their profitability. Tricky balancing act.

Prepare your popcorn: Wikipedia deems the Daily Mail unreliable

It might not be the Newspaper of Record...

... but the Daily Mail does have reporters and editors and so on. It is what it is, but there's no newspaper or publication (perhaps the Encyclopedia Britannica??) that should be considered a reliable source without further research.

Revealed: 'Suicide bomber Barbie' and other TSA quack science that cost $1.5 billion

Re: Let's all bash the TSA.

I get stopped regularly because they can see I am a nice, well-mannered middle-aged woman who won't bitch and moan and who will be pleasant and understanding. I must set off some signal that says 'we have an easy one here to help us make up our quota'.

Re: Let's all bash the TSA.

For a minute I thought this was BigJohn for real! Nicely done.