Posts by W.S.Gosset

If you're not sold on the benefits of 5G, Ericsson suggests you keep an eye on gaming, home broadband

Re: The Pope is a Catholic

Nice!

I love that sort of thing.

Re: well, that's wildly unconvincing

> You can always push more bits faster through a wire than you can through the air

AND you are robust to interference.

Place I was in in England had wifi hammered every day for an hour or so routinely ~4pm. Never tracked that one down. Here, if the neighbour across the road fires up his orbital sander, whelp, pick up the laptop and walk into the lounge room and plug myself in -- _nothing's_ getting through.

Texas law banning platforms from social media moderation challenged in lawsuit

Re: Forced speech

You have lengthily underlined my point.

You are claiming they are passive hosts.

Therefore there can be no Freedom of Speech / First Amendment issues.

If you claim freedom of speech issues, then they must not be passive hosts.

Can't have it both ways.

Re: The real problem is liability protection.

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/09/23/texas_media_law/#c_4337454

Yes, FB&co are gaming the system by straddling multiple legal positions.

The Aussie courts took your view of which way to push them off the fence; the Texans appear to have pushed them the other way. Link explains better.

https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/09/23/texas_media_law/#c_4337454

Re: Texas is amazing...

Actually it's related. FB etc claim not to be publishers, to be purely passive hosts of others' speech (so there can be no question of impinging on FB etc's free speech -- it's not theirs). But that fails IRL on a number of counts. Providing a news service which they proudly tout as deliberately warped (the algorithm). Monopoly arising from social herding aggressively encouraged by the services. And increasingly acting in an activist fashion to distort speech and information on what is now effectively a public good, a carriage service.

The Aussie case took the view of overriding FB etc's claims to be passive hosts and formally designated them as involved in the publishing, if not formally designated as regulated media.

The Texan legislation appears to be taking the opposite view, the view _demanded_ by FB etc, that if they want the legal protections of being passive hosts, then they must BE passive hosts.

Your post is hilarious.

Try reading your second paragraph aloud to a grown-up and watch their face.

Re: Someone

As I pointed out above, FB etc claim they are not publishers in order to secure various protections. Your argument relies on them taking the opposite position.

Have cake. Or eat it. Can't do both.

Re: Forced speech

Except taking that position exactly and entirely reverses the position necessary to claim they are passive hosts of others' speech and therefore not liable for users' posts.

EITHER they are passive hosts and therefore protected OR they are active publishers and therefore subject to standard rules.

They --and the argument you cite here-- want it both ways.

California Governor signs bill protecting warehouse workers from unsafe quotas

Wouldn't the BOFH have Irate Bowel Syndrome?

Facebook overpaid FTC fine by up to $4.9bn to protect Zuckerberg, lawsuits allege

Slightly OT but related

On crawling last year's Covid modelling paper for Australia (Doherty Institute), I discovered they had developed movement & mixing estimates from live movement data of the general population purchased from 2 tech majors. Google, obviously -- everyone knows about Android tracking you & Google selling it.

But _Facebook_ was ALSO selling them live movement data.

I was unaware that they were tracking people geographically, so I imagine most people are unaware, so I'm just passing it on.

What happens when a Royal Navy warship sees a NATO task force headed straight for it? A crash course in Morse

Sold as Panadol in Australia

Nothing works any more. Who decided that redundant systems should become redundant?

Re: Chuddies (sort of)

> wring size bra

May I be the first to congratulate you on your magnificently apt typo in a laundry-themed context.

Navigating without GPS is one thing – so let's jam it and see what happens to our warship

Re: Navigation

We have cockatoos, too.

Don't ask...

Re: Navigation

> with a 4 foot lace monitor

Crucial for the preservation of footwear stability in rough country

Re: Outside the cocked hat

Yes, I've read that Poland is increasingly leaning to the Right.

Re: I guess I'm too much of a navigation geek...

> years of trying to photograph sunrises/sunsets

Elusive little beasts, aren't they? Keep at it! I'm sure you'll succeed in finding one one day.

Re: I guess I'm too much of a navigation geek...

Ah! That's just a problem of map scale/resolution. Buy a map that's 1;1 scale and you'll be sorted.

Thatcher-era ICL mainframe fingered for failure to pay out over £1bn in UK pensions

Re: VME isn’t the problem …

Have you paid the licence fee on that username, sir?

Re: It doesn't sound much faster

Switch off the Verify flag on the tape backup too. Runs MUCH faster that way.

Re: "These rules are only fully understood by a small group of specialists"

"Reason for Dismissal: excessive competence"

GNOME 41: Slick with heaps of new features for users and devs – but annoyances remain

Re: Standards -- Yup...they have their place, but GNOME and GTK4 don't make the cut!!!!

It's got a "4" in it. 4>3. Better.

Lithuania tells its citizens to throw Xiaomi mobile devices in the bin

That's weird, an entirely blank post. Hey ElReg! Your forum's got a bug!

Re: Lithuania: US puppet government

You've never been to Lithuania, have you. I have. Be aware that the Baltic states are more digitally savvy than even San Francisco. Estonia in particular.

Lithuania has the world's worst drivers, though. Think Vietnam market town but fast and aggressive and completely dismissive of consequences. The only place I've ever driven past an upsidedown semitrailer. With all the constant stream of traffic merely swerving around it casually. "Routine."

Re: Did someone mention Google?

Something that came to light late last year: Google is now proactively editing information based on its preferred Messaging vs current political memes and its tagging of individuals.

The Great Barrington Declaration came out. The left wingers I read were all ranting about its evilness and stupidity and right wingness. (It's a simple statement of commonsense response to epidemiological reality re Covid's exponential risk profile vs age. But it does not require a vaccine, and that apparently is currently a left wing requirement for Virtue. Or something.) The right wingers I read all mentioned that it was nonexistent if they searched for it on Google -- not in their search results no matter how many pages they went down. I tried it myself: it was #2 on my search results on Google, but via Tor was #1. So apparently Google tags me personally as very slightly right of centre.

The point is: this is the OPPOSITE of how all these standard algorithms work. A right-wing-tagged story should have been ELEVATED for the right-wingers. That's how Google's bubble works, had always worked, on the principle of: more of the same, more of what you like. Passive heterodyning. Positive feedback. Now, they're proactively intruding on an activist basis. Negative feedback in the model for identified topics, and apparently asymmetric.

Fascism vs Socialism

The only robust distinction I've ever been able to find between Fascism and Socialism is that if they're honest or explicit about their power&social structure then they're fascist, if they're dishonest or implicit then they're socialist.

Otherwise, both are identical : necessarily totalitarian states with the power restricted wholly to an elite/cadre.

Socialism could _theoretically_ exist in the form that the ingenuous insist it always _must_, but only so long as critical preconditions exist. These include: modification of human DNA and/or cloning, in order to achieve an absolute homogeneity of citizens and of a wholly selfless nature and precisely zero inclination among anyone towards parasitism or even social loafing: costless teleportation of resources ; and long-range telepathy to enable immediate, whole-of-country, and frictionless adjustment and coordination of resourcing.

In the absence of at least these preconditions, socialism and fascism differ only in their public honesty.

Re: CHaaS

> Is pure ideology ever logical?

Ideoknow, prolely not.

One-size-fits-all chargers? What a great idea! Of course Apple would hate it

Whuh....

Sorry, too stunned to take in article. APPLE? SPOKE TO ELREG?!?!

Unable to test every tourist and unable to turn them away, Greece used ML to pick visitors for COVID-19 checks

Re: Ahhhh, keeping the myth of the “asymptomatic super-spreaders” alive!

Errr... your apparent ignorance is truly astounding. Viruses are not all the same size or shape. Rhinoviruses are much smaller than coronaviruses, for example.

You might want to tone down your vehemence until such time as you learn something about what you're shouting about. Right now, you clearly don't have the first clue about any aspect of viruses even in general, let alone SARS-CoV-2.

Re: Ahhhh, keeping the myth of the “asymptomatic super-spreaders” alive!

> most contagious 1-2 days

Delta appears even faster. Australia had one well documented instance of a chap becoming infectious within 1-2 *hours* of exposure. Unfortunately, they were both on their way to the MCG for a large event...

Re: Ahhhh, keeping the myth of the “asymptomatic super-spreaders” alive!

Dunno what you're looking at, but every viral load work I've looked at has found essentially no difference in viral load between {a,}symptomatic. The WHO has absolutely disgraced itself during this pandemic -- I wouldn't be placing any weight on anything they pronounce.

On the other hand, the only non-pathetic close study I've seen of surgical mask use vs viral broadcast showed that rhinovirus basically ignored them, flu got mostly caught but a fair whack got out, but coronaviruses A/ had 0 get thru, completely stopped, B/ only about a third of victims had any detectable live virus coming out of their mouth/nose. Pre Covid but could be the same.

SEC takes legal action after crowdfunded marijuana investment scheme appears to go up in smoke

Re: OT

Again: read the first clause. And be aware that headings, preambles, etc have no legal effect in statutory interpretation. There's nothing in the clause (or surrounding legislation) restricting its power of preemptive violence to _prevent_ a crime --citizens arrest requires that a crime has been committed (past tense)-- to police officers.

Fundamental precept of Western cultures: the citizen gives over the power of taking the law into their own hands, and the power of violence to achieve an end, to the State. The State has the only authority --and a responsibility-- to commit violence in the pursuit of social ends, on behalf of all its citizens, and typically only via specially authorised officers.

To be clear: vigilantes are forbidden, vigilantism is a crime. In every Western jurisdiction I'm aware of.

Except in the UK since 1967.

----

It IS possible that there is some other separate legislation somewhere which specifically restricts this section. But neither I nor 2 British lawyers I've pointed this out to have been able to find anything. It appears to stand as-is.

It's not just an aberration; it's an inversion of the law. It's hilarious. (And useful to know. Although I dare say a horrified correction will be slapped over it shortly after anyone actually USES it in a court of law and brings it to official legal attention.)

Re: OT

Oh, by the way:

> [citizen's arrest] How else could you, say, legally tackle someone you just saw glass another

A common misconception. You are NOT allowed to do this under the citizen's arrest provisions. At least, not in any common-law descended jurisdiction I'm aware of.

You are allowed to declare to someone that they are under arrest, and are allowed to use reasonable force to prevent them departing before the arrival of a police officer. E.g., holding them or tying them up. But that's it.

So even knocking someone out to stop them leaving puts you into "nice" territory (legal definition of nice) regarding reasonableness. And if you tackle that glasser, if the attending police officers (or the prosecutors) choose to be or are required to be strict, then the glasser will be up for wounding or GBH, and you'll be up for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Re: OT

Read it again. In particular, closely examine the first clause.

Put it this way: stop a British policeman and ask to see his PACE booklet. Get him to show you the section on what force they are permitted to use in the course of their duties. And you will discover that it cites this subsection.

To watch a period of startlement then growing shock, point out to them that neither this nor any part of the surrounding or supporting legislation narrows the definition of person to police officers. Or even citizens. An American-citizen Batman is fully legally authorised so long as he stands on British soil / within a UK jurisdiction.

And yes, it is a drafting cockup.

Almost as amusing a legal drafting bungle as Blair's Parliament Square cockup vs the infuriating anti-Iraq War demonstrator.

OT

OT:

Hey, if you're that way inclined, check out s3(1) of the UK's Criminal Law Act 1967 for a serious boggle and a disbelieving laugh. Yup, it really does invert perhaps THE fundamental precept of Western civilisation.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/58/section/3

Batman is legal in the UK!

Angry birds ground some Google Wing drones in Australia

Re: Corvids vs drones

And the cockatoos up here have just recently taught themselves to open the lids right open on wheeliebins so they can have a rummage around inside.

US Congress ponders setting up permanent UFO investigation office

Re: Fake

"Nick Pope" sounds like a final test for the UF00 service of British Intelligence.

"Ah, you're back, James. And you've got one! Well done, and welcome aboard."

"Thank you, M. Ahh...what do I do with..."

"Oh, put him with the others."

Kali Linux 2021.3 released with new tools

SSH

Heh. I can just imagine the forehead-slapping moment when someone got caught by that. "Why are WE hardened!?! D'oh!"

Mafia works remotely, too, it seems: 100+ people suspected of phishing, SIM swapping, email fraud cuffed

Re: Good work

They're good Catholic boys, I'll have you know. Virtuously cleaving into Christ's dictum:

"Come with me and I will make you phishers of men."

Chips'n'China on the agenda as the Quad – Japan, India, Oz, US – prepares to meet

Re: The horse may have already bolted

All reasonable enough. But I _will_ pick you up on 2 points that had my eyes out on stalks.

> China ... is smart enough to encourage trade without demanding fealty

...from countries it regards as a threat or of near-equal status.

> you can't build a great power on a foundation of endemic poverty and deprivation (or ethnic discrimination).

Err... that's _exactly_ what China has _done_. Premier announced triumphantly middle of last year that now only 40% of China earns less than US$4.65 per day. For example.

Far worse than India too, in that most of the workers are feudal slaves, with the possibility of working their way up to feudal villeins.

Apache OpenOffice can be hijacked by malicious documents, fix still in beta

Re: Uh oh. Just did a test. Looks like it's "smart".

It bitches about it not being a .doc file? Which is the right thing to do re safety.

Or does it open it as a spreadsheet? Which is the right thing to do re user-facilitation.

Re: So if I use OO for .xls .ods .doc .odt .rtf etc etc but never ever .dbf ...

I'd say it depends how OO determines filetype once the OS has invoked it with a file, and hence determines which code to parse the file with. If it's "dumb", it'll just look at the OS/FS filename extension ; if it's "smart", it'll ignore the filename and read the file contents to determine its type, then run the appropriate code.

In the former case, you're correct.

In the latter case, a dodgy.dbf could be renamed dodgy.xls and ... gotcha.

Re: Making me feel old

Also, they're a very simple and sparse text markup language, in terms of file format, rather than a complex bundle of linked control structures or a noisy verbose angle-bracket-fest. Very simple to create and to parse, programmatically.

Yes, of course there's now malware for Windows Subsystem for Linux

Re: Anyone surprised?

I use it with great pleasure on my XP box.

Re: Anyone surprised?

> e.g. MacOS is a fully POIX complient

Windows is fully POSIX-compliant too. Has been since Win NT. Never wondered why Cygwin could work so effortlessly, long before any Linux layer built-in?

Punchy Biden-lookalike grandad goes viral for fighting boxing gadget

Re: Except he doesn't look like Biden ...

"I'm not sure."

Technology doesn’t widen the education divide. People do that

> And I really wouldn’t want to drive across a bridge designed by someone who’d never really wanted to be an engineer.

Avoid Australia in future, then. Our current Curriculum designers have formally stated that maths is racist, and that emphasising the idea of a correct answer to a maths problem is white supremacy. Their current curriculum seeks to correct and eliminate these problems.

Not a joke or sarcasm, by the way.

If it were possible to evade facial-recognition systems using just subtle makeup, it might look something like this

Re: "trained observers may be wise to your caper and stop you"

> You can still wear any garment you wish in civilized countries, can't you ?

Oh DAHling, how deLIGHTfully naif! One wouldn't be seen DEAD in last season's styles.