Posts by laird cummings

Inside the Skynet ghost town built by bunker-based boffins

Re: @ laird cummings

Why do illegals cross the border? To find places to live and *work.* Duh. They are NOT looking for a place to squat and starve.

Hush up now - Clearly, you're incompetent to answer.

Re: Dont; see the point really,....

Actually, that *is* the point - a city where you can test basic functionallity without those messy meatsacks.

Re: Won't be empty for long

Won't be a problem - no food in the stores, no lawns to be mown... and spooky unmanned vehicles to run you over.

The illegals will keep on moving.

Fastest-ever hydrocarb scramjet hits Mach 8, doesn't explode

Makes you think though..? No, it doesn't.

The USA has had nukes for almost 70 years. If your paranioa were based on anything other than rather dated groupthink, you'd stop to notice that there's been precisely two combat uses of nukes, and that at the very end of a long and devestating declared war.

Hardly the things of which proper paranoid fantasies are built. Do try harder, next time.

Adobe backs down, patches critical Photoshop CS5 hole

Adobe: Crap product cattle-prod marketing

Adobe salesman:

"The older stuff is crap. Buy the new version or >KZZERT!<

Oh, did that hurt? Well, better pay me soon or the pain will >KZZERT!<"

Cameron's F-35 U-turn: BAE Systems still calls the shots at No 10

Re: Can't we bolt hooks onto our F-35Bs for better performance?

@ Anonymous Coward: 10th May 2012 18:15 GMT

Age of technology is completely beside the point - an utterly pointless strawman.* The real question is whether or not it is *appropriate* technology. Catapults & arrestor hooks reduce the cost, increase the useful payload, and increase the reliability of carrier aircraft. Who cares if catapults are over 100 years old? They *work.*

*If we followed your strawman, for instance, the use of knives would be suspect, as clearly a technology many thousands of years old is too old to be ore modern relevance.

BOFH: Siri, why do users lie?

A bit off his game this morning...

Caught on the back foot by the PFY. No doubt he'll be back in form by the afternoon...

Did dicky power supply silence climate-change probe Envisat?

Re: European space agency

Be fair - it's lasted twice the warranty period. You don't normally get service like that, these days.

Re: Golden BB..?

"Is that better?"

Much, thank you.

Golden BB..?

Surprised not to see speculation on the possiblity of a debris strike among the list of possible culprits.

Ex-BP engineer cuffed 'for deleting Deepwater spill texts'

Re: Americans. - AC @ 14:45

Yup. It's amazing how fast we'll turn on you when you've sold us a bill of goods, and your fraud is found out. Expecially when your froud also happens to seriously fsk up the lives of a lot of other Americans.

Quit whinging - BP fsked up horribly, knowingly, and preventably. They deserve every single boot they've recieved, and then some.

Turing's rapid Nazi Enigma code-breaking secret revealed

I see what you did there.

FBI nabs AWOL soldier for stealing Paul Allen's debit card

Re: Stuuning detective work there

>True. They could ring his doorbell?

Sure. But why bother? Sooner or later, he'll cross paths of some local authority, and he's cuffed. There absolutely no point in wasting cash making a special visit.

Being on the lam, the *vast* majority of deserters actually lead rather blameless lives so as to NOT attract attention - so they're hardly an active threat.

Why change what works (very efficiently, albeit slowly)?

(Pulling CDO at NAVSTA Philly, I've had to lock a few of 'em up after they had a traffic stop, or their sister-in-law ratted them out to the cops, or similar. My effort and the (Federal) government's expense? Negligible.)

Re: Stuuning detective work there

Uninformed AC is uninformed.

1) As already noted, a deserter is hardly a national security crisis.

2) There are so many different ways a deserter can get caught, there's no point in making a serarch - once the deserter's name is in the system, anything from a domestic disturbance to a traffic stop will get them caught.

3) Life SUX when you're in deserter status - can't get credit (unless you steal it!), can't register a vehicle, can't do ANYTHING where your name will enter into official notice. Most deserters turn themselves in, just to end the misery.

4) The US Army was never in charge of the Bin Laden hunt in the first place - they were merely a tool of those actually in charge: Intelligence and Criminal Prosecution agencies.

Top DARPA bomb boffin in explosive move to Google

R&D Wars

They're heating up, and Google is ready to go on the offensive...

MICRORAPTOR dino-pigeon lured mates with glowing feathers

Then it's Utahraptor you'll be wanting - just perfectly sized for Spielbergian expectations.

NASA to blast 5 rockets in 5 min in jet stream test

Screw all rational thought

I just wanna see the show. And for once, I'm well-placed!

Time to git me beer & beach chair. Maybe add some powerful binoculars to the kit.

US Justice Department threatens Apple and publishers with court battle

Holding the line

There are some publihser out there that are working har to hold the line - Baen, and their subsidiary imprints like Nightshade Books, are quite reasonable, as opposed to some of the money-gougers out there.

Robot NIGHTMARE sets new leggy-bot speed record

Doesn't make the damned things look any less stupid though

Clearly, you've never seen a drunk sailor chasing a drunk wallaby. There are some things that look *far* more stupid than 'Roos...

Re: Honda's Asimo...

It's also slow, unable to right itself, obstacle-challenged, and not at all agile.

Boston Dynamics already has the Big Dog (and it's little cousin) which can negotiate rough terrain, is hard to knock over and largely self-righting, and is fairly fast in its own right. Cross Big Dog with Cheetah, and you've got a *fast* agile, un-tethered, petrol-powered beast.

Then there's Boston Dynamics' Rise:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEMlkonimvQ

Hard-core high-octane nightmare fuel at that link.

Honda needs to up its nightmare game - clearly, they've lost the plot.

Future car tech

Re: Another side note to the HUD in cars...

Wouldn't know about high-end cars. I was seeing the HUD in my G-Ride (GSA Fleet Vehicle) - a middle/bottom-end full-sized sedan. If the GSA was buying it for the cars they issued to Service Recruiters, then you can be sure it was pretty inexpensive - We got the crap end of things.

I attribute the low takeup on two factors - Cultural inertia, and the rather clunky display design - If the display isn't intuitive, people are going to ignore it. Clearly, the human factors guys were not consulted in the display design.

Lot of old tech in this list.

Or old solutions ginned up in fancy clothing.

eCall == OnStar, only five years or more behind the times. But eCall still won't tell you where to find a good restaurant (OnStar can). Likewise, the 'severity' monitoring and automatic call for help are already standard and sell-developed features.

Swivelling headlights have been done since the 50s (Tucker) and the side-illumination feature was standard on Cadilacs years ago.

HUDs in civvie vehicles were available back when I was still wearing a uniform (a decade+ back).

Color me not much impressed with auto-designers imaginations.

Stolen iPad leads to 780lb crystal meth seizure

Re: Typical American Idiot

Typical bigot: Knee-jerking and annoying.

Bloomin’ big: algae seen from space

@ Ian

So. You failed to actualy read the article, and went off on your own pet theories based on... What?

vis:

"While not certain about the cause of the bloom, Curran notes that small traces of iron in Antarctic snow blown out to sea could partly be driving the event, since iron is a nutrient to algae"

I see no mention of any other causes or potential causes - not even speculation - in the article. On what do you base your assertion?

Boffins, tourists threaten Antarctica with alien invasion

Re: erm...

Ah - I see. Just because you've spent your life doing something, the rest of us should give a fart..? Clearly, you *are* an American. Or one of those self-satisfied Europeans. Or maybe one of those culturally zenophobic Asian groups...

You're frankly not all that important, in the big scheme of things. Show me how invasions of Antartica are going to wipe out the *thriving* and *dynamic* ecophere there, and how that's going to make the planet a worse place for the rest of us, and I'll actually give you some credence.

Until then, shove off.

Lithuania rules beer brewing 'vitally essential' to life

Re: Another score for big business!

That would be too expensive. Much cheaper to just put bars on the wondows and chain the doors shut.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire

Foxconn allegedly hid underage workers from inspectors

"Let us be very clear..."

"...Foxconn does not employ, in any capacity, any underage workers."

No, I'm sure they don't - Forced 'intern' students are not employees.

"Foxconn increased wages throughout our operations in China to ensure that we maintained our position as one of the highest paying companies in our industry."

"Highest Paying" does not mean "adequate wages." It merely means 'not quite as cheap as the other slaveshops.'

Apple is one of the pack, in this regard; the only difference beaing that they're hoist on their own sales-pitch petard.

BOFH: The Cloud Committee Calamity

@ Chika

"One thing that does come to mind is BOFH running a server farm for one of these clouds. Now THERE'S an interesting thought! "

Here, let me fix that for you:

"... Now THERE'S a terrifying thought!"

European revolt over ACTA treaty gains ground

I'll happily learn Polish

If that's what it takes.

Huzzah!

Let's hear it with the uppity people of Europe!

Gun controlled lamp hits the spotlight

I *don't* give my children toy guns. I *do* teach proper safety, properly supervised, with the real thing. Firearms are the kind of tool with which you don't EVER want people developing bad habits - and unsupervised play with toys, IMO, teaches *just* those bad habits.

Yeah, I take this #$%^ kinda seriously.

@ AC Friday 3rd February 2012 22:34

"Like animals and other humans?"

Precisely.

Even if you're a hunter, or even if you're a police officer or soldier, you NEVER cover anything with the muzzle of your weapon unless you're prepared to destroy it. That is BASIC safety, and this crappy idea violates that concept fundamentally.

Christ, what a crappy idea.

The suggestion that firearms are 'cute' and appropriate for use in this manner is in such bad, bad taste. Clearly, the inventor is not firearms-familliar.

Aaaand... I predict that the Confiscators will use this as yet another talking point, despite it having absolutely nothing to do with responsible firearms ownership - nor anything in common with firearms owership of *any* stripe.

US tweet deportation: Chilling behind-the-scenes photos

"...head in hands..."

"Yes, yes there is - scores of them. But as they have clues, they're not permitted anywhere near policy-makers nor allowed to be part of decision making processes.

Mostly, they're exiled to squalid little cubbies, where they crank out reams of analysis reports - which are then used to fuel the furnaces.

Anonymous hackers leak Scotland Yard-FBI conference call

So, Anonymous is rectuiting...

...News of the World employees now, eh?

Judges set timetable for McKinnon case resolution

And if I leave my door unlocked, and you enter and damage or remove my property, somehow you're not a thief and a vandal..?

Bullshite, my friend. Bullshite.

"The campaign focused attention on US-UK extradition requirements, which critics argue are unfairly biased because US extradition requests need not be accompanied by any evidence"

Especially since this is factually untrue. The US uses different language for its evidence requirements - but that's all.

Further, since the US has refused NOT ONE of the UK's requests, whilst the UK has refused numorous US requests, the claim that somehow the US is getting the better of the deal is stupid on its face, and should embarass anyone who makes it.

Polish lawmakers don Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA

Excellent. Glad to see there are some legislaters that 'get it.'

Most EU states sign away internet rights, ratify ACTA treaty

Wrong country

Moosejaw is in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Which would be an equally dismal place to spend some quality incarceration time, if for somewhat different reasons.

As opposed to European Patent Trolls, or Patent Trolls of any other stripe..?

Preach it, brotha!

@AC 2012 07:57 GMT

Easy - downvote it for being inchoerent. :)

@ Sketch:

I can do it in one quote:

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1738)

Franklin's aphorisms apply to Europe as much as they do to the US, or to Brazil, or China, or anywhere else humans live - OWN your own power, do not let it be stolen!

Woo! Now I'm feeling all fired up and revolutionary!

Think I'll go down to my nearest center of Gevernment Oppression, and overturn a few more pieces of nasty legislation!

North Korea labels phone users war criminals

He is.

My mind just tripped several breakers, trying to process the hypocracy.

Aaaand... now we've heard from the loony fringe.

Our day is complete.

We have ALWAYS been at war with Eastasia!

Super-powered 'frankenmalware' strains detected in the wild

I was once a regular correspondant with George Smith of the Crypt Newsletter and Rob Rosenberger of Virus Myths. I picked up a pretty jaded attitude towards software security companies. Yes, they have a product and a need for it too, but they're strongly motivated to spread fear and misunderstanding.

The "goodtimes/badtimes" letter made me giggle like a lunatic. :)

Sounds familiar...

"Goodtimes will give you Dutch Elm disease. It will leave the toilet seat up. It will make a batch of Methamphetamine in your bathtub and then leave bacon cooking on the stove while it goes out to chase neighborhood children with your new lawnmower."

Yeah. I thought as much.

Loyal NASA rover Opportunity enters 9th year of Mars boffinry

The real world

Is pass/fail. Either it works or it doesn't. No points of purity of process.

@Fractured Cell

Not so much. More is was merely a failure to check which standards were in use by what teams, and making sure conversions between teams were accurate. Metric, Imperial, and even El Reg units would all work quite well together, so long as you know who's using what, and convert correctly.

Meanwhile, those projects where NASA hits one 'out of the park' surely do go a long way towards making up for the bunts and foul balls that are their less-successful projects.