Posts by onefang

Sorry friends, I'm afraid I just can't quite afford the Bitcoin to stop that vid from leaking everywhere

Re: I've seen a definite uptick in these

"It's a shame a lot of regular sites view any email address containing the '+' as invalid."

I've recently tried to get Tinder to send a verification email, so it will notify my via email when things happen, instead of failing to notify me on my phone. It entirely failed to even attempt to send any emails to my own email server, which are not on any spam blacklist that I check regularly. Everyone else can send to that server fine. I tend to use individual addresses for individual sites / services, so this was to tinder@... They didn't say why it failed, just that it did. No attempts spotted in my logs. Perhaps I'll try this + trick, see what happens. Or create yet another throw away gmail account.

Florida man won't be compelled to reveal iPhone passcode, yet

Most of the article was about the legal to and fro. Not enough info about the actual case. Is this person a minor or a grown man? Was this minor / man the driver? Why is the contents of the phone needed, what relevance does it have to the car crash? What relevance does a pending iOS update have to the need for the passcode/words?

The D in Systemd stands for 'Dammmmit!' A nasty DHCPv6 packet can pwn a vulnerable Linux box

Re: Old is good

"Also: he refusal to accept patches to let it work on non-Linux Unix is just plain nasty."

Though likely a big sigh of relief for users of those other Unix variants.

How to build your own IT infosec holodeck: A blueprint for crafting a virtual enterprise to prod, test and hack

Oops, I was thinking OpenSim, the open source version of Second Life, when I started reading. Not that sort of holodeck.

Jeez, not now, Iran... Facebook catches Mid East nation running trolly US, UK politics ads

Re: Those two examples displayed in the article text

"I quite like The Donald"

I have no idea of the accuracy of that example. I don't know enough about all the other USA presidents. On the other hand, it says "PRESIDENT", and though it mentions "AMERICAN HISTORY", it's not specific that it means "USA PRESIDENT". There are likely much worse and much more hated presidents of other countries, even of some other American countries.

"Likewise, we only have to look at ANY aspect of US politics (and most countries) to know that lobbying is a legalised form of bribery."

Certainly applies to my country of Australia. So yeah, lots of truth in that one.

Californian chap sets his folks' home on fire by successfully taking out spiders with blowtorch

Re: blow torch... pfft

"Don'ts:"

Don't kill the spiders, especially the ones that are keeping the local ant population at bay. Also, don't follow that up by letting your young daughter leave chocolates under the bed, that's only make the ant problem worse. Ask my ex and her daughter how I know.

Re: blow torch... pfft

"The US can't beat Australia when it comes to deadly spiders,"

There is two, maybe three, Aussie spiders you want to avoid. Red back and funnel web can actually be fatal. White tails may or may not eat your flesh with their venom, the jury is still out.

"I've seen a farm field of miles plagued by Wolf spiders (migration or some displacement was assumed). Walking from one end to the other would mean certain death."

Wolf spiders isn't one of them. Itchy, mild pain, some swelling, but you get that from most insect bites.

Aussie snakes is where we are world beaters. Last I checked we have seven of the top twenty most dangerous snakes.

China tells Trump to use a Huawei phone to avoid eavesdroppers

Re: Imagine what he'd say if Hillary had done this?

"The secure ones the government hands out probably have a special baseband that's had all the "bugs" the NSA get Qualcomm & Intel to insert in theirs removed."

You think the NSA isn't bugging Trump? They unofficially bug everyone else, so why not?

Assange catgate hearing halted as Ecuador hunts around for someone who speaks Australian

"called for a replacement fluent in Australian, perhaps misunderstanding that the former British colony still speaks the language of the Pom."

Maybe they mistook Austria for Australia, it happens all the time.

Re: Move the embassy

"A win for everyone,"

Not a win for Assange, so no, not everyone..

Yes, Americans, you can break anti-piracy DRM if you want to repair some of your kit – US govt

"Don't expect your phone to be worth $500 after you opened it and think you put all the screws back in correctly."

It might be worth a lot less if it just plain didn't work coz you didn't fix it. So might be worth a shot. Paperweights are worth less than working phones.

"he's also re-built LCD screens entirely, although that's a very tricky thing"

This particular LCD monitor was sealed, so I had to crack it open before repairing it. Now I keep it closed with a couple of wing nuts and bolts through two holes carefully drilled through the case. I call it my Frankenstein monitor.

"Circuit boards are really not something that one repairs* for quite a few decades now."

Last time I repaired some hardware, I did just remove the faulty capacitor and replace it with a new one. A lot cheaper than buying a new monitor, or getting an authorised board swap.

I wonder what the definition of "fix" is? "Fixing" something the maker considers to be a feature?

Should a robo-car run over a kid or a grandad? Healthy or ill person? Let's get millions of folks to decide for AI...

Re: Neither. Choose the 3rd option.

"OR put enough explosives on the car that it instantly evaporates and everyone is safe..."

Except the driver and the passengers. Though instantly vaporising something that big tends to damage things around it a lot. That's the "nuke it from inside, the only way to be sure" option.

Re: Jaywalking

"However if there is no traffic now and I can get across the street now, I will do that, rather than press the button and then have to wait wait for the lights to change."

I have a habit of pressing the button and waiting anyway. Lifetime habit of an asthmatic, it's good to just stop every now and then to catch my breath.

Re: Important 'cause...

"The time slowing down in an accident situation is very real, I have experienced it more than once in cars and on motorcycles."

Hmm, last time I came off my bike I remember thinking "You take a long time to slide to a stop when you come off at 110 km/h". It might have been time slowing, or it might just be that you take a long time to slide to a stop when you come off at 110 km/h.

Actually, it was likely more than 110 km/h, I was doing the speed limit, the guy behind me wasn't, I may have been sped up before actually hitting the road.

Re: The most hated people in society.

"we're OK with saving them from a future sojourn at the prison farm."

But that eats into the prison industries profits, and they'll sue the car makers.

Re: Final solution many years from now

"put a nice sharp cutter bar at mid shin height"

A long time ago there was a suggestion that one way of reducing car accidents was to put a sharp metal spike in the middle of the steering wheel. Instead we put airbags, dunno if that helped.

Re: Jaywalking

"When someone gets run over they put up a fence to stop other people getting run over in the same place."

Around here when someone gets run over they stick flowers somewhere nearby, sometimes a photo of the person, and recently, pink shoes.

"What about the run them all over, so as to be politically correct option?"

Ah, the "shoot them all, let god sort them out" option.

Re: Could we prove the tech with trains first?

"Last few derailments and accidents i have seen in the news have been due to drivers going to fast or general failings of meat bags."

The last two I saw where driverless trains derailing. Though you can always blame "general failings of meat bags", meat bags programmed the things.

Re: cats fare worse than criminals

"Cats ARE criminals."

You're only saying that coz cats like to eat frogs and chips.

Re: philosophical navel gazing wank-fest

"what to hit is instinctual"

I was going to point that out to. The results from this sort of experiment are likely to be entirely different to what happens out in the real world when you are driving and about to hit something. In particular I really doubt the "hit the fattie, not the fittie" result. I have noticed that when I was a lot fatter, walking around with my large backpack on, drivers of small cars tended to give way to me. Their thinking was likely "If I hit that guy, it's gonna do lots of damage to my car.". Hit a skinny person, meh you'll break them in two, and they'll bounce down the road, barely scratching my duco.

Re: The most hated people in society.

"I notice that dogs came out more valued than criminals."

Yet cats fare worse than criminals.

Re: Jaywalking

"It's the act of crossing the street outside of the municipality-approved crossing path, an egregious offense in any stuck-up, prudish culture that most definitely thinks it knows better than you."

Often with traffic engineers that hold pedestrians in contempt. There's a particular pedestrian crossing across a major road near me. You push the button to cross the lanes going one way, wait up to ten minutes, whether or not there is any actual traffic, cross to the large traffic island in the middle, then repeat, only now you have to wait for the entire programmed cycle. Anyone that lives around here simply jaywalks and ignores the buttons. This has become a really big example to the students of the school that has their main gate very close to said crossing. They learn how to jaywalk at an early age.

Grumbling about wobbly Windows 10? Microsoft can't hear you over the clanging cash register

Re: Conditioning.

"The mainstream are using VHS."

Can you even buy VHS anymore? Hasn't the world moved onto DVDs? Tivo? Pirate Bay? (I have no idea, I don't do any of that anyway.)

Re: !!!!!

"Using Windows will not kill you."

The elevated stress levels might shorten your life.

If you saw a Google ad recently, know that it helped pay off one of its 'sex pest' execs $90m

All the recent Google ads I have seen recently have been in Russian, a language I can't read. Google seems to have misplaced me. So I have no idea if they where advertising new ways to get sexually molested by their execs. I'd pass them through Google Translate, but I have no idea what new unreadable language I'll get when I ask for English.

I'm on the naughty step

I tried to be good boy, I don't think I posted any corrections as comments, and I was unmoderated for a few days. Now I'm back to being moderated. What did I do wrong this time?

Word up: Embedded vids in Office docs can hide embedded nasties, infosec bods warn

What, no "It's 2018 and you can still get pawned by Word documents"? Or is that officially old hat now it's near the end of the year, and we get a three month breather before "It's 2019 and you can still get pawned by Word documents".

Telstra Health to keep troubled Aussie cancer database contract

Every five years the government asks me to give them shit, er I mean sends me a bowel cancer screening kit. Anybody that has been paying attention to my commentarding knows that I do that all the time here, no need to ask. So now in future Telstra will be asking me to give them shit. I could easily do that here to.

Excuse me, but have you heard the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Chr-AI-st?

Re: Accuracy

"Holy Computer! We can only assume the inventors not only put their AI through not just rigorous Turing and IQ tests and university exams, but also ascertained that its soul was in a state of grace and if it could *accurately* communicate with the Lord of Hosts through prayer."

Wait, does this mean it's now a sin to just throw the old computers on the scrap heap, coz now they have souls? We need to have old computers homes, where they can be abused for profit instead. Can I now be arrested for carrying a concealed USB stick with Darik's Boot and Nuke on it, except in states where concealed carry is legal? "It's properly licensed Officer, I've published the source code on my web site."

"Someone would still insist on getting their dates by extrapolating from the passages on 'who begat who'."

From my vague recollections from the one and only time I tried to read the bible, in the bit where they are claiming ridiculously long life times for some people, I think if you substituted "months old" for "years old", they would come down to more likely ages.

I gave up on the old testament when things got horridly violent, and picked things up again at the beginning of the new testament. Apparently I missed the fun and games in Solomon.

"Can it re-phrase this into a form that doesn't cause schoolboys to fall asleep?"

Balshazar rammed the two spotted camels and the four buttered goats into Rashomon's house with a tent peg, slewing them into little bits. Yeah, then they smoked pot while watching Kim Kardashian's gash for three hours. Here endeth the lesson.

Microsoft promises a fix for Windows 10 zip file woes. In November

Re: Windows Search

"It’s telling that the shortcut Win-f opens Search now, when originally it opened Find."

That's two more letters, so that now Microsoft can keep it's reputation for bloat.

Re: I wonder...

"Is Windows 10 better or worse than Vista? ME?"

VIsta* and ME suck less coz most of the people still using them actually like it, or they would have moved on. 10 is the most suckage, coz people are stuck with it, being the last Windows version ever.

* Sure in the office I work in there is still a Vista, that no one uses, and every one hates, but someone else was gonna replace it with 7, he just hasn't gotten around to it yet.

Re: In the good old days....

Or in the good old old old old old old days, the only searching was for that punched card that slipped out under the door when you dropped a deck.

"over 50 per cent of commercial devices were now on Windows 10."

Not sure exactly what they mean by "commercial devices". The photocopier? The coffee machine in the office kitchen? 50 per cent of the staplers? Are computers that dual boot Linux / Windows 10 counted as 50 per cent on Windows 10, or only if booted into Windows 50 per cent of the time? Perhaps 50 per cent of computers in the office that sneakily upgraded themselves to Windows 10 before we could stop them all?

Apple boss decries 'data industrial complex' while pocketing, er, billions to hook Google into iOS

Re: Things have gone downhill since the 1600s

"(I was of the impression “boink” was a verb…)"

The language has changed a little since the 1600s.

Re: He's mostly right

"Finally, in an anon-free world, there would still be sockpuppets and fake posters; who is going to check each and every logon for a real person? It may be that the price paid is not worth the value extracted."

We already have dead people voting.

We are the product, does that mean we are the soylent green that feeds the corporations?

It only took Oz govt transformation bods 6 months and $700k to report that blockchain ain't worth the effort

"Wow, a comment and 20 replies with not a single downvote. This can't be right. Not on the register. I must do something to restore normality."

Sorry, I don't vote for ACs, since votes for them don't count. You are at 0 0 currently.

Re: Audit trails for copyright claims

"The real problem you face is working out how to pay the distributed entities to store and add new content to the blockchain."

Do they need to be paid, wouldn't some copyright holders do it out of self interest?

"For a government project, you probably don’t want distributed consensus."

Voting in a democracy is a distributed consensus.

Oz opposition backs the 'regulatory hallucinogen' of anti-piracy laws

Re: I thought better of the Aussies ...

"But I'm shocked to hear they use that americanised spelling of Labour."

We don't, the Labor Party does.

Have you ever, ever felt like this? Have strange things happened? Is high-speed data going round the twist?

Re: Copper is truly dead

"Not unless the rules of successful business change, sweat those assets!"

Here in Oz those copper assets are not being sweated, they are being replaced by new copper, instead of by new fibre as in the original plan.

Re: A (potentially) astonishing step change in FO bandwidth.

"If the ISPs put in FTTP then a change in technology would probably just mean swapping the devices at each end of the fibre."

If only the Oz government had stuck with FTTP for nbn, then we wouldn't be the last people getting this new Oz technology.

Worrying Windows 10 wrecking-ball weapon weirdly wanders wildly on worldwide web

Re: oh God

A recent update of Windows on a not particularly fast laptop I had enough time to walk home, eat dinner, watch TV, sleep, eat brekky, walk back to the office, and still had to wait an hour for it to finish.

Re: Monthly Updates?

Ah, that's the other half of Augustus De Morgan's poem "Siphonaptera" that no one ever quotes. The entire thing is -

Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum.

And the great fleas, themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;

While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

Have a beer, likely there's no fleas in it.