Posts by BigFire

Eric Raymond revisits his biggest mistake, updates 'Pilot' language after 20 years

Re: Software luminary?

Well, if he didn't step in during the initial phase of name resolution design, we'd be in far far worse shape. Back then it's just host table forwarding from one machine to another.

Re: Software luminary?

Lets see, he's the one that points out the original implementation of DNS is a clusterfuck.

Israeli tech firms make their exits, stage rich

Re: BDS

as Matt Bryant said, have at it. Turn off your computers, mobile phones and anything that insipid Zionist state have contributes and go back to your idyllic life. Oh, not even ISIS can avoid the Zionist tech.

SEC: Qualcomm hired relatives of Chinese officials to seal biz deals

Unfortunately for American companies, some of the rules ARE different abroad and bribes are part of the expense.

Oracle: Oregon's attorney general leaked our confidential memos in health portal row

Step One, Project Requirement

When you have no idea what you want, is it any wonder you didn't get what you want? The State of Oregon literally have no idea what they want, their requirement keep on changing. Is it any wonder why nothing of note got delivered?

After Death Star II blew: Dissecting the tech of Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

Re: "standardize hard and change infrequently"

The Empire does not have worse hyperspace drive technology compared to Rebel Alliance. They just choose not to equip them on Tie fighters as those are strictly mothership launched.

It's the white heat of the tech revolution, again!

Re: Corbyn's broader and more useful aims?

Regarding housing and land development sort of bring to mind Guy Ritchie's last gangster film RocknRolla where this high end gangster makes his living doling out building permits through his thorough corruption of the planning board. Without these entities, how's a corrupted politician going to be able to afford that vacation house at the beach?

Disney's light-bulb moment: build TCP into LEDs for IoT comms

Vinge's Localizer

First thing I think of is Vernon Vinge's Localizer from A Deepness in the Sky. Perhaps not that level of usefulness yet, but first step.

Robots, schmobots. The Rise of the Machines won't leave humanity on the dole

Insurance

You absolutely will still have insurance even if you take the driver out of the equation. Maintenance, or lack thereof will pin the liability on YOU.

Re: Wants and desires

As Dr. Evil so nicely puts it, where's the shark with laser?

Burn all the coal, oil – No danger of sea level rise this century from Antarctic ice melt

Re: the "precautionary principle"

by its own nature, the precautionary principle violates itself.

Intel doubles its bounty for women and ethnic minorities

Not the right kind of minority

They already have 36% Asian, as we're obviously over represented and not the kind of minority they craved.

Big, ugly, heavy laptops are surprise PC sales sweet spot

Depends on your requirement.

I have a choice of going ultraslim (one of those lightweight thinkpad) or ultra-beefy (HP 17") on my last round of company issue laptop. I opted for HP 17" because I got sick of sluggish computer and not enough screen space while working from home (hey, I'm not getting any younger, and my eye-sight, lasik corrected is still getting worse).

I can always justify the extra extra weight as more exercise done per day I have to lug this heavy thingie.

Mt Gox's Mark Karpeles arrested in Japan

Re: In other words, he is hardly innocent

In criminal world, co-mingling your fund with your customer's fund does not result in prison sentence. You get tortured and shot and burned.

Hurrah! Windfarms produce whopping one per cent of EU energy

Diesel Generator

I still remember there was an enterprising fella that hooked up his diesel generator to the grid and claimed solar power tariff refund benefit. He was only caught because he was generating solar power day and night. Yes, he was making a significant amount of money generating power via a diesel generator and claiming solar panel generation.

Post-pub nosh neckfiller: Chopstick-collapsing Spam musubi

available of pork in tropic environment

When you want to eat pork in tropic region, and refrigeration isn't widely available, spam is almost a godsend. With spam being canned, you can keep the 'meat' around unrefrigerated, so it's population in tropic island with large Japanese population is quit understandable.

Why SpaceX will sort out Sunday's snafu faster than NASA ever could

Challengers Investigation

Feynman was the stalking horse used by some of the other people on the commission (such as NASA insiders, Air Force General) to get the proper information out. They kinda of knew what cause it right away, but they really cannot disclose it without being exposed. So they use a complete outsider, feed him hints and have him go through the whole show and tell. The movie The Challenger Disaster, which is based on Feynman's memoir on this let you know it wasn't him, but a group effort.

Innocent Spaniards roasted by experimental napalm mead

Dare to be stupid

It's Weird Al's tribute song to Devo, not actually encourage in real life.

The Martian: Matt Damon sciences the sh*t out of the red planet

Trailers always spoil

The trailer really spoil some of the plot point later on in the novel. I advice my co-worker not to watch it, least they got spoiled themselves and just either read the novel or wait for the movie.

Apple recalls Beats speakers: Rap chap's crap batt rapped in zap mishap flap

Re: $325? Blimey!

You are privilege to be able to buy the heat generator from Apple and Dr. Dre.

That EVIL TEXT that will CRASH your iPhone: We pop the hood

The problem is not limited to iMessages. The problem is the notification. It seem to affect anything that can be display on notification screen.

Snakes on a backplane: Server-room cabling horrors

Re: 'The more computers you have, the more cables you need'

Vampire tap? Boy haven't heard that in a LOOOONG time.

Google TUGS Nexus 7-INCHER from its online store

My only complaint with Nexus 7 2013 is battery time. After 5.0 and now 5.1 update, the battery just runs out quit quickly and charged slowly. Perhaps the battery on this slab is going, but I'll miss it. Morning exercise on treadmill wouldn't be the same without this tablet for me to do my morning reading.

That's right: FBI agents can't pretend to be ISP repairmen to search homes without a warrant

Re: Time was not on FBI's side

I'm not defending the SAIC's action. It was a stupid risk, and this will come up on his next review. It was also kind of stupid for the prosecutor to use this kind of tainted evidence as they really should know better.

Time was not on FBI's side

The reason why they have to do this kind of ruse is that FBI was running out of time. The betting ring was for the duration of World Cup. I figure the SAIC who authorized this thought by the time they got a judge to sign off on the warrant, the gamblers would be long gone. Better to ask forgiveness than permission. Well in this case, forgiveness is not forthcoming.

LA schools want multi-million Apple refund after kids hack iPads

Traditional corruption

Former LAUSD superintendent John Deasy had a sweetheart deal with some of his buddies to supply the school district with these now obsolete fondleslab. He uses construction capital fund (stuff that's supposed to go towards building stuff that'll last longer than 10 years) to pay for these. He didn't bother trying to get bulk discount from Apple or from any other suppliers. Deasy is now under indictment for corruption.

Android gets biometric voice unlocking

Demolition Man

A much underrated satire, Demolition Man where they LoJacked every citizen of San Angelos. So the police department figures that their fugitive criminal would be hard press to get any money, since all transaction is based on the biometric chip on the hand. John Spartan is quit put off by this draconic development but added that Simon Phoenix only need to rip off some unfortunate soul's arm to get what he needed.

Toyota Yaris Hybrid: Half-pint composite for the urban jungle

Prius C IS build on Yaris platform, so this is pretty much Prius C for the European market.

$17,000 Apple Watch: Pointless bling, right? HA! You're WRONG

Re: Pussy Magnet

Further east. Tim have been working 'round the world doing his bit as the rare earth trader.

A gold MacBook with just ONE USB port? Apple, you're DRUNK

Re: Not a universal view

You mean the wannabe hipsters that lounges around coffee shop pretending to write their Great American Novel(tm)? Hey, there's gold to be mine there.

Net neutrality victory: FCC approves 'open internet' rules in 3-2 vote

Peasants, Know Your place

How dare you question the wisdom of the ruling class?

Re: "the FCC's chairman has refused to publish the rules before the vote took place."

EFF has found out that it's choke full of NSA/FBI friendly backdoors. Yep, another we'll find out what's in it after we vote for it.

SpaceX lofts two all-electric ion-drive comsats to Clarke orbit

Fast Cheap Good

You get 2/3 most of the time. In this case, it's sort of cheaper (less moving parts, less mass into orbit) and good (if it works). And just confirming my initial thought, slow.

Jupiter Ascending – a literally laughable train wreck of a film

Sandra Bullock

In 2010, she picked up Razzie for "All About Steve" in person, and then go on to pick up Oscar for "Blind Side" 24 hours later.

Obama administration ENDORSES Apple Pay during Tim Cook's White House LOVE-IN

Re: Veblen goods?

It's the Obamaphone baby. Obama will pay my mortgage.

SpaceX HOVER-SHIP landing scuppered by MASSIVE ocean waves

SpaceX did ink a deal to build their landing pad on one of the disused Air Force launching pad in the Cape. So not too far in the future. Landing on solid ground is got to be easier than a floating platform in the sea.

Re: Well Done

Bad Luck? It's bad luck that they didn't get to experiment on a paying customer's dime, but they still got paid. And from the customer's point of view, the launch was a success, their bird is now in space.

Fraudsters make bank as exec wires $17 MEELLION to China

Or they have a culture of discouraging the lowly peons from asking their boss (or in this case, the actual person purportedly to have authorize the transfer). A single phone call would've solve the problem.

Ross Ulbricht, in the library, with the laptop: Silk Road boss found GUILTY of all charges

Re: Meh

The charge of soliciting hits on 6 individuals are on a separate docket. Admitting to being DPR doesn't help in this case. That being said, this case hinges on the government proving that he was DPR and that goes a long way to their next case of hiring hitman to eliminating his former employee/competitors.

How's this for customer service: Comcast calls bloke an A**HOLE – and even puts it in print

For the most part, I use the magical phrase, "Please transfer this call to your supervisor". I may have to us the same 7 words a couple of times.

Does Big Tech hire white boys ahead of more skilled black people and/or women?

Re: Pinteresting employees aren't whiter than white

Asian are counted as white for SJW quota. We are over represented as it is.

Turn your head and cough (up your details), HealthCare.Gov has sprung a leak!

Yes, they are really that incompetent.

As someone whose healthcare plan only got worse and more expensive after Obamacare kicked in (I'm in California), I'm chalking this one up as pure incompetent. They can barely get the system up and running, did zero load testing, and you actually expect them to follow any semblance of privacy concern?

'Turn to nuclear power to save planetary ecology from renewable BLIGHT'

Re: How convenient...

They're only cheap due to government subsidy. Hey, I got an great idea, Unicorn Fart power. 100% all natural, 100% renewable. Where do I get my subsidy?

Is EU right to expand 'right to be forgotten' to Google.com?

Re: Mario Costeja González

Also known as the Streinsand Effect. The effort of suppressing a given piece of information only inflame and gave attention to such information to a wider audience.

No nudity, please, we're GAMING: Twitch asks players to cover up

Just the other day I was browsing through twitch.tv and came accross this 400lb guy, naked in the insert video playing a game. I cannot unsee what I saw.

eBay DROPS DEAD AGAIN - tat bazaar says sorry, scrambles to resurrect site

One day after banning Redskins gears

You think God of Internet have a sense of humor? After banning Redskins gears, the site goes down.

Oz biz regulator discovers shared servers in EPIC FACEPALM

Re: WTF

Why? Because they can. Look it doesn't have to make sense. To them it's just their exercising of their divine ordained right as bureaucrats. Know your place serfs.

French Senate passes anti-Amazon amendment

Forget it Jake, It's Chinatown

There's no reasoning with avowed socialists. I've stopped doing that a long time ago. Let them have their own little piece of socialist heaven and leave us alone.

Nokia paid off extortionist in 2007: Finnish TV

Dane-geld

Once you paid the Dane-geld, you'll never be rid of Dane.

The proper response is to crush the Dane.