* Posts by headrush

30 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Nov 2019

British data watchdog brings cookies to G7 meeting – pop-up consent requests, not the delicious baked treats

headrush

How about setting the cookie folder to read only?

Facebook's Libra Association tries again at this digi-cash game, with more modest ambitions after global flop

headrush

Zucks bucks fucked

The problem is, libra is the antithesis of what drives crypto currency in the first place. The whole idea is to have uncensorable transactions, avoiding any central points of control and specifically removing power from the financial incumbents like banks, credit card companies etc.

Why would anyone use libra, which essentially is just another gateway into the existing corrupt and broken system?

The whole point is digital cash, not a more easily tracked card less fiat circus.

Grab your Bitcoin while you can because Purse.io is shutting up shop in June and you could lose the lot

headrush

Seems like the same old ignorance here. Purse existed to allow you to buy things directly with crypto. I bought some stuff from amazon using it and got around 15% discount for doing so. There were limits on amounts and also kyc so money laundering wasn't an option. I never came near an amazon gift card. No one with any sense would be keeping crypto or cash on the Purse wallet anyway. As the saying goes, "not your keys, not your coins"

Besides which, in these times of trillion dollar bailouts for the rich and connected, I would still prefer a deflationary currency. Money printer goes brrrr!

And they said IoT was trash: Sheffield 'smart' bins to start screaming when they haven't been emptied for a fortnight

headrush

I believe they are referring to litter bins not household dustbins.

However, there is very little distinction between the two these days as many people fill their nearest litter bin with carrier bags full of household waste on a daily basis. Also virtually every minimarket uses the nearest litter bin to get rid of any out of date stock on a daily basis. Some days the bins are so full the bag rips trying to get it out.

Then there are the twats who think it's a good idea to put broken, open, umbrellas in a litter bin, ripping the bag and making sure no one else can get anything in an otherwise empty bin.

You also have the tossers who, upon finding the dog waste bin is full, either keep using the bin until its a pyramid of shit, or just drop the bags on the floor, this despite the fact there is a perfectly usable bin not 30 feet away.

Maybe people should stop treating the World as their own private dump. Litter bins are for litter. Bits of paper, sweet wrappers, empty bottles crisp packets etc. They are not designed to cater for other waste and neither is the councils emptying policy.

London's Westminster Council wins appeal against phonebooth-cum-massive-digital-advert

headrush

Maybe because one is used as a standard display (longer horizontal) and the other is a display installation , presumably portrait orientation. The diagonal measurement is irrelevant on the latter as it's presumably designed to fit the kiosk dimensions.

Who's that padding down the chimney? It's Puma, with its weird £80 socks for gamers

headrush

Well considering the Puma link leads to the motorsport section I would guess they're designed for driving sims that are used with driving chairs. As already noted by others, this looks quite serious, so having specialist shoes is to be expected.

https://eu.puma.com/uk/en/men/shoes/motorsport

https://www.playseatstore.com/all-gaming-chairs.html

It's 2019 so, of course, this Wells Fargo employee accused of stealing customer cash posed with wads of dosh on Instagram, Facebook

headrush

"In addition to the criminal charges, prosecutors have filed to reclaim the Mercedes-Benz and $88,688 in forfeiture of funds"

Why would the prosecutors reclaim the car? Surely if it was financed it will get repossessed due to him not making the payments while unemployed / in prison. The down payment is less than enough to claim ownership.

Put the crypt into cryptocoin: Amid grave concerns, lawyers to literally dig into exchange exec who died owing $190m

headrush

Re: Having identified where the money went ...?

Most of the money is in the form of crypto currency. That is why it is irretrievable without the passwords or private keys. It is trivial to check the corresponding public keys against the ledger to determine whether the funds have moved.

headrush

For some insight, possibly apocryphal, read this report on Quadriga at Vanity Fair.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/the-strange-tale-of-quadriga-gerald-cotten

Google security engineer says she was fired for daring to remind Googlers they do indeed have labor rights

headrush

Re: We cannot let upper management dictate how we use our labor.

Right on brother, just do what da man says and he won't whip you no more! You should be grateful and STFU.

Someone get Greenpeace on the line. Boffins clock carbon 'pollution' cloud 30,000 light-years wide choking galaxies

headrush

Carbon is not a pollutant nor is it the cause of climate change. It is an element. The various compounds containing carbon can contribute to heat retention, CO2, CH4 etc.

If carbon itself were the problem, the price of diamonds might plummet.

Where's our data, Google? Chrome 79 update 'a catastrophe' for Android devs with WebView apps

headrush

Were you somehow expecting the vet to go through the whole herd again when they returned to complete the job? If they had done half the herd then they would have kept the unvaccinated half separate or marked the vaccinated ones somehow. You don't just roam the hills and hope to find the ones you need.

VMware warning, OpenBSD gimme-root hole again, telco hit with GDPR fine, Ring camera hijackings, and more

headrush

Re: Sweet 2FA

"It's possibly awkward to force 2FA since not every OAP with a doorbell also has a mobile phone"

What would be the point of owning a ring doorbell without any way to receive alerts or access footage?

US and China wave white flags, hit pause button on trade war

headrush

Nixon clearly engaged in bribery and extortion when he "persuaded" the Iranians not to release the American hostages until after his election. Obama clearly engaged in interference with other countries electoral processes when the us financially supported the fascisist Ukrainian opposition to take power against the more moderate elected assembly. History is littered with examples of us interference both financial and military.

It only appears to matter now because you don't like this president. Why should it matter to those who support him?

In the words of Joker, you get what you fucking deserve. (as do we all)

Aw, bad day at your air-conditioned, somewhat clean desk? Try shifting a 40-tonne fatberg

headrush

Re: The guys...

There is, unfortunately, no mindlessness about it. When using high pressure water jetting equipment that can be over 2000psi you have to be alert to every potential problem. You must be wearing face protection and maybe have an air supply all of which obscures vision. Then there is the omnipresent danger of lethal gases and the chance of falling in! Oh did I forget to mention the smell? Shit is pleasant compared to fat.

Seriously, its not fun.

Bad news: KeyWe Smart Lock is easily bypassed and can't be fixed

headrush

Just repeating the "no lock is secure" point.

We have relatively expensive plastic windows with multipoint locking systems. As we found out recently, it's all marketing crap. A crowbar applied between window and frame near the opening side simply breaks the latching mechanism.

Nothing designed to be opened easily is ever going to be secure.

It's a billion-ton, 14-million-mile long mysterious alien formation – and Earth is heading right into it

headrush

Re: Kids with dandruff?

Two points. Every interaction costs energy which ultimately must end up as heat. Warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which as you point out leads to more warming. The question then becomes which comes first. I can see a CO2 > heat > water vapour interaction, but water vapour > co2 > heat is more tenuous. And co2 is shooting through the roof. With less co2 absorption due to deforestation and the oceans nearing their absorption limit, the current panic over co2 emissions does ring true.

Even if it were a natural variation, it would be foolish to continue to increase those emissions.

We have already demonstrated a link between man made pollution and atmospheric effects with CFCs. When they were banned, the ozone hole started to repair itself. Now some companies are ignoring the rules, the situation is reverting. Why such a fuss over CO2, when there is a demonstrable scientific link? Wouldn't all be about profit would it? I'm slightly confused over the decision process that leads to us burning a highly complex molecule simply to access the heat energy when it can offer so much more. Seems very primitive...

Personally I am a minimal impact kind of guy. Leave nothing behind that wasn't there when you arrived. At least every generation gets the same chance then.

headrush

Re: Kids with dandruff?

But I thought cloud cover increased albedo, which would reduce insolation. Also it would be difficult to explain how the asteroids trail managed to create such an effect and also coincide with the rise in greenhouse gases relative to human industrial output.

Not saying there is no effect, but occams razor....

And then there were two: HMS Prince of Wales joins Royal Navy

headrush

Re: Two white elephants.

When you say labour, you're presumably referring to the Blair govt, in which case you may as well say tory.

Remember the Dutch kid who stuck his finger in a dam to save the village? Here's the IT equivalent

headrush

Once when I was acting as an ad-hoc goto computer guy at a company, a secretary complained about all the suspicious spam we got from Russia. She asked what would happen if she clicked on an attachment. I somewhat foolishly said, do it and find out.

The Internet immediately began acting strangely and our antivirus protection didn't clear it. After around 5 hours I eventually tracked the culprit down to a modified notepad.exe that kept reinfecting the system. Manually copied over a clean version and things went back to normal.

She never let on what I had suggested, bless her.

Apple: Mysterious iPhone 11 location pings were because of 'ultra-wideband compliance'

headrush

Does this mean that every known location where ultra-wideband is prohibited is stored on the device? Sounds improbable, meaning there must be comms between the device and a db server at least.

Oil be damned: Iran-based crooks flinging malware at Middle Eastern energy plants again – research

headrush

I think in truth the name "Iran" in this article is a placeholder for any and every state capable of doing such nefarious work. Anyone seriously doubt that the US, UK, China, Russia, Israel, etc etc are not doing this kind of thing all the time?

Silicon Valley Scrooges sidestep debt to society through tax avoidance to the tune of $100bn

headrush

I suggest a redefinition of SaaS to mean, Society as a Service (to corporations).

Newly born Firefox 71 emerges from its den – with its own VPN and some privacy tricks

headrush

Is it just me or has the term VPN been coopted to be equivalent to proxy server? I always understood a VPN to be the mechanism whereby you could connect securely over the public Internet to another server /device that you controlled. Using one to browse the net via a third parties server is not a good description of a a private network.

Lawn, NO!

Trump Administration fast-tracks compulsory border facial recognition scans for all US citizens

headrush

I don't know why they don't just rename it the Dept of Fatherland Security and be done with it.

They appear to believe everything they see on CSI.

Google goes full Anti-Flash-ist, boots Adobe's insecure monstrosity out of web search index

headrush

Re: This is about

I used it for animating titles for my video work. Security was irrelevant.

BBC tells Conservative Party to remove edited Facebook ad featuring its reporters

headrush

Re: Impartial? Question Time anyone?

Re: criminalisation of licence fee non-payment.

This is not relevant to the topic of the bbc but where I live there are signs along the beach that state that no dogs are allowed on the beach between may and September. The sign goes on to state that it is a criminal offence to ignore the sign.

The result is that there is the potential to spend time in prison for a pifflingly insignificant civil offence instantiated by a local council.

This appears to be an end run around the principles of civil and criminal responsibility which no-one would generally be aware of.

I doubt that brexit, remain or the EU are interested in this subtle creeping change in civil liberties.

Maybe when they start applying the same rule for parking offences, more people will start to notice.

Brian Eno's latest composition: A giant Christmas card with Julian Assange on it

headrush
Big Brother

Last I heard, the investigation against Assange was dropped some years back. Then a new, presumably more pliable, Swedish prosecutor reopened the case, against even the original complainants wishes. The UK govt refused to allow the Swedish police to interview Assange while he was in the embassy. There was never an international warrant for his arrest or even specific charges filed. One of the complaints against him was a peculiar item of Swedish law whereby a split condom = rape.

Make of it what you will. Its just the US being their usual arm twisting selves AFAIK.

Big brother because history should not be twisted to suit a political agenda.

PSA: You are now in the timeline where Facebook and pals are torn a new one by, er, Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen

headrush
Facepalm

It's not freedom of speech, again....

Bbbut..... capitalism?

Surely someone has the right to post any crap they want as long as they've paid?

The more they pay, the stronger their right to post it.

Posted by the "born in the good old USA" dept.

( not my opinion)

Remember the Uber self-driving car that killed a woman crossing the street? The AI had no clue about jaywalkers

headrush

Re: Surely

What's that big wide round thing rushing towards me? Very fast, very very fast.

It needs a big wide round sounding name, round..... round..... ground!!!

That's it, ground!

I wonder if it'll be friends with me?