Posts by nintendoeats

Go ahead, be rude. You don't know it now, but it will cost you $350,000

Re: Now ask me why ...

I also lived in the middle east, where my best friend was welsh. Trying to talk to him via cell phone was pointless.

I'm happy paying Twitter eight bucks a month because price isn't the same as value

Re: He changed his mind again on Official within hours

I don't think "failure to get shit done" is one of the arguments that can be levelled against fascism.

Re: He changed his mind again on Official within hours

Yes, let's all remember that the Americans won the space race by spending vast amounts of government money on a centrally-managed project. Thus, the superiority of capitalism over communism was demonstrated.

(Yes, of course huge amounts of the work were done by private industry. I doubt the Americans would have won the space race if they had left it entirely to the free market, even with a very large government incentive on the table for the winners. It's almost like maintaining a healthy balance of private industry and high-level economic management is the most reliable way to achieve economic goals)

NFT vending machine appears in London

Re: Actually an ancient principle

The premise of all MLMs.

I had a friend who got into Arbonne. She invited us over and gave us the whole spiel (all a bunch of male nerds, so I don't know why she thought it would get anywhere). None of us said anything. It is one of my life-long regrets that I didn't overcome my politeness and point out what a scam it was (especially right in front of her handler, that would have been great). That said, her boyfriend really should have stepped up to the plate on that one.

While I acknowledge that this is not super strong (the art market is also in many ways a similar scam), there is one difference which I think is important. Sometimes, somebody buys an expensive painting not JUST as an investment vehicle, but also because they want to show it off to their rich friends (or even rarer, because they actually like it or appreciate its historical significance). That works a lot better when you get a physical thing over which you can claim exclusivity.

So while 99% of the time these things are bought as expensive gambling, there is some actual market value outside of the painting's use as an investment vehicle. That means the art market has at least some semblance of an economic foundation, which the NFT market does not.

Re: Actually an ancient principle

Weirdly, a lot of people seem to be getting scammed with this logic by corpos and thanking them for it.

Multi-factor auth fatigue is real – and it's why you may be in the headlines next

Re: Meanwhile in another part of the forest

Funny, we watched an episode of Mayday (Air Crash Investigation) last night where precisely such a thing happened, at the CORPORATE level. A French carrier wanted their pilots to fly as fast as possible; IIRC they had a standard of 350 KM/H when below 5000 feet, as opposed to 250 KM/H for standard flights (something like that anyway). They found that the terrain warning alarms went off too often in this configuration, so they began ordering aircraft without terrain warning systems.

Surprise, they had a plane crash into a mountain.

I just want to say...I don't like being even more dependent on my phone than I already am...which is a big problem with MFA for me. It literally makes your phone a key part of your ability to identify yourself. Cyberpunk future, here we are.

Elon Musk shows what being Chief Twit is all about across weird weekend

Re: Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints

Did I say "egocentric wazzok"? :p

Re: Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints

A result that a sensible and fair-minded person would accept.

Re: chief moron

If by "muddy the waters" you mean "try to understand a complex issue through a variety of lenses".

I believe that the primary result of deplatforming people is to turn them into martyrs. "'They' didn't want me to say this, as evidenced by the fact that they literally shut me down". I am fully aware that letting people say whatever bullshit they want will have real-world consequences, but unfortunately the world is not a shiny happy place and I believe that the benefits of a general policy of free speech outweigh the negatives.

Our big problem right now is a lack of compromise, understanding, and mutual respect in public discourse. Telling people to shut up does nothing to promote any of those values. It only makes the people being deplatformed more angry, which helps nobody.

I'd also observe that the people who are being deplatformed are literally on the verge of starting a civil war (and pulling people off Twitter has done nothing to quell this). When that happens, ignoring them is not going to be an option. So you can either try to find common ground as a starting point for discourse now, or deal with THAT consequence later.

Re: chief moron

II don't think Elon particularly represents the left or the right. It only looks like he is right-wing because it is the MAGAs who have been most agressively de-platformed, and he has been fairly consistent about being opposed to de-platforming.

For a whole bunch of reasons, I also think that it is a mistake to silence people who believe things that I would deem "insane". That doesn't mean I in any way support those ideas, it just means I don't think I anybody should have the authority to unilaterally deem them unfit for human consumption.

Re: Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints

I'm concerned about the same thing. Never mind this specific instance, such a council must have mutual respect and the ability to step outside themselves. You can't just throw Alex Jones and Dejywan Floyd in a room and expect anything useful to happen.

That said, such people do exist and I believe such a council can be created. In fact, I'd say that setting these things up usually isn't that hard...it's keeping them going that is difficult, as the members and their priorities change.

^subtle microcausm alert ^

Re: Free Speech

Anonymity is one way of enabling free speech. This is why China is hell-bent on destroying it for their citizens.

A healthy society permits and acknowledges anonymous speech, but provides greater weight to named speech (since it comes with personal risk).

Porsche wants to sell you a rusty tailpipe soundbar for $12k

Re: As the saying goes....

Envy the resource, not what they do with it.

Re: As the saying goes....

You can envy somebody and still think they are a loser.

Re: VW version

We shall never forget.

Minecraft's 'first luxury goods collection' features real-world $3,000 Burberry coat

That catalogue is hilarious. Seeing some super-serious super-model walking around in a scarf that you normally see on tweens. Highly amusing.

The upcharge is also amazing. Literally a t-shirt...600 bucks...I can get a minecraft t-shirt from a thirft store thanks very much.

Open source's totally non-secret weapon big tech dares not use: Staying relevant

Re: Mozilla not even mentioned?

"Nobody ever changed the world by saying that everything is fine."

"I didn't want to change the world! It was fine!"

Re: The burden of untold riches

The micros~1 from the micros~2...

Boy is it ever.

No, I will not pay the bill. Why? Because we pay you to fix things, not break them

This has to be one of the best programming jokes ever. "It can't be that...holy crap it is!"

You're Shipt outta luck: App sued for treating delivery workers as contractors

Because the economy is completely arse-fucked and some money is better than no money.

US orders safety recall of Tesla Cyberquad-for-kids ATV

Re: Rollover protection?

...Which is all totally reasonable, and why wouldn't they just add the roll bars? Was it a lack of good mounting points, or that they unbalanced the vehicles?

Twitter's most valuable users are ghosting the platform

Oh, is that why 90% of the emails I get on one of my secondary accounts are from Twitter now? It's quite annoying.

Firefox points the way to eradicating one of the rudest words online: PDF

Re: That's a false choice.

I don't think that's fair. I'm not opposed to epub or whatever, but the article in question specifically talks about reflowable formats like HTML as being superior. We are arguing against that premise.

Re: Use tools for what they are good for

This is what I was going to say. I was recently submitting resumes. I obviously don't care if they can be read on a phone, but I definitely do care that everybody will see the formatting that I did when creating it. Thus, PDF.

Senior engineer reported to management for failing to fix a stapler

Re: Shredder

Ah, is it made by the same company as the left-handed skyhook?

Re: Is it just me

They seem to be scraping le bottom of le barrel.

Re: Really?!

I once wrote a procedure that required my coworkers to add something to PATH. Unfortunately I linked to instructions that were not as clear as they could have been, and somebody instead deleted PATH. Fortunately our machines were configured very similarly, so I had him use mine.

In my defense, my coworker had been documenting Windows software for 30 years, so I didn't really think this would be needed at all.

Re: Shredder

Network...shredder? The only use I can think of is being able to check whether it's in use.

The new GPU world order is beginning to take shape

Re: Is the author positing an inverse relationship between performance and price ?

Moore's law would like a word with you.

We dry cleaned 2 coats and a pair of pants the other day. It cost half my daily pay (after taxes). I wasn't pleased.

Elon Musk tells Twitter: My takeover deal is back on

All of the other nonsense aside...

...those texts seem to reveal that Elon and I are on the same page about what free speech means. TBH, I didn't see any texts in the linked article that I would be embarassed about.

I reserve the right to think that Elon Musk is a whacko for many other reasons.

Google kills off Stadia

Re: Solution to a problem nobody had?

If you are the sort of person who will spend over a grand on a GPU, does it seem likely that you will tolerate network latency and video compression? I'm also not sure about the environmental benefits, since now you have to run servers which we all know are so good for the environment. Even if you leave your PC on 24/7 (which people are not obliged to do), how many watts does an idle GPU draw above a machine with integrated graphics?

Fixing an upside-down USB plug: A case of supporting the insupportable

Also, trying to minimally expose the connectors. I think that's important in a card that you carry around.

Is it time to retire C and C++ for Rust in new programs?

Re: Thread Safety ?

It doesn't, and I'm glad it doesn't because I have the freedom to either use a mutex, or write lock-free data structures.

Re: C++ and memory safety

And do you think that you switching to Rust will fix the bug in a library you wish to consume? Because I daresay whoever wrote that library would rather just fix the bug than completely re-write it in Rust.

I also have recently had to deal with a read-access violation in a GPU driver for a 10-year-old GPU. If you use a library that has a bug, there is nothing you can do except work around it. That will never change.

Re: C++ and memory safety

Exactly. I cannot remember the last time my C++ code had a GPF or more subtle memory access bug. We've had RAII for a long time now, it works very well and is easy to learn. You can turn pretty much any concept that should have a limited lifespan into an object by writing a simple RAII wrapper, and it will happen automatically when the stack unwinds...even if there is an exception.

I am growing weary of The Register pushing political opinions on Rust vs C and C++.

Removing an obsolete AMD fix makes Linux kernel 6 quicker

Re: shoot yourself now, before you reproduce

"Ted Bundy was a psychopath."

"Do you know who ELSE is a psychopath? All <members of a group>."

Not exactly a sequitur.

Re: That's weird...

I was wondering the same thing...je ne comprends pas.

PC component scavenging queue jumper pulled into line with a screensaver

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/baggy-pantsing.html

Girls Who Code books 'banned' in some US classrooms

"You cannot be what you cannot see"

I think the mission of teaching women and visible minorities to take on engineering roles is admirable, and it sounds like this group is being effective towards that end. HOWEVER, I wanted to call out the quote in my title as being dangerous.

So long as people are raised with a general sense of empowerment, they certainly can "be what they cannot see". If there is a group of people that does not feel they are able to determine their own aspirations, then it's important to target that lack of confidence directly; don't tell them it's normal, and that they should still be limited by the roles that society has shown them to be acceptable.

Ex-Broadcom engineer asks for house arrest over IP theft

Re: What he said isn't relevant, what he did is.

I agree that white color crime needs to be treated more seriously, but (assuming his statements are truthful) I don't think this is the place to do it. Circumstances are generally taken into account when determining sentencing, including to people who commit robbery. Mercy IS (and should be) a part of the criminal justice system. If somebody does something stupid, for a stupid reason, and ultimately no harm comes of it...how does society benefit from imposing a punitive punishment. Some punishment of course, but what would be the value of ruining this person's life any more than it already has been?

Showing mercy makes it all the more meaningful when you really bring the hammer down.

(of course he could also be full of shit, I don't know)

Cloudflare stops services to 'revolting' hate site

Re: far right?

"THE GREATER GOOD."

Can be used as a cop-out for a lot of things. Not everybody agrees on what the greater good is, nor on how to achieve it.

Big cloud rivals hit back over Microsoft licensing changes

I mean...this article is quite clearly questioning, and infact contradicting it...

Googler says she was forced out after opposing $1.2bn cloud contract with Israel

Re: Employee

I also have a choice of ISPs. I'll go with the one that doesn't suck. Oh wait.

EA shares volatile on the back of unconfirmed rumor of Amazon bid

Would be the Origin of their undoing, or just the Ultima-te indignity?

Mouse hiding in cable tray cheesed off its bemused user

Re: "Out of Cheese" Error

Also, must have the emotional maturity of a 4 year old.

UK launches 'consultation' with EU over exclusion from science programs

Re: Reap what you sow

That claim is in direct contradiction to the fact that the UK is seeking a funding program in association with the EU. If they got less than they put in as part of the EU, then this whole thing would be moot.

Keep your cables tidy. You never know when someone might need some wine

Re: This is why

I'm quite sure the employer is happy for their employees to (incorrectly) "feel ownership" over their work. You are much more likely to stay late you fix "your server room" than "Jeff's server room".