Posts by parlei

Ransomware-hit law firm secures High Court judgment against unknown criminals

Re: Sigh...

Propagander: propane fueled gander

If it were possible to evade facial-recognition systems using just subtle makeup, it might look something like this

Re: Makeup detection

And even if the face is covered (full face mask with suitable holographic image?) there is walking pattern, physical stats (length, wide/narrow shoulders, etc) that can be used.

Arms race. All the way

Technology has the potential to close the education divide. Key word: Potential

I have seen data (from Sweden) that supports your first *and* second contention. The strongest predictor for success in school/academia is parents education (IIRC more the mother than father: probably reflecting unequal time spent with the children). But well trained teachers (from day-care/kindergarten and onwards) is just about the only thing that can even begin compensating for that. Reflecting this latter insight Sweden has implemented a school system where for-profit school corporations can hire teachers with no or little training, "select" the easiest students[1] and then give them artificially high grades to ensure university entry. No, of course I'm not bitter, what on earth gave you that idea?

The Internet has the potential to deliver well written and researched texts and videos on a variety of subjects and to point the reader to be most high quality ones. Instead we mostly got FB and YT.

[1] The messaging says that here we are able to do the work with no assistance, and wording that codes away the poor. Also waiting lists, since mainly certain groups of parents will put their child on such lists early.

The unit of measure for fatbergs is not hippopotami, even if the operator of an Australian sewer says so

Re: Am I the only one

The unit of mass must be a "pope".

I'm feeling lucky: Google, Facebook say workers must be vaccinated before they return to offices

Re: Acid test

We are already seeing that in parts of the world that never really shut down, in industries that could not do WFH. A small number of break-through infections (expected), and a much milder disease (likely, and hoped for)

Re: Knowingly

Just so I understand you, AC: you equate requiring vaccination with killing?

Despite there being a ton of data saying that the vaccines are reasonably safe[1]? And as the number of vaccinated increases fatalities and ICU admission drop, giving evidence to the advantages of vaccination?

I'm impressed, but not in a good way.

[1] Nothing is 100% safe, including taking a shower or having sex with the only person that loves you. Even the AstraZeneca vaccine is safer than riding a bicycle to work...

Scam-baiting YouTube channel Tech Support Scams taken offline by tech support scam

Re: My first thought was “Google actually provide support?”

You misspelled "product".

BOFH: You say goodbye and I say halon

Re: Royal Institution lecture

IIRC they sometimes use a lower O2 concentration on submaries, for that reason. And if http://bowlofstew.com/everest-oxygen-concentration and my memory is correct halving the O2 content would "just" but you a bit over the Mt Everst Base camp (around 6000 m). Perfectly survivable for most people, at least short term.

Re: missed a trick

My first thought was "CO2, that would be exiting with certain kinds of fires". Classic chemistry teacher demo: show that a match is extinguished in a flask filled with CO2, then insert a piece of burning magnesium. There is more oxygen in CO2 than in the paltry 20-ish% atmosphere.

Science bonus is then showing the black spots on the inside of the flask, and asking (a) what are they, and (b) where did it come from.

Jackie 'You have no authority here' Weaver: We need more 50-somethings in UK tech

Re: It is not skills..

It would be trivial(ish) to determine the normal distribution of such subpopulations in employee pools larger than n, and then write the specs to match (e.g. within 95% interval, perhaps a sliding scale of tax bonus/malus). Update every <mumble> year.

Problem is that you would then make it mandatory for employers to track their staffs sexual preferences[1] (if that was included). Age and ethnicity sounds more reasonable.

[1] Imagine seeing the job ad: "we are looking for a female LGBT+ in the age-bracket 45-60...". And some tax inspector asking for proof of sexual preferences.

Funny how Sir Tim Berners-Lee, famous for hyperlinks, is into NFTs, glorified hyperlinks

Re: Nothing Fecking There

But giving someone a small piece of the moon *can* be used as a romantic-funny gift if presented in the proper way. At most worth the paper it is printed on, sure, but still.

Then, if someone in the future builds a gigant shopping mall just on *my* acre of the moon my decendants will have it made.

Deluded medics fail to show Ohio lawmakers that COVID vaccines magnetise patients

Re: Struck off?

"Doctor" is problematic as a title/honorific.

Is someone with a Ph.D. in quantum physics or English literature a doctor? Is someone who has finished medical school and obtained the required license (but done no independent research on par with that of the Ph.D.) a doctor in that sense, even if the official title is "Medical Doctor"? And then there is the subpopulation of M.D.s that has obtained a Ph.D. in medicine as well...

Some jurisdictions does not officially use the title "doctor" for all physicians, reserving it for the scientific research degree. Personally I think this is sound, and allows for stringent rules on who can claim to be a physician (or whatever equivalent term is used). Judging the relative merits of a Ph.D. from Oxford, MIT or Shithole University of Outer Bumfuck is then a separate task, one which the relevant employers are fairly well versed in.

There was a crooked man who bought a crooked M1 iMac, and we presume they lived together in a little crooked house

Re: Units error

I propose Indiana radians: 2*3 Indiana radians makes a circle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill

There are a lot of people out there who'd like to fire Jeff Bezos into space – but he's doing the honours himself

Re: Over to you, Jeff

Two reasons why not

1. That would require that that he saw other people as both important and real.

2. How would he personally and directly benefit from others having a better life?

And don't come with silly things like everyone benefits from a better world: he can afford to make his litlte bubble better for *him*, for his lifetime. I strongly suspect that nothing else matters to him.

The policy of truth: As ransomware claims rise, what's a cyber insurer to do?

Re: What about theft?

Actually I think that happens. For things like unique and precious works of art.

Man found dead inside model dinosaur after climbing in to retrieve phone

Re: First kill

Not even close to first, since birds are dinosaurs.

God bless this mess: Study says UK's Christian beliefs had 'important' role in Brexit

Re: I find myself saying...

Very common, UK sellers not willing to sell to Sweden. Was before, will presumably still be the case due to postBrexit pains

India on track for crewed space mission, says first test flight to launch in late 2021

Re: Priorities

Considering the huge poverty- and lack of health care access problems in the USA, should they really be spending so much on a space project?

Attack of the cryptidiots: One wants Bitcoin-flush hard drive he threw out in 2013 back, the other lost USB stick password

Re: Hurrah for screen readers!

IIRC Nancy did steganography in "Winter Holiday". A "decorative" border on a picture that was semaphore signalling...

Re: Don't ever write down your password on a piece of paper

I actually did that for a card with a PIN that I *very* seldom used. Ok, it was the pin old school encrypted by adding a number (not "1234" or "13"... :-) to it. Sure, not hard crypto, but you only get a few attempts before the ATM keeps the card....

My website has raised its anchor and set sail into the internet oceans without me

Our ISP the domain squatter

Decade plus years ago a club I'm a member of had to scramble to change domain. A sysadmin at their ISP had noticed that they had failed to renew their domain, nabbed it and offered to sell it back to them for something like 10x the renewal fee.

You can be my wingbot any time – US military successfully runs AI system on spy plane

Re: AI used to mean

I thought that in the Artificial Insemination case no one actually gets shafted?

45 million medical scans from hospitals all over the world left exposed online for anyone to view – some servers were laced with malware

Re: quelle surprise?

A surprising amount of time is wasted on barely-fit-for-purpose digital medical record systems. If the expensive MD can repurpose the time otherwise spent doing battle with such systems by having "scribes" employed then that should be a win for everyone.

Trump fires cybersecurity boss Chris Krebs for doing his job: Securing the election and telling the truth about it

Re: Another one bites the dust

My guess is that he knew very well: he just chose not to play. If that was because it was the loosing side or due to an excess of moral fibre we will probably never know.

Unexpected victory in bagging area: Apple must pay shop workers for time they spend waiting to get frisked

Re: Good

This graphic may be correct (I have not checked the sources), but...

http://www.tcworkerscenter.org/2018/09/wage-theft-vs-other-forms-of-theft-in-the-u-s/

Dido 'Queen of Carnage' Harding to lead UK's Institute for Health Protection because Test and Trace went so well

There may be more trees, but a huge shortage in forests. And at least around here a seedling counts the same as a mature tree...

Anti-5G-vaxx pressure group sues Zuckerberg, Facebook, fact checkers for daring to suggest it might be wrong

Re: Tossing their toys about

No. I want a long drawn out case where the anti-vaxxers have to pay the -- no doubt huge -- FB legal costs in the end.

Reply-All storm sparked by student smut sees school system shut down Google Classroom for up to a week

Re: Clearly run by dummies

When the school system I worked in went GAFE there was reportedly some admins, but their contact info was secret. No training or useful instructions.

Re: Not possible?

A school that really cared could presumably add sheet metal cladding and widows with embedded metal mesh.

We've reached the endgame: Bezos 'in talks' to turn shuttered department stores into Amazon warehouses

Re: wait until 2026 to open their first retail store...

The pleasing symmetry was obviously not as important as profits. Can't actually blame them, but I *like* finding such patterns.

Re: Catalog pick-up locations

For extra deja vu points remember that Sears, Roebuck & Co started out as a mail order company (in 1893), adding stores after about 30 years (1925). Amazon was founded in 1994, I wonder if they will wait until 2026 to open their first retail store...

NASA to stop using names like 'Eskimo Nebula' and 're-examine' what it calls cosmic objects

Agreed. Would we persist is referring to a co-worker by a derogatory nickname that that person had asked us to stop using? For most I hope the answer would be "no". Would stopping solve the problem of workplace harassment? No, of course not. But every bit helps. If I, for pretty much no cost or effort, could be less of an asshole to someone, why should I chose *not* to?

And I doubt anyone is expected to reprint textbooks (as suggested below), but the next edition is easily fixed, and so is the website.

Geneticists throw hands in the air, change gene naming rules to finally stop Microsoft Excel eating their data

Re: Macro/VB Script?

No way that is going to happen, people will see no reason to use an extra step.

There is a saying among molecular biologists that most mutations happen at the keyboard...

Further dating "abilities"

It will also tend to interpret e.g. 10-12 as a date regardless of any preferences on your side. In my case I was making a list of rack positions for test tubes (rack 10, position 12), and saw it happen as I typed and told Excel to keep its lousy excuse for smarts to itself.