Posts by Pascal Monett 16714 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Apr 2007
So, if I understand correcty, they missed Step 1 in the exploration handbook : call the store and get someone to check on the server.
Had they done that, they would have noticed that they couldn't reach the store. That might have set them on a path that did not include trying to harass the junior coder for nothing.
As has amply been demonstrated by the Trump presidency, what counts is not the law, it's the people who are in position of power.
What we need is something that can evaluate a candidate's ability to hold a political position. Once elected, said candidate would go through the evaluation process. If successful, the candidate could take the job. If not, find someone else to vote for. Voting is better than nothing, but it is obviously not good enough.
Of course, the evaluation process would have to be mandatory and unavoidable - which means I'm talking science fiction.
Can't we just get electrical vehicles first ? Do we absolutely have to have to have them autonomous before we get them ?
Let's go step by step, shall we ? Give us reliable, comfortable electric vehicles that do not pollute and have batteries that are long-lasting and durable. I think that's a pretty good bar to start with already.
Once we have that nailed down, it will be time enough to get to the autonomous part.
"Facebook has of late increasingly shown a willingness to participate in political processes, taking a more aggressive stance on fake news during US elections, deleting President Trump's accounts . . . "
Hang on a minute, you're making it sound like Facebook took risks and made real efforts.
That is not true. El Zuck did nothing about fake news until the November election was almost about to take place. He banned Trump, yes, but only after Trump unleashed mayhem on the Capitol - far too late. And it took quite a while and a public outcry before anything was done about the Rohingya Muslim hate messages.
Don't try to sugarcoat Facebook's actions - they are almost always too late to matter.
The only reason Bitcoin has any value whatsoever is because of blithering idiots like MicroStrategy fueling the fire.
A national currency is guaranteed by the state, banks have a strict charter they are legally obliged to adhere to, and no bank can "lose" trace of your money. The amount of checks and balances surrounding a bank account would take your breath away. If your bank account has issues, all you need to do is provide your latest statement and the bank will set things right.
Bitcoin Exchanges, on the other hand, are run either by incompetent idiots who lose everything through lack of security measures and getting hacked, or by outright criminals who planned on stealing everything from the get-go.
And you have no legal recourse.
The only light at the end of the tunnel is nationally-backed cryptocurrencies, which will hopefully be implemented with full securities and guarantees for the consumer. When that happens, funny money will become normal money, and suddenly everyone will start wondering why the heck we bothered.
And whose fault is that, hmm ?
If you hadn't made an OS where the default access is Admin, you might have been able to ensure that programs only write in their designated folders, instead of spunking all over the place like they have been since Windows 2.
Une enceinte can relate to three things : a HiFi speaker, a place clearly delimited, or a pregnant being.
It's all about context. I admit it can get a bit confusing. See if you can guess these sentences below :
Cette enceinte ne fonctionne plus
Il est interdit de fumer dans l'enceinte de l'école
A cette caisse les femmes enceintes sont prioritaires
Still needs some work, IMO.
My Windows is installed with location = France, language = English, keyboard = French.
Guess what the default install laguage is when I install new software ? French, obviously.
The fact that I specified English as my interface language apparently has no bearing on the fact that two out of three of those parameters say French, so the intern who did the code obviously decided to average out the answers to chose what language to use.
Yeah but language = English. You don't need to be an engineer to know which language to use !
Your intellectual property that is blatantly displayed in public video available on YouTube ?
Is this a joke ?
You're not protecting your IP, you're trying desperately to protect your reputation, just like Diebold.
And, just like Diebold, you're going to find out that using lawsuits to silence criticism does not work.
Okay, they might well have accessed more recent designs but, on the other hand, I doubt they have the technical ability to choose designs that are old before revealing more recent ones.
Of course, the creation date of the files might render that argument moot.
If they only got their hands on decade-old tech, maybe it doesn't matter so much ? It has surely been replaced by more recent tech. Sure, it's still a bad thing for the companies involved and their customers, but it might make it easier to decide not to pay them - which, ideally, should never happen.
Obviously, even 10-year-old tech designs could be very interesting for some third parties, so yeah, it's still a bad thing. This is military hardware though, those thieves might want to start looking over their shoulders in the future. The CIA can reach pretty far when it wants to.
So that's 7.5 to 15 million liters of pure, drinkable water that is made toxic and, apparently, gets purified before being returned to "the water supply".
I damn well hope so.
Now, if the water is being taken from the dam, used, then purified again and returned to the dam, where is the issue ?
Actually, shouldn't this whole thing be a closed loop, only topping up to compensate for evaporation ?
The plant should have a 20 million liter reservoir, with water being constantly used, purified, stored and used again.
Not doing that is a clear sign that used water cannot be purified to the level they need to use it again, meaning it's likely not water that goes back to the dam, nor is it water you'd want to drink.
The problem, apparently, are the offending skills you don't identify.
It's all well and good to have a security API defending personal information, but if anyone can ask for a credit card number without using that API then it's not much use, is it ?
Once again, a problem was recognized but the proper solution was not implemented. Solution which would have been requiring developers to submit their "Skill" (ugh, I hate that notion) as raw code, to be reviewed by Amazon drones, compiled and tested. The code review would catch things like that.
Of course, Amazon would have to hire competent coders who would spend their time reviewing code, which would be more expensive and time-consuming, but mostly more expensive. But nothing should be able to pass through that kind of filter.
Why ?
What Byzantine hardware and software rules has Borkzilla implemented to make it difficult to swap a disk for a bigger one ?
Since when has putting in a bigger disk ever been a problem in computing when using approved models ?
Is Borkzilla trying to insinuate that Surface Pros are factory-limited to what was installed at build time ?
So many questions, so many possible stupid answers, but no good ones.
No need, Mozilla has a great idea. The cookie jar seems perfect to me. A jar per website, and nobody's hands in any jar they don't belong. Sounds good.
Of course, that will not be to Google's liking, but I don't give a rat's ass about that.
"IBM is also pleased that the judgment reduced CISGIL's inflated damages claim to a fraction of what was claimed recognising the contractual allocation of risks "
I'm thrilled that IBM is pleased about the reduction of the payment and totally disregards the damage that this case has done to its reputation.
Although, given the current state of its reputation, I guess the damage isn't all that bad after all.
I very much doubt that.
The only thing that has been "transformed" is the internal memorandum on how services should behave - and even then, the only change made was to replace the word "server" by the word "cloud". I don't think anyone in the high spheres of administration have an effing clue about The Cloud (TM), nor do they actually know what their services are doing on a daily basis.
But hey, UK Gov has tens of millions of pounds to spend, so . . .
The 2030's is going to see company network security beefed up by a large margin.
There have been so many high-profile hacks since a few years, I cannot imagine that the security industry isn't feeling a major kick in the rear and is going to react in a big way.
At least, I hope so, or God save our data because we won't be able to.
While I do think the phone industry has gone a bit mad about the amount of pixels, I welcome a reasoned argument about how less is sometimes better (stop sniggering at the back).
As for me, I'll stick with my Canon EOS 400D for my important pictures, like family events. Phones exist only to grab a pic when you've not got anything better.
The music industry doesn't give a damn about discerning listeners. The music industry is all about whatever the young people care about, because they are the ones glued to their phones and most susceptible to spend money on streaming services.
The discerning listener can go buy vinyl.
I wonder what the decision would have been if FaceBook belonged to Microsoft ?
Microsoft survives today for two reasons : 1) it's bottomless pit of money, and 2) Windows and Office, which are the defacto standards of computing.
Everything else Borkzilla has tried has basically failed to bring in money. Windows Phone is only the latest disaster, there have been others. Borkzilla is in the back seat on the Internet, it is no longer calling the shots.
I wonder if it is going to start a news outlet. Being paid by Google & FB would certainly be the ultimate irony.
You might want to check out this video and revise your understanding of how the brain works.
If you don't want to watch all of it, the relevant part starts at point 12:45.
Enjoy !
And kudos to the UK Supreme Court judges for not having been blinded by lawyers wearing expensive suits. It is good to see that Reason and Justice can still prevail against corporate greed.
"We respect the court's decision" - well of course you do now, you have no other option but. And of course, now you wish to engage with drivers and listen to them, but you won't hand out mass employement contracts unless they go before an employment tribunal - which many will probably decide is not worth the hassle.
So, in the end, Uber hasn't really lost much and, cherry on the cake, those "employees" can easily be fired in the near future as soon as they make a mistake.
So I heartily applaud the decision, but until it is enshrined in law and valid for all UK Uber drivers be default, it's not really a win in my view.
Could someone please point me to a Government IT project that has not gone poorly in the UK ?
Just one ?
Because I can't remember ever hearing about one.
Emergency services communications ? The old one was going to be cut off and the new one wasn't in place.
NHS ? Please.
No, somebody please tell me that something has gone well in UK Goverment IT services.
Oh, the lifts are working ? Well that's something, I guess.
The solution is simple : only allow the purchase of one card per credit card number.
Gamers generally only buy one card, it's the miners who buy them in stacks of four.
Of course, the miners could manage getting four credit cards, but if you had announced the move on the day the sale started, that would have them flummoxed and the gamers would win.
It's impossible to get three more credit cards in a day, and once the gamers had gotten their legitimate share, the miners would have wasted a lot of time.
Obviously not, but unfortunately ethical and legal are two different things.
CEOs are not there to be ethical - they exist to "maximise shareholder value". As long as that situation is not changed, there is no amount of laws that will force a CEO to things ethically.
The only thing that can have an impact is public image. That is why is critically important to continue flaying online any company that underpays its workers, does not keep bonus promises, does not provide a safe workplace, or sources components from child labor or slave labor conditions.
We, the citizens, are the last force to make CEOs comply to what we think is ethical.
If we don't do it with our voices, the law cannot do anything about it.
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