Re: Transparent ALUMINUM?
Aye, The size of Whales.
Posts by ingie
33 publicly visible posts • joined 13 May 2008
A cracked window on the International Space Station? That's not good
Doctor Who's The Girl Who Died ships in nasty Vikings floating atop a time-bending tidal wave
Monday 19th October 2015 14:43 GMT
Re: SEGIRÐU:AFTUR
for clarification, for the less norse/icelandic inclined as i:
SAY-THOU:AGAIN
WE:WEAREST:HORNS:NOT
tho i was simplifying from full icelandic grammar to make it more "runey" [not that one]
[boring factoid addendum: i started learning icelandic years ago after a discussion with my then girlfriend about "text speak" - i said how i didn't mind "tho" - and when you look at the etymology, with good cause, old english used "þo" ... i began to learn old english - as i get obsessed by trains of thought like that, but then decided icelandic (who use "þó" for though) was a more useful direction since were i live we have a lot of viking links, like our parliament "thing" ]
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Anthropology boffins solve 9,000-year-old headless body cold case
Thursday 24th September 2015 14:42 GMT
Re: I'd sure like to know
... your point raises an interesting anthropological thought:
there tends to be a regular stream of programmes about the Incas and their ilk... Dr Jago Cooper's excellent series just being repeated on BBC being a current example.
in these series, there tends to be a reverence toward their culture, a degree of awe.
would some alien civilisation, watching us from afar, have an objective view which saw little difference between Decapitating Culture-A and Decapitating Culture-B... and find it rather odd that we create many tomes glorifying the culture of one (admittedly not directly the head choppy business) because it's old and gone, but decry the other...
obviously, i'm not being apologist or supporting either in terms of our modern advanced - "civilised" society... but aliens probably think we're a bit confused and stay away for that reason alone.
makes you think that maybe IS just have a fashion problem, if they dressed in funky colourful head gear, built pointy temples, worshipped mountains and jaguars and danced a bit more, maybe people would like them better...
[ note to anyone who doesn't read irony: i don't believe that ]
..
Reg Xmas lectures tackle transhumanism, driverless cars and life as a hostage
Wednesday 23rd September 2015 09:45 GMT
Re: Driverless cars v kids.
> switches car to manual control.
> accelerates.
> lightens the gene pool.
... probably that.
edit: just as a side note. everyone should watch last week's BBC Panorama on "can robots do my job" - it's [in my mind] Panorama For Schools - 'twas embarrassing to watch. especially the bit where they explain what "exponential growth" is.... and the truck driver who obviously, as an "Expert On The Couch" [or in the driver's seat on this occasion], has no clue about what the technology involves and is there solely as a "White Van Man" opinion. [ no offence to non Sun reading white van/truck drivers ]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06cn1wv/panorama-could-a-robot-do-my-job
Cyber crims up the ante with Google Play brainteaser malware
Tuesday 22nd September 2015 17:11 GMT
Re: The one they know...
reading thru the full report by Checkpoint [linked in the article, but here for ease of use]
http://blog.checkpoint.com/2015/09/21/braintest-a-new-level-of-sophistication-in-mobile-malware/
it seems that the bypass of Play Store was actually quite simple, and an obvious thing... well, not obvious, but something that someone with any imagination in malware would probably at least try.
it seems all it had to do was "not be a malware unless you're not on a google server" - and then download the actual crack once the app is in the wild.
i like [in a coder, hacking appreciative way] how they used a double-watchdog to check whether its friend had been uninstalled [ the listed brother.apk and mcpef.apk ]
Apple cleans up iOS App Store after first big malware attack
Dislike: Facebook scammers latch onto anti-Like button calls
Tuesday 22nd September 2015 14:27 GMT
Slider of Ambivalence
... replace the "like" button with a slider, on 2 axes.
left/right = "Love <-> Hate"
down/up = "Care <-> Care Not"
e.g. somewhere about 2 o'clock = "I hate this but don't give a shit about it"
which sorta sums up my feelings for faceboo really. i run my own closed diaspora pod, but that's more of an antisocial pub for myself and [actual] friends who live here and there across the planet, than a social network of facebook style.... i may have to do some ruby hackery to make my slider idea for that... hmm... well, it's something to do when i'm not ill.
one thing i've noticed since not being on facebook... i generally don't find out about parties and anything even from close friends until a month after it's happened, their excuse always being "well, i posted it on facebook" ... well, gee thanks. a few years ago you would have rung me up, or texted. facebook... bringing anti social behaviour to the masses since 2004
it's a debasement of society... or i'm just bitter that i don't get invited to those sort of parties.
Cesspool 4chan sold … to former owner of Japanese cesspool 2ch
The last post: Building your own mail server, part 2
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Doctor Who returns to our screens next week – so, WHO is the worst Time Lord of them all?
Saturday 12th September 2015 14:00 GMT 
Difficult poll wording...
When I look at questions for polls, I'm picky.
With this one, the problem lies in the distinction between the question "Who played the worst Doctor Who?" and "Who was responsible for the worst Doctor Who?"
The latter question is answered by name "Michael Grade".
The former question [which was how our vulturazzi led us in] is Sylvester McCoy in my own thoughts, but not due to his portrayal or his skills, I really liked what he was trying to do. Colin, with his portrayal, was able to throw the production's bitterness at the executive into the character, and for me that worked. Sylvester's base character didn't really have the personality traits to allow him to shine, except in a slapstick corny way. He was desperately polishing Michael Grade's steaming turd.
Oh, and Corbyn.
because multi pass. chick-en. big badda boom. supreme being.
French hacker besmuts road sign right under Les Plods' noses
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HAM IN SPAAAAAACE! ISS astronaut contacted by Gloucestershire bloke in garden shed
Thursday 6th August 2015 15:20 GMT
Re: All very well, but...
v true.
This was a report about my good friend from school and occastional work colleague Matty from 8 (EIGHT) years ago, he's always doing this sort of shizzle.
( We often converse over cunning electronic projects - me being the student, he being the master)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/isle_of_man/6553281.stm
... my favourite part of the report they put on TV back then was that Matty was playing a CD of the band he was in (all members being friends I've played music with myself) in the background while he chatted... The Tholtan Builders (you haven't heard of them, probably) thus being the first Manx Band in spaaaace, sortof :)
Fork off! FFmpeg project leader quits, says he's had enough with these forking AV libraries
Wednesday 5th August 2015 14:34 GMT
Re: That's Open Source For You... @oisseu
I'll take your 2 cents and raise you 2 pennies in return :)
re: Dual head monitors and WiFi...
Oddly, with Dual head monitors, my experience with Linux has been the opposite: I have had far fewer problems doing that sort of thing on Linux than on Win' - I certainly had multi monitor setups [3 of] on Mandrake [when it was still Mandrake], before it was easy on Win'
WiFi, I have to agree... but then it's far less of a problem than it was.
... Though, to hoist the argument by its own petard, I personally think the bigger issue with both WiFi and monitor drivers under Linux has been the nature of Closed Source drivers made available for Win, but not out-of-the-distro for *nix... so, from your argument [and I agree with it, especially from your own experiences] we might conclude that the reason for Linux not being ready for the mainstream, is less due to the Open Source dev community and forking etc, and more due the nature of a FLOSS Licence and how that restricts closed source driver distribution as being part of the general release. That's more of an attitude/idealism issue really.
I wish there was a RMS icon :)
Wednesday 5th August 2015 13:21 GMT
Re: ffmpeg vs. libav [ @ouseau ]
Indeed. Your point is quite well covered in last year's "Why Linux Sucks" presentation by Bryan Lunduke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pOxlazS3zs
... as a dev of all platforms, master of none, and [primarily] Linux user at home myself, i always like his 'Linux sucks presentations, as they always cut to the heart of such things that slow down its paths.
That being said, I think the case in point of ffmpeg/libav is more of an issue for distro managers than end-users. In my last job, [a Debian platform] I was asked by my manager [Who'd heard the rumours] to initiate a migration from ffmpeg -> avconv/libav for the back end transcoding... after a very short time of investigation I felt it was best to maintain the status quo... nothing was borked, nothing was going away, and in a matter of weeks Debian turned back to ffmpeg. "Phew, that was close", I thought, "I nearly had to update a few scripts"
Does that, perhaps coupled with other issues in Bryan Lunduke's presentation, mean that Linux is a less attractive desktop O/S than Windows... I think that's down to end-user familiarity and choosing an O/S which runs what your friend/colleague's does... and the end-user of any O/S, unless they're a techie, doesn't care if their video conversion is using this library or that.
Sure, it slows down the forward development. But, I'd rather have a slower forward development that forks and splinters and by natural selection lets the crap ideas die, than the closed corporate directed Fordism of Windows / OSX. We shouldn't be in so much of a hurry to get a new O/S that we worry if such debates take time.
That's not to bash Windows and OSX for what they are good at, which is in the first instance a really stable and integrated business system and the second instance [for me in my own world] the system which happens to run the best audio production software platform. I have several Linux machines, a couple of OSX machines and a couple of Windows machines... I use each to what each is best geared for.
Bottom line: these sorts of arguments/battles/forks happen in closed source too, we just don't hear about them so much. If the transparency of Open Source means that its arguments turn people off, I personally shrug and say "so what" ... I far prefer argument and the slowing down of progress than dictatorship or trend following any day. Whether that means Linux is/n't ready for the [average user] desktop or not, doesn't really bother me, and I'm not really sure why it is ever a talking point other than for punditry sake.
LibAV People's Front? ... splitters.
Beer = something to wash down these Otter's Noses.
WHY did NASA probe go suddenly SILENT - JUST as it was about to send pics of remote ice-world?
Aussie bloke hacks way to top of music charts with MIDI-based tunes
Google: Cloud users have 'no legitimate expectation of privacy'
Cost of a cuppa set to rocket
French firm intros remix-friendly music format
Monday 8th September 2008 15:24 GMT
... as an experimental musican
..i quite like the idea, in fact, it's the sort of thing i've been waiting for...
sure, i'll have to pay money to make them, but i have to pay £1000s for the equipment i already use, this'll just be another one in my "toys to get" bag...
and yeah, it'll have a smaller market, but hey, i'm not EMI wanting some chart topper, i'm a musician, wanting to experiment with new media...
if you're a naye sayer simply because of the file size or it "not being anything better" - then you're probably not the audience i care about as a musician - i don't want people to listen to my music because it's convenient any more than going to an art gallery to see a modern art installation is "convenient" for the viewer... or listening to a live performance at the royal albert hall is convenient...
as a musican MP3s really annoy me, because they simply don't allow me this sort of control... but this sounds "fun"
so, caveat audiens :)
Segway shock army to invade Department of Transport
NASA firms up space shuttle launch manifest
Wednesday 9th July 2008 13:58 GMT 
Dear NASA
Please see my previous enquiry relating to future procurement of your Space Shuttle fleet,
i am now requiring an answer with utmost urgency as i have a warehouse of black orchids which desperately need transporting to my off-site facility.
yours,
Hugo Drax.
p.s. In response to your other enquiry from your agent:
No, I expect you to die, Mr Bond
Next Ubuntu LTS in 2010, unless Linuxes synchronize
Tuesday 13th May 2008 23:34 GMT 
distro-22
"Sure there's a distro," Doc Torvalds replied. "Distro-22. the only good open and dynamic o/s is a constrained and restricted one"
There was only one distro and that was Distro-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Shuttleworth was crazy and so he can't make a new release. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to make another LTS. Shuttleworth would be crazy to release another LTS and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to release them. If he released them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Userrian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Distro-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some distro that Distro-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Torvalds agreed.
[ black helicopter supplied by Milo Minderbender Enterprises ]
Biting the hand that feeds IT
