* Posts by Stevie

7282 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2008

Hotter than the Sun: JET – Earth’s biggest fusion reactor, in Culham

Stevie

Re: Bah!

Oh GumpenKraut, I was there for most of the hysterical "almost there" of the seventies. There were no mentions of the corner being 70 years in duration then. That is something that came along in the mid to late eighties (at least publicly; academics might have been saying it to each other behind closed doors, safely out of the hearing of anyone connected with the funding bodies, since the idea began).

In fact, the most vocal public speaker on the subject in-the-know-and-in-the-trenches didn't believe Tokamak tech could *ever* deliver the goods and said so in Omni, while people cared and were watching.

But that was in the heady days of science, before the word "retcon" had been coined and popular science journalists didn't try and con us that there were already "working" nuclear fusion reactors every three months or so.

Stevie

Bah!

Fusion is MUCH cleaner than fission in reactors, because we can't get it to work for anything a real person would call "time".

When we make explosions with it we still can't get it to work very well, but then it is much dirtier than fission on account of all the energy it does release tossing the results of the fission-stage reactions and irradiation products over a much wider area.

I wish scientists would stop pretending a working fusion reactor is here or "just around the corner". We've been turning that corner for over fifty years with no joy.

The only person to figure out working fusion reactors is still the Great Green Arkleseizure, who stuck one about 8 and a half light minutes away just to rub it in.

Insteon and Wink home hubs appear to have a problem with encryption

Stevie

Bah!

What????

An Internet of Tat device is configured for the convenience of pwners out-of-the-box?

I'm shocked I tell you, shocked.

Sputnik-1 replica used to test the real thing goes under the hammer

Stevie

Bah!

"Whoever buys the Sputnik-1 replica will therefore acquire a remarkable piece of technology, but also a remarkable symbol that catalysed the last 60 years of human history."

Not to mention scoring an international espionage coup of unparalleled proportions.

Come on, Mr President, lets show those Soviet bastards what the US can do in the post-sanity world by buying their secret tech on the open market!

Australia commits to establish space agency with no budget, plan, name, deadline …

Stevie

Bah!

So, exactly the same economics as the 20-years old and counting "NASA Mars Initiative" first blithered about by King George the Second, then by Barack Obama and, when he can figure out that the "Hillary Clinton wagon" is falling apart, Donald Trump, all to draw attention away from flubs, fumbles and uckfups.

Driverless cars will make more traffic, say transport boffins

Stevie

Bah!

A rare pro-case from me:

Instead of thinking of them as self-driving cars, try thinking of autonomous vehicles as trains that go where you need them to go.

Should SDC/AVs become reality, they will spell he end of widespread private vehicle ownership in net-connected areas.

Back to moaning as per usual: The idea of installing auto-driving stuff in articulated trucks is a problem, especially when the developers blither about the increased brake-awareness meaning trucks can slipstream in trains.

Imagine not only having to follow a truck, but never being able to pass because there are six of the buggers driving nose-to-tail. I predict this will result in fatalities and backlash.

And I remain terrified about the certainty of the repurposed ADC/AV low-speed cruise missile.

Shock! Hackers for medieval caliphate are terrible coders

Stevie

Bah!

Maybe if they weren't so preoccupied with denying their women education and work opportunities they could recruit a few decent software designers from that side of the gene pool.

I occurs to me that we could guard against malicious usage by ISIS by making our next western computer language of fad rife with references to Deities and Prophets. Can't see any Jihadist using a language that calls for $DEITY to throw an error, or testing $PROPHET for existence.

Yes, I'm joking.

Has science gone too far, part 97: Boffins craft code to find protesters on social networks, rate them on their violence

Stevie

Bah!

"Our paper will enable fair and objective reporting of protest events"

But that's not what it will end up enabling, you stupid buggers.

Meet RICO act 2.0 - all the good intentions of the original but with twice the number of roads to hot places smelling of sulphur.

NBD: Adobe just dumped its private PGP key on the internet

Stevie

Bah!

Internal memos about zero day exploits?

Good one! everyone knows that Adobe is the last to find out about 0DEs, and that by the time they do proof of concept code is already being printed on milk cartons.

You forgot that you hired me and now you're saying it's my fault?

Stevie

Your incompetence does not constitute my emergency

"Your incompetence does not constitute my emergency"

"Oh yeah? Well I bodged the sprinkler installation and the building's on fire."

IT plonker stuffed 'destructive' logic bomb into US Army servers in contract revenge attack

Stevie

Bah!

Interesting. This was being blamed on "legacy mainframe cobol systems" when it happened, during an attempt to merge the payroll systems of the army, navy and marine corps.

What they needed was less shiny indian tech consultancy, more old cobol-speaking geezer.

Sysadmin tells user CSI-style password guessing never w– wait WTF?! It's 'PASSWORD1'!

Stevie

Re: something from his past that wasn't common knowledge

"Window?WhoTheFlockHasAWindowFFS?"

Kebab and pizza shop owner jailed for hiding £179k from the taxman

Stevie

Bah!

Meanwhile, Apple, Google and MS ... what?

Ah, good ol' Windows update cycles... Wait, before anything else, check your hardware

Stevie

Bah!

Alternatively, consider this:

Your 3d print-on-demand business is ticking along nicely then an unannounced driver update scuppers your money-earning hardware.

But on the good side, the computer will still run ms excell so you can calculate how quickly you are going to go bankrupt.

Bill Gates says he'd do CTRL-ALT-DEL with one key if given the chance to go back through time

Stevie

Re: @AC

No such thing as Alt-left. OPOTUS invented them to make the Alt-right sound Fair and Balanced.

8o)

AI slurps, learns millions of passwords to work out which ones you may use next

Stevie

Re: XKCD 4 John Robson

My experience is that you first statement doesn't hold water like a collander doesn't. Gonna have to call shenanigans on that one. (on a train now, and had to retype parts of that first sentence four times due to motion-induced typos).

I wasn't claiming you said xkcd invented the technique. I was trying to get the next person to weigh in to not automatically link that same cartoon to make their case.

Stevie

Bah!

I wonder how many accounts can be hacked by starting the force with "correctbatteryhorsestaple"?

Stevie
Meh

Re: XKCD 4 John Robson

That is NOT all.

Try typing that enormous string into anything while on a train or bus sans typos.

Grodon Benten!

PS xkcd stole that whole thing from a stage magician's trick so old it has mammoth hairs on it. Gak Eisenberg was probably using it before his life was so tragically cut short.

Stevie

Bah!

Which only goes to show that passwords are a shitty way to secure anything, and password aging only inconveniences the legitimate user. Duh! Ten minutes of thought would lead anyone not blind to the "userid/password is not a person" truism to the same conclusion.

If we wanted to get serious we could do all sorts of clever things like track credential usage in the same way banks track credit card usage to spot out-of-band craftiness.

We could secure the hardware using PIDs. In the workplace this could be the picture ID you wear to get through the turnstile or door. Any number of ways of detecting them is available today with off the shelf tech.

The will to secure the hardware & software for the user is just not there compared to the will to secure the hardware & software for the originating companies. Until it is this nonsense will continue to happen.

Itching to stuff iOS 11 on your iPhone? You may want to hold off for a bit

Stevie

Re: Oh yeah .....

Even if the backup works when you restore from it, you don't get a return to what you had.

I had to restore my iPad after an iTunes update borked it good and proper. Afterward I was faced with umptytump app reloads from the appstore except that a couple I used a lot were just gone. How is this possible if a proper backup was taken? You got me. Don't do it without fat pipe WiFi is my only piece of wisdom.

Then the iTunes wouldn't sync properly. Turns out there's an undocumented hard limit on the number of music files that can be synced in one operation. Dunno what the number is, but I had to break my reload into lots of a thousand. Would have been very helpful to have been able to read some sort of log, but Apple apparently eschews these on the grounds that if it just works you don't need 'em. Oops.

And boy are the Appleteenies defensive about that. The forums I found were full of frustrated people asking about logs and lectures to same about having a better attitude. I kept well out of it, since we were obviously in the arena of faith-based computing and had been declared apostate and heretic.

And when I found the answer to the problem and posted it on the top Google hit for the most obvious search term, I got ambushed by an Appleteenie who felt that because the forum had been dormant for a few years my post was inappropriate. He backed down when I explained that Google sent anyone there asking in basic terms WTF was going on, but sweet Azathoth's Nebular Nodes what do these people do for a living if they have time to squat on "dead" forums?

What was the question?

Uber Cali goes ballistic, calls online ads bogus: These million-dollar banners are something quite atrocious

Stevie

Bah!

OR:

Uber Cali goes ballistic, online ads called "bogus".

Now the headline scans properly when sung.

Compsci degrees aren't returning on investment for coders – research

Stevie

Bah!

Confirming that no investment in IT infrastructure, even the "personal development in it" bit, ever breaks even, let alone makes a profit.

This was true back in 1978, when computer expenses were used as a corporate tax write-down mechanism.

Google, Bing, Yahoo! data hoarding is like homeopathy. It doesn't work – new study claims

Stevie

Re: Homeopathy doesn't work??

"Did you look at the link? "

Nope. I have better things to do than look for "knock-off youtube links" to content that will suck down an hour of precious mobile bandwidth while I'm commuting in order to understand some point you are trying to make.

If you were making a case against, I already know that.

If you were making a case for, I already ridiculed that.

Moral: If you are going to be ironically clever, don't do it using links to hour long TV shows.

Stevie

Re: Homeopathy doesn't work??

"I think you'll find it can work remarkably well"

How? Every time a scientific test shows yet again that homeopathy is horseshirt, the credulous saucer loons come out chanting about how it can't be quantified using conventional scientific methods.

Homeopathy is faith-based*, and hence no amout of common sense can be applied to educate those foolish enough to buy into it.

I rather liked the response of a commentator in these hallowed halls who suggested paying for homeopathic medicines with water in which a banknote had been immersed and shaken, then diluted down an appropriate number of times. I felt then as now that this represented wild overpayment, whether the homeopathic dilution effect worked or not.

* faith-based as in "everyone knows it works" rather than "god makes it work". See: Donald Trump supporter.

Brit ministers jet off on a trade mission to tout our digital exports...

Stevie

Bah!

So they couldn't promote digital products by video conference then?

So much for Brit-tech.

What do you call an all-in-one PC that isn't? 'Upgradeable', says HP

Stevie

Re: a good sized potato

Luxury!

We 'ave ter mek do wi' sliced carrot since management decided we were goin' totally thin-client.

Stevie

Bah!

I hope they haven't attempted to patent this monitor bolted to a pc thingy. There's prior art.

See: Commodore Pet.

BoJo, don't misuse stats then blurt disclaimers when you get rumbled

Stevie

Re: 2 percent

But the point is that the 350 weekly megaquids were never there in the first place, at least, not in the way the UKIPpers said it was.

As I understand it the deal was floated as "350 mq the EC makes us spend on unnecessary foreign stuff that we will get back every week", when the reality is "The EC makes us spend 350 mq per week on stuff we will have to buy anyway, Brexit or no Brexit".

I dunno how anyone fell for this nonsense in the first place. When was the last time anyone was there when a politician actually gave public money back without closing all the town libraries or selling off the ambulances (while somehow keeping the same number of fact-finding missions to Cancun and Barbados)?

Sprint CEO straight out accuses Verizon counterpart of LYING

Stevie

Bah!

T Mobile had inconvenient holes in its network in the 1990s so we switched to AT&T.

Who have never managed to offer us anything they were giving to new customers despite our faithful custom ever since (and a half decade before when it came to landline long-distance).

Actually, I tell a lie: twice we have found very helpful people that have unravelled potentially expensive uckfups on our part (roaming in Canada has some loopholes in the fine print it is crucial to read carefully).

We only stay because the grandfathered family plan is advantageous to us despite our no longer having a contract, and the occassionally great customer service (varies by support personnel). Well, that and the magically low costs to switch suddenly double when we try out Verizon's "special promotions" when we need a laugh.

Facebook let advertisers target 'Jew-haters'

Stevie

Bah!

All that development money and not a spare dollar for a RegEx?

^S[Aa][Dd]\.$

Google to kill Chrome autoplay madness

Stevie

Bah!

Never should have moved away from WAIS and GOPHER.

Thin end of the wedge. Fought wars. Rationing. Mafeking. Lloyd George. Etc. More etc.

Stevie

As a developer ...

As a developer who fled that field in the 1980s, let me just say that rewarding lazy behaviour in the user never ends well*, and that I personally cannot envisage a single use-case in which having the sound off by default with a prominent "begin play(back)" button is a worse option than having some witess heavy metal blither (why is it always heavy metal?) blast out over whatever the user had playing at the time in the background when the onload event triggers.

This was in the "never do" column of web design handbooks back in the dawn of the World Wide Web.

I guess "F*ck 'Em" supplanted "User Experience First" thinking sometime in the interrim.

* Case in point: the article's subject

Stevie

Re: Autoplay

Bob! Take your meds!

Mad scientist zaps himself to determine the power of electric eel shocks

Stevie

Re: Once More, With Eeling

Well, DNTP, we all know where this research will end: someone's todger in the eel tank.

Stevie

Bah!

Jumping electric eels?

Missed a trick then. Should have called Finless "Jehosaphat".

Fancy that! Craft which float over everything on a cushion of air

Stevie

Bah!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6QW8Usp94A

Bad audio, but I don't have a copy of the "Songs For Singing Islanders" EP and so cannot make a better (and illegal) YouTube recording myself.

A furious think-tank boss, Google, and an academic 'fired' for criticizing ads giant

Stevie

Re: A bit off topic, but

A few miles from Cambridge there's a place called Six Mile Bottom.

Stevie

Re: Wouldn't it be satisfying

No, it would cause immense hardship to people who have nothing to do with Oracle but whose livelihood is determined by information held on complex Oracle platforms.

And finding the right documentation for answering an urgent question about complex Oracle platforms (and underlying IBM systems too) is, as I have repeatedly proved beyond refutation, a matter for a Google search, since the internal search provided by each of those manufacturers is pants.

Not satisfying at all.

Secure microkernel in a KVM switch offers spy-grade app virtualization

Stevie

Bah!

and even allow cut and paste between windows.

There goes your air-gap.

Dude who claimed he invented email is told by judge: It's safe to say you didn't invent email

Stevie

Trump's got a fantastic tell-tale

The problem isn't that OPOTUS lies, it is that he believes everything he's told by his go-to advisors without fact-checking.

When the outright lies are mixed in with falsehoods he genuinely believes in and dubious stuff he thinks isn't important enough to get right first time, no-one can trust a single thing he says.

Hence "his lips are moving".

Oracle 'systematically denies' its sales reps their commissions, forces them to work to pay off 'debts', court told

Stevie

Re: Just when you thought...4 ShelLuser

Do yourself a favour and stop munging "Oracle" into "whOracle".

There must be clever and funny morphs out there, but that isn't one of them.

No-one pronounces "Oracle" as "OR acle" or "whore" as "horr" so it doesn't work.

Stevie

Me too

+1 against that blame-the-victimtard.

Sub plot subplot thickens: Madsen claims hatch fumble killed Swede journo Kim Wall

Stevie

Bah!

"I was just about to bury her at sea when, Whoops!, off fell her head. As I scrambled for it, her arms and legs fell off and tumbled overboard. I was so shocked I dropped the head in the sea. Then her legless, armless, headless body fell in. There was nothing more I could do so I buttoned up the Leaky Scow and sailed for home and a nice hot toddy. Sadly I was put so out of sorts by these events I neglected to close one or two hatches and the old girl sank."

Facebook's music plans mean you'll never leave Facebook

Stevie

Bah!

I guess my enormous CD collection (not to mention the Vinyl stuff in the basement) doesn't look quite so stupid any more does it sonny?

Enjoy your pwnage, spotty-faced yoofs everywhere.

Asteroid Florence buzzes Earth, brings two moons along for the ride

Stevie
Pint

Re: They don't make 'em like they used to

...clever...

Dear rioters: Hiding your face with scarves, hats can't fool this AI system

Stevie

Bah!

"Accuracy is not great"

Words to build a totalitarian police state upon.

Climate-change skeptic lined up to run NASA in this Trump timeline

Stevie

Bah!

As long as he believes in Newton and Tsiolkovsky we should be OK.

Whoosh, there it is: Toshiba bods say 14TB helium-filled disk is coming soon

Stevie

Bah!

On the plus side, faults now telegraphed by munchkin-voice in the machine room.

Linus Torvalds passed a kidney stone and then squeezed out Linux 4.13

Stevie

Bah!

Dislike the man's public persona, but sympathize with his ordeal.

The code comments should be a thing of beauty though.

/ here we protect against buffAAARRRGGGHHHOHGODOHGODOHGOD /

/ we only get here if AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHWHYME? /

Well, whad'ya know? 'No evidence' that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower

Stevie

Re: No 'evidence' != didn't happen.

And MY point was that "I think" has about as much validity as space alien pyramids.

ie none.

I'm surprised that you discount the Russian thing though. There's a mountain (and mounting) circumstantial evidence of collusion and evildoing of the sort specifically forbidden in the Constitution, which the Americans had the wit to write down.

Much more than there was for, to pick one from the bunch unopened on the hall table, the Vince Foster affair.