* Posts by the Jim bloke

1083 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007

I could throttle you right about now: US Navy to ditch touchscreens after kit blamed for collision

the Jim bloke
Thumb Down

We have already pointed out

.. how stupid it is to try and use the same interface for desktop computers, and small hand held devices.

Extending the interface to large mechanical devices is a deliberate denial of reality

Crunch time: It's all fun and video games until you're being pressured into working for free

the Jim bloke
Headmaster

Survey of 350 people out of an industry of 50000

I am hoping that that is the number that actually responded, and not the entire target sample.

This would indicate that People who are overworked and have no free time choose not to participate in surveys

Ohm my God: If you let anyone other than Apple replace your recent iPhone's battery, expect to be nagged by iOS

the Jim bloke
Stop

Re: Win Win Option

Repair centres who want to increase their credibility would sign-up straight away.

"sign-up" translates to "pay off", so just another revenue stream for apple, with no quality involved - even the dealerships arent an assurance of competence - and another combine harvester to add to the toolkit of apple lawyers to persecute independant repairers.

The whole idea is so bad, I would suspect it has been proposed by apple themselves.

It's heads you win, tails you lose as Microsoft introduces CoinFlip™ for Windows 10

the Jim bloke

Re: Have i got invisible rose-tinted specs on?

The problem with all of these suggestions, is that they are to the users benefit.

They do nothing quantifiable for Microsoft - downgrading the hate and contempt felt in user-land obviously isnt of value - so why the hell would Microsoft exert itself?

Instead they will continue promoting the fallacy that because they provide an OS they own your machine, and like an incompetent manager, will make pointless changes and screw people around just to demonstrate their power.

Alexa, can you tell me how many Chinese kids were forced into working nights to build this unit?

the Jim bloke

Re: Children?

Why should they?

Its cheaper to paycoerce a student to do it than invest in the machinery, and unlike capital equipment, students wont hang around taking up space as production requirements change

Brit couch potatoes increasingly switching off telly boxes in favour of YouTube and Netflix

the Jim bloke
Unhappy

Re: No

Zombies are their biggest customers.

People without lives of their own, dependent on the brain-dead programming as a substitute for personal meaning.

Omni(box)shambles? Google takes aim at worldwide web yet again

the Jim bloke
Devil

Re: www?

unless you have a very good postman who knows where everyone lives.

But Google says you dont need that,..

because you have a very evil postman, who knows where everyone lives...

Satellites with lasers and machine guns coming! China's new plans? Trump's Space Force? Nope, the French

the Jim bloke
Go

Re: Word of the day

The sharks will be carried externally,

They are still working on attaching launch engines onto remoras, to carry the laser equipped sharks into orbital space, but once they do, just look out, okay.... It will be frikkin awesome!

There will be bits of satellites, and sharks, and -we need some way to get squids up there-, and probably bears, because russia.. and all sorts of stuff falling out of the sky all over the place...

Backdoors won't weaken your encryption, wails FBI boss. And he's right. They won't – they'll fscking torpedo it

the Jim bloke

Re: Mathematically illiterate

Its not so much the personal failing to live up to whatever standard, its the blatant hypocrisy when someone sells themselves to the public as an upholder of a certain set of values, gaining votes/donations/followers/mana/upvotes, whilst in their private life they completely ignore those standards.

Crooked politicians and police, multimillionaire sybarite leaders of austerity cults, child molesting teachers or priests, televangelists,.. Its behaviour that should not be tolerated, let alone supported and rewarded.

the Jim bloke
Facepalm

Re: Mathematically illiterate

What reality would end up with is something like an MBA being required for political office.. "management", not STEM, and definitely not ethics.

While there are dangers in disenfranchising sections of the population here are a couple of suggestions for exclusion from eligibility (With a large enough population, it would be impossible not to bear some resemblance to real persons. funny, that.)

Multiple bankruptees - once is fair enough, twice is unlucky, three or more is either stupid or criminally deceitful - either case not anyone who should have authority over public money.

Reality TV 'stars' - narcissist attention whores practiced at appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Deliberate Hypocrisy - Espousing a mode of behaviour acceptable to their supporters but not living up to it eg "family values" while cheating.

Apple techies analyzing Siri recordings may have heard you unzipping and bonking – plus more

the Jim bloke
FAIL

Very poor prevention rate

" One of them blocks nasty code on an average of 200,000 devices every month, "

.. but the majority of Windows Updates manages to sneak past

Don't press the red b-... Windows Insiders' rings hit by surprise Microsoft emission

the Jim bloke
Coat

Microsoft shit is about the only thing they have that runs reliably

I'll just leave you with that image

Darkest Dungeon: Lovecraftian PTSD simulator will cause your own mask to slip

the Jim bloke
Alien

Re: Nice

Enjoying Borderlands 2, but as a fan of the REAL X-Com series (and the UFO-Afterxxxx imitations) I found the console style gameplay of the XCOM deeply offensive. Any world that wont ALLOW its super-secret defense organisation to defend against BOTH incoming attacks... doesnt deserve to be defended.

Console style works for Borderlands 2 - an action game, does not for XCOM if its pretending to be a strategy game.

Here we go: Uncle Sam launches antitrust probe into *cough* Facebook, Google *cough* Amazon *splutter* Twitter...

the Jim bloke
Alert

but did promise that "if violations of law are identified, the Department will proceed appropriately to seek redress."

That translates to.. How dare you rip off people without paying us off first !

Is this the new catch cry of the Land Formerly Known as The Free?

No Exploitation Without Taxation !

Silly money: Before you chuck your chequebook away, triple-check that super-handy digital coin

the Jim bloke
FAIL

Prior art on the Libra brand

not sure what its like in Zuckerbergland, but I hear 'Libra'

..and I think 'feminine hygiene products'

followed by astrology (well thats a guarantee of credibility, right there) and the quote from SWMBO "I'm a Libran... No decision is final, up to and even after implementation.."

British ISPs throw in the towel, give up sending out toothless copyright infringement warnings

the Jim bloke
Flame

Re: Follow the money

would happily pay $50 a month for one iTunes like service

Fuck that.

No Subscription services, just pay for the product, own it and keep it.

These bullshit providers that "sell" you a product - that you can only download 3 times, and try not to let you manage your own copies....

Bandcamp seems to be one of the very few good citizens on the internet - (which makes me wonder how long they will survive, but then arsehole music services seem to fall of the perch pretty regularly too) - but Bandcamp by its very nature doesnt have access to a lot of back catalogue.

Literally braking news: Two people hurt as not one but two self-driving space-age buses go awry

the Jim bloke
Devil

Re: Bus v Pedestrian or Pedestrian v Bus

Clear failure of AI.

If it was working properly the bus would have run down the headphone wearer, not the other way round.

the Jim bloke
Terminator

Environment needs to be very simple for AI to cope

Autonomous trucks are being used on minesites in Oz, not for any happy progressive free-the-masses-from-having-to-think idealism, but for industrial/economic avoid-having-to-pay-and-feed-workers logistic reasons... and thus, operating for several years already.

These are controlled environments, limited in scope with barricades preventing random vehicles entering, and all authorised vehicles inside the zone communicating their positions and locations to central control, and road and engineering design and construction to make everything pleasing to our robot overlords.

And yet...

Crows had been swooping the trucks and triggering the collision avoidance detectors, and tumbleweeds ( the Australian equivalent) will set it off.

All this plus being vulnerable to network, software and hardware hiccups.

We don't mean to poo-poo this, but... The Internet of S**t has literally arrived thanks to Pampers smart diapers

the Jim bloke

Obvious answer is obvious.

Nodes in a botty-net

Guess who reserved their seat on the first Moon flight? My mum, that's who

the Jim bloke
Thumb Down

Its pretty much how politicians define waste - money not spent on personal enrichment or short term accrual of power.

Operation Desert Sh!tstorm: Routine test shoots down military's top-secret internets

the Jim bloke
Pirate

You forgot about sealing all the air vents

Elon Musk's new idea is to hook your noggin up to an AI – but is he just insane about the brain?

the Jim bloke
Holmes

Re: Gliosis

This is early days for the development of brain machine interfaces, probably at the equivalent level of leechs or amateur vivisectionists for traditional medicine.

History tells us we should expect a lot of people to die or be permanently injured before the technology is stable and reliable, and yet marketing is telling us how wonderful it will be.

I think I may have found the problem.

the Jim bloke
Coat

Re: Surprised

once they extend these devices into equine use, Horses will be able to bolt their own stable doors..

and get coats.

the Jim bloke

Re: Will this device do anything special to avoid infection?

Don't give them ideas.

but thats exactly where the investors will see its application....

Poetic justice: Mum funnels £100 into claw machine to win single Dumbo teddy for her kid

the Jim bloke

Re: Is ripping off people becoming legal?

Read the Article

Please be advised that Playnation Limited is a professional organisation

Only amateurs are penalised for ripping off people.

the Jim bloke
Thumb Up

several years ago -thinking about it, it is becoming several DECADES ago- McDonalds were running promotional campaigns based on some kind of scrabble theme... buy their crap, get given individual letters, put them together to make words and receive prizes on achieving specific words..

The control on the number of prizes was on the prize winning words containing a specific letter which McDonalds only printed in the required number, while all the trash letters were basically unlimited.

All well and good, campaign run, job done.

So well done, they ran the same kind of campaign 6 months or a year later, with different prize words - using different prize winning letters.

Thing is, some people were still hanging onto the previous campaigns trash letters (totally understandable, I'm a packrat myself) and those letters were able to build the major prize winning words.. Overseas holidays, cars, that kind of thing.

McD was trying to say that previous promotional material was not eligible, and the consumer groups were saying that was not specified in the T's&C's. I believe the government or courts told McDonalds they had to pay up, but its all a bit hazy now.

Here's a great idea: Why don't we hardcode the same private key into all our smart home hubs?

the Jim bloke
Trollface

Re: The upshot: they can open your front door with a laptop.

That means its secure.

up until the chavs can get it as an app on their phone

the Jim bloke
Unhappy

Re: "smart home product manufacturing 101"

We cant use "obsolete" anymore, it has become a verb.

We need some kind of replacement...

the Jim bloke
Gimp

Re: How are they contacting people who have purchased their dodgy boxes?

They walk into their houses and leave a note on their pillows ??

Google's Fuchsia OS Flutters into view: We're just trying out some new concepts, claims exec

the Jim bloke
Mushroom

Re: Accurate Ads

Ads are 100% effective - at presenting items somebody wants to SELL

They are considerably less effective at presenting them to somebody interested in buying.. but the ad-slingers still get paid.

In the never-ending war between (us) and (them), the clear winners are the guys selling the armaments..

What would Jesus tweet? Church of England hands down commandments for Anglicans on social media

the Jim bloke
Angel

Re: The New Testament is soooo namby pamby..

Typical sequel,

Completely missing all the bits that made the original popular.

Just a cash grab to exploit the market penetration created through the hard work and vision of the original artists.

Yuge U-turn: Prez Trump walks back on Huawei ban... at least the tech sector seems to think so

the Jim bloke
Big Brother

Re: @AC

Trump is working with Kim Jong Un, hoping to get rid of the technology transfer restrictions.

North Korea have released some details such as how to ruin their own economy, and how the more poverty you have around you - the richer you yourself appear, but are holding back on the key technologies on establishing a despotic dynasty.

It's all in the wrist: Your fitness tracker could be as much about data warfare as your welfare

the Jim bloke
Joke

Re: Missing detail

For many years I was a musician and even achieved some note

WELL DONE!

If you can remember which one, and then collect the others... you will have surpassed a lot of popular commercial artists performers.

(sorry, the wording was just irresistible, have an upvote anyway)

The dread sound of the squeaking caster in the humming data centre

the Jim bloke

Re: Stan, Sid, let's make it simple, okay ?

How about we call them 'Bruce', just to keep things clear..

Microsoft: 2TB or not 2... OK, OK! 2TB. OneDrive dragged kicking and screaming into selling more storage

the Jim bloke

Re: "Once upon a time, Microsoft's cloudy storage was unlimited"

I think the marketing department is to blame there.

Its pretty hard to find someanything the marketing department ISNT to blame for

Could an AI android live forever? What, like your other IT devices?

the Jim bloke
Devil

Not just biologicals

Wasnt there an experiment with evolving virtual AIs, which started with 2 original 'entities'.. they introduced the concepts of eating and fulfilment, then when they tried adding a third entity, the 2 originals tried to eat it.

Bonkers British MPs rant: 5G signals cause cancer

the Jim bloke
Alien

in the face of professor Martin Pall, from Washington U. saying it is insanity and will lead to the extincion of humanity,

Good.

I never liked them anyway.

Bunch of assholes, the lot of em.

Oblivious 'influencers' work on 3.6-roentgen tans in Chernobyl after realising TV show based on real nuclear TITSUP

the Jim bloke
Facepalm

Re: Bah!

Casual conversation with a work colleague a few years back, it emerged that he had no knowledge about Japan and China beyond the names themselves, and that they were full of asians. Wouldnt be able to tell which was which.

Thinking about it, he and many others would be just as appalled at my willful ignorance of sporting teams - possibly which ones are full of asians...

the Jim bloke

Something nobody has mentioned..

Is anyone throwing old bolts around to detect anomalies?

the Jim bloke

Re: Influencers ?

Had to get rid of the "Thought Leaders" label, due to the absence of detectable thought...

the Jim bloke
Devil

Re: iPhone?

you wouldn't want to unwittingly take the poor broccoli-botherer to Hagar's House of Ribs, would you?

not unwittingly at all... but definitely, yes.....

the Jim bloke
Holmes

Re: As was said a very long time ago...

And remember, the IQ curve has as many below the median line as above..

I prefer to phrase it as..

The majority of the population is of average or lower intelligence.

Those darn users don't know what they're doing (not like us, of course)

the Jim bloke
Boffin

Re: "entire OS had rotated 90 degrees"

I have to do this on the rare occasions I am using my laptop without an external monitor. Some dialogue boxes on the software I use object to the 1366 x 768 display on my decrepit work machine, and wont provide the action buttons at the base of the forms, Solution - rotate display to be be 768 x 1366.

This may have been fixed, I havent checked after recent updates..

Flight Simulator 2020: Exciting new ride or a doomed tailspin in a crowded market?

the Jim bloke

So...

Will it run on Win 7 ?

Looking at some old bills, its been almost 10 years since I bought my gaming PC, and a major reason I havent replaced it is the abysmal operating systems that MS have decreed are the future.

Atari finally launches its VCS console. Again.

the Jim bloke
Headmaster

For the sake of clarity

Please refer to them as "The company that has bought Ataris' name".

I know this is mentioned in the article, but only about halfway through, with the headline and bulk of the article potentially implying this current iteration has more relation to the original than simple carrion feeding.

No offense to carrion feeders intended.

Large Redmond Collider: CERN reveals plan to shift from Microsoft to open-source code after tenfold license fee hike

the Jim bloke
Headmaster

Criteria to qualify as an Academic Entity

You have to be indoctrinating impressionable youth into using MS products.

If that isnt your core business, why shouldnt MS screw you for everything they can?

Well done CERN, Leading humanity to a brighter future,... and the chance of that being as a flare of radiation as we pass through an event horizon is probably fractionally lower if they arent exposed to Windows Updates.

Mystery GPS glitch grounds flights, leaves passengers in the bar

the Jim bloke
Thumb Up

Re: back in MY day...

The problem isnt with any individual pilot not knowing where they are.

The problem is with SOME pilots not knowing where they are in relation to everyone else

Add in liability issues - when ATC are providing instructions to pilots that are now based on poor quality information, and it all descends into a legal septic tank.

For the people who will be held responsible, the responsible thing to do is say "no".

One man went to mow a meadow, hoping Trump would spot giant grass snake under flightpath

the Jim bloke
Unhappy

Re: childish

Only the media - including self publishing social media "influencers" (Hooray, spell check recognises that that ISNT a word!) will miss him,and will persist in dragging his memory out and shoving it in our faces - but the rest of us will be glad he is gone, and pray his successors dont try to out-do him.

Barbie Girl was wrong? Life is plastic, it's not fantastic: We each ingest '121,000 pieces' of microplastics a year

the Jim bloke
Go

Congratulations - You are part of the solution

If the micro particles are the solute, we are the solvent..

The emerging global catastrophe of plastic pollution has been getting a HUGE amount of media attention (the only thing they love more than a circus is a train-wreck.. which is why elections get so much coverage) and this article describes the way that we, yes we humans, my brothers and sisters and non-determinants, have a part to play in removing this scourge from the environment.

By ingesting and inhaling these supposedly indestructible remnants of our affluent lifestyle, we are acting as the agents of Mother Nature in sequestering these putatively harmful substances, and concentrating them into convenient packages for disposal - this mechanism has been part of natures arsenal since... a long time ago.. and while a single passage through a human organism may not have much effect on the particles (probably less than exposure to UV, like,you know, sunlight), it can be repeated, and each time, the toxic chemicals can leach out into the host, leaving the actual micro particles less harmful.

Yes, pollution in pretty much any form is bad, and entire species and possibly even ecosystems will die out and be replaced, and as we have contributed to the cause we have a responsibility to act towards a solution, but the media frenzy is a form of pollution in its own way, and should be discouraged also.

Headsup for those managing Windows 10 boxen: Microsoft has tweaked patching rules

the Jim bloke

Re: We have...

with promises of changing the world. Sadly that reality never materialized

Microsoft DID change the world.

Previously, I had hope for the future...