* Posts by Eddy Ito

4662 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2007

Holy smokes! US watchdog sues Elon Musk after he makes hash of $420 Tesla tweet

Eddy Ito

Re: 300 miles on a 5 minute recharge

The bigger problem for mass adoption is that many people have no regular place to park at night to recharge. Given that many cities like LA have a housing shortage it is unlikely that any rental units are going to invest in the needed infrastructure as they aren't hurting for renters. The same is likely true for condos where parking is simply another common area. This leaves one with homeowners who have a carport of some sort where they can have the needed power readily installed as I'm sure there are many who, like me, aren't going to get anything fully charged overnight on the single 120 V 15 A circuit in the garage.

Eddy Ito

Re: Seriously?

It almost seems like Musk has gotten into Trump's personal stash of crazy water with the stupid tweets, thin skin, and personal attacks. Come to think of it, his cult like followers react in similar ways but then that was also true of Jobs but he didn't twittle at all.

That said, this may be for the best if it gets Tesla to install a COO or a new CEO to actually handle the day to day grind and leave Musk in as President or something. I don't think they can get rid of Musk entirely since I think that would result in a complete meltdown of the stock price and potentially lead to the doors being closed and maybe putting Musk on suicide watch as it may be a bridge too far for him.

Sunny Cali goes ballistic, this ransomware is atrocious. Even our IT bill will be something quite ferocious

Eddy Ito

Re: So many systems

That can't be true. I heard they keep a box of floppies in the cleaning supplies closet labeled 'annual backups' so it's likely this will be a quick fix just as soon as they find that 8 inch floppy drive.

US government use of AI is shoddy and failing citizens – because no one knows how it works

Eddy Ito

I thought it was shoddy because the last three lines of code are:

1850 PRINT "Ask the white guy in the corner office"

1860 GOTO 10

1870 END

NSA dev in the clink for 5.5 years after letting Kaspersky, allegedly Russia slurp US exploits

Eddy Ito

You can't really put this one on 'duh Donald' though. As near as I can tell it was all sparked by senatorial uber blue team member Shaheen. Granted, it's all too easy to get Trump to try hobbling a foreign company even if he has to reach across the political cartel aisle to do it.

Oddly Shaheen does sound rather like Trump when patting herself on the back. Then again, most politicians do.

America cooks up its flavor of GDPR – and Google's over the moon

Eddy Ito
Trollface

America is a blatant corporatocracy,

Has been for almost along as there's been an America. Read the history of land grabs, railroads, etc.

Well, we did learn from some of the best and we've still another 30+ years until we've been around as long as the East India Company.

Turns out download speed isn't everything when streaming video on your smartphone

Eddy Ito

USA! US-hey?

Well, 59th isn't so bad. At least we're out of the bottom 10 [golf-clap].

Hmm, maybe that's why Spectrum keeps asking me if I want to sign up for their TV bundle. Could they know streaming video on their internet service is totally craptastic? Why it's almost like it's intentional.

Fat chance: Cholesterol leads boffins to discover world's oldest animal fossil – 558m years old

Eddy Ito

Re: So if you want to be remembered

Seems like sound advice.

That syncing feeling when you realise you may be telling Google more than you thought

Eddy Ito

The creepy question is whether it remembers after you clear your stored login data from the browser. Also, does it still do it in "incognito" mode?

I'd test it here but I don't want to put my login data into Chrome, just in case. I'm sure you understand.

Developer goes rogue, shoots four colleagues at ERP code maker

Eddy Ito

Re: A gun is involved in every single mass shooting

I see where you're going but how about we flip it and make things like abortions, etc. easy to get? Well, maybe not get Muslims per se as that potentially smacks of slavery but if they want to have an abortion, gay wedding, etc. that's cool.

Judge: Georgia's e-vote machines are awful – but go ahead and use them

Eddy Ito
Devil

Re: Queues and competence.

April 1 would be apropos

But that would be before tax day.

Eddy Ito
Trollface

Re: Scanning?

Perhaps it says that there aren't enough different systems. If there were 4,283 completely different systems it would be very expensive to try to subvert each and every one. Isn't that the very concept of diversification and not putting all one's eggs in one basket?

Eddy Ito

Re: Queues and competence.

I think Occam would say elections are typically held on Tuesday which is a day when most people work and the lines generally form right around 4 PM and since the polls often close at 7 PM it doesn't leave regular folk much time in between.

That said, it should be a holiday or a Saturday as either would relieve most of the congestion and ideally it should be either 20 April or the third Saturday in April. Just to limit all the horrid campaigning throughout the summer when folk have better things to think about of course.

Eddy Ito
Happy

Re: Scanning?

The fact that this is done with ease in other countries, like the UK, where elections simply cannot be interfered with electronically, suggest that the American "system" is, indeed ... stupid.

I always love it when someone who has absolutely no concept of what transpires in the US suggests that the American "system" is anything. So here's a little primer:

First, there is no American "system". Got that, or did your head just explode?

Second, there is no American "system". Just making sure that point gets through.

Third, every state, county, and town has their own ways of doing things; there isn't one particular American "system" you can compare the UK to. You lot keep mentioning electing dog catchers but I can honestly say I've ever lived in the one place where dog catcher is actually an elected position. I have also lived in places where sheriff isn't an elected position and others where it is. I agree it's a little loopy here in SoCali but as the kids say, "it is what it is".

Fourth, every state, county, and town is free to change their "system" as they see fit so there is no American "system".

Finally, I understand you like limes so maybe you're just a tad bitter and feel the need to make up some imaginary American "system" to rail against. It's ok, maybe you should get out more and stop watching your equivalent of Fox or CNN or Limbaugh or Kos or what-have-you as they tend to stir things up and make everything sound worse than it actually is. Just remember, everyone is only trying to do what sells ads and that 95% of it is crap. Mmmkay?

'Men only' job ad posts land Facebook in boiling hot water with ACLU

Eddy Ito
Alien

Re: I think some people might have missed something...

CS is something women are, in fact, interested in, but they are being driven away.

This is something that I find fascinating and I wonder what the timeframe is. When looking at human development there is a window when children are young, prior to hitting the 'growth spurt', that a massive amount of brain development occurs. Could it be that my mother was right in saying that females develop faster which would narrow the window to develop the needed synapses?

Please don't misunderstand, I'm simply observing that when I was about 10-12 years old my male classmates and I were considerably shorter than the vast majority of our female classmates but that dramatically reversed over the next several years.

My guess is that the brain and body don't develop at the same time simply because the energy needed to do both surpasses the general available intake so it is naturally staged. If female brains do, in fact, develop sooner then it is the early education that needs to be addressed, possibly in the first 5 to 7 years. Maybe it's just a matter of injecting science earlier in the curriculum that would even out the balance. Maybe I shouldn't have that second glass of wine after dinner. Maybe I should have had a third, now there's an excellent idea.

Eddy Ito

Re: I think some people might have missed something...

I definitely see the tricky bit since in the same token I can see how targeting ads would equally qualify. It's entirely possible that I see more ads for a pickup truck and my wife sees more ads for an SUV but does it fall under equal opportunity? Maybe, maybe not, but how about if one is offered a better deal in the ads based on gender? Perhaps they are willing to discount the pickup more for my wife in order to sway her knowing that I'm more willing to pay more because men 'liked' more pickups and women 'liked' more SUVs.

I can easily see this topic get far more complicated and going beyond just jobs because it certainly wouldn't be fair to offer different prices based solely on gender or other traits.

FCC boss slams new Californian net neutrality law, brands it illegal

Eddy Ito

Re: "if companies weren't granted local monopolies"

The FCC didn't grant local monopolies. Most are instituted at the state, county, or city level. Just like LA's brilliant scheme to carve up the city into local garbage monopolies.

Who blocked states and cities wanting to deploy their own infrastructure?

The courts? Or are you referring to the feet draggers in Frisco.

No, It isn't. Before authorities were created to oversee companies and set regulations, it was a Far West were even killing people was OK unless it got too expensive.

Yes it is. You seem to think that there actually are people who are for pollution, unsafe food, etc. They're aren't so stop pretending there are. What you confuse as those people are simply people wanting to be free to choose to drink raw milk and eat raw cheese or whatever else they want to put into their own bodies. It's of no potential harm to anyone else so why make it difficult or impossible to get?

As far as killing people goes, it's often the "authorities" who are doing the killing since it's cheaper that way. See Ponce Massacre, Ludlow Massacre, Columbine Mine Massacre, Bloody Island Massacre, etc.

I don't deny there are some wrong regulations - but just wait for an ex-convict made firefighter to commit a crime... Just look at Oklahoma in the same article you posted....

Now ask yourself why they would commit a crime. Could it be because they couldn't get a job? Did you read the full article? "states with the heaviest burdens of occupational licensing saw an average increase in reoffending within three years of release of over 9%. The states with the lightest burdens saw a decrease of 2.5% over the same period."

Still, it's not a good reason to assert everything must be deregulated because "the market knows better".

I haven't seen anybody assert any such thing. I merely pointed out that adding more regulation to offset the negative externalities of other poor regulations is pretty stupid and that instead of piling on it might be better to get rid of the junk first especially as it could allow for even lower costs. Keeping the status quo just means the existing companies will just keep raising their rates without any benefit for the consumer.

Eddy Ito
Facepalm

Re: "The downside of regulation is that in impedes on freedom of choice"

How? Actually well done regulation usually improve the freedom of choice - i.e. antitrust ones. Net neutrality actually improves it - denying the ISPs to choose from you as they look for what is more remunerative for them.

But those are regulations that likely wouldn't be necessary if companies weren't granted local monopolies in the first place. The problem is that there are too many barriers to enter the market both with adding the needed infrastructure and the regulations for getting permission that limit a free market.

Unless you mean you would like to choose more pollution, unsafe devices, dangerous pharmaceuticals and food, etc. etc.

Really? This antiquated trope again. You do realize it's actually possible to be for less regulation without being for all those other things and it isn't a zero sum game where you can only have one or the other. Why are you for preventing ex-convicts from becoming productive members of society like firefighters? Do we really need protection from rogue hair braiders? Thank goodness the smart folk in Cali won't allow people without a high school diploma become a farrier, think of the foals!

LOL, more pollution (smoke 'em if you got 'em), unsafe devices, dangerous pharmaceuticals and food, good one!

Russia: The hole in the ISS Soyuz lifeboat – was it the crew wot dunnit?

Eddy Ito

They do and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think they also have a drill bit adapter to go on their PGT.

US govt concedes that you can indeed f**k Nazis online: Domain-name swear ban lifted

Eddy Ito

Re: This raises the question

What? You've never been to octop.us, platyp.us, radi.us, and other such - um, stuff. Me either but I'd wager a thesaurus that they all go somewhere.

Python joins movement to dump 'offensive' master, slave terms

Eddy Ito

Dominatrix / Bottom

Apple in XS new sensation: Latest iPhone carries XS-sive price tag

Eddy Ito
Alert

Re: Testing thousands of slips and falls

It also explains all those Applegangers walking into the glass.

Eddy Ito

Re: Let's see...

Apple still lists the iPhone 7 for [$,£]450 so I imagine it shouldn't be too hard to pick one up for about [$,£]350.

Eddy Ito

Re: "911? Help, I've been hurt in a fall"

It will be interesting to see what the percentage of false alarms turns out to be as well as other statistics such as whether it can detect car crashes and the number of people who party a little too hard and pass out.

Siri, how many folks are passed out at the pub this evening?

World's oldest URL – fragments 73,000 years old – discovered in cave

Eddy Ito

No, it's quite clear that this is simply a portion of an early powerpoint slide.

Y'know what? VoIP can also be free from pesky regulation – US judges

Eddy Ito

Re: If phone service was unregulated

Without the regulations that forced phone companies to provide phone service to rural customers they'd let the lines fall into disrepair and those people would lose their only link with the outside world. I suppose you believe that it would be fair if phone companies said "well, it costs us a lot more to provide service to on this ranch in western Texas, so if you want to maintain phone service it'll cost you $250 a month instead of $25 a month". After all, that's the free market at work!

You might want to check your phone bill. Look for the part that says "Universal Connectivity Charge". You see, it still costs $250 a month to maintain that equipment running to G. W. Bush's ranch, it's just that we all get to pay for it to save W a few bucks. Good thing we're forcing those companies to take an extra 17.9% of everyone's bill to provide phone service to rural customers like W.

Not so much changing their tune as enabling autotune: Facebook, Twitter bigwigs nod and smile to US senators

Eddy Ito

Re: Pleas pass an American GDPR.

Congress could but they'd have to weigh that against how that would impact relevant congress critters' stock portfolios.

Nope, the NSA isn't sitting in front of a supercomputer hooked up to a terrorist’s hard drive

Eddy Ito

Re: How are they going to make sure the "enemy" buys back door kit?

Fortunately the Ozzie gov't put out this helpful little PSA. You might want headphones to watch the vid if you're at work.

Ever wanted to strangle Microsoft? Now Outlook, Skype 'throttle' users amid storm cloud drama

Eddy Ito
Facepalm

No shit! Here I was thinking it was because they just finished rolling out the "upgrade" to 365 just this week. Who coulda thunk it?

Uncle Sam wants tech toolkit to snoop social media stock scammers

Eddy Ito

How hard could that be? On Twitter, Facebook, etc. the hard part is filtering out the few bits that aren't scams.

I've seen the future of consumer AI, and it doesn't have one

Eddy Ito

Re: An "AI powered cooking assistant"?

... including how much is left, how long until it goes off, and so on.

I pick up the container and if it feels light, there probably isn't much left. Likewise, if it's been at the back of the fridge for so long I don't recognize the container or remember what's in it, it's safe to toss. I could be convinced of the utility of AI if the "and so on" bit includes zapping with a cattle prod the housemate who puts back a container with a few paltry crumbs rather than writing it on the shopping list.

Voting machine maker claims vote machine hack-fests a 'green light' for foreign hackers

Eddy Ito

Re: Weasels!

Do they build insecure IoT crap as well?

Are you giving odds? I'd be willing to put a tenner or two on their voting machines being insecure IoT crap for the right moneyline.

Net neutrality haters spam Californians with annoying robocalls

Eddy Ito

There is of course absolutely no suggestion that net neutrality rules would somehow increase cell phone bills – that is complete nonsense.

Oh, I don't about that. If it's from a sockpuppet of AT&T and Verizon, I could easily see them upping everyone's cell phone bill if this passes.

Defense Distributed starts selling gun CAD files amid court drama

Eddy Ito

Re: Magical thinking

in areas where legalisation has occurred, access to cannabis by underage users has pretty much been completely cut off

Actually, not so much in Cali. Granted that's largely a byproduct of Cali politicians' odd way of thinking they're in for a monetary windfall but fail to understand that large taxes on the newly legal product means it winds up costing more than the going street price so there isn't much incentive to switch to the legal vendors. Now the cops are really just acting as armed tax collectors.

Of course in Cali where gun control laws are some of the tightest in the nation it already creates a profitable opportunity for a cottage industry. Heck, it's so lucrative it seems everyone from politicians to police are in on the gun running. It does make one wonder where all the police's missing guns are going.

Eddy Ito

Re: Cute, but not for long

How many criminals and loons already pay more for weapons simply for the anonymity and bypassing of "gun control"

Not as many as you'd think. Most criminals don't pay that much for guns since they're typically stolen so the acquisition cost is zero. According to this article much of the price depends on the history of the gun. For instance if it's been used in a murder it has a lower price than a "clean" gun and straw bought guns will necessarily cost more than stolen guns. I'd guess that given the price differential that straw bought guns have it is likely that they are primarily used by well funded gangs and only reach common circulation once they're "dirty".

AI image recognition systems can be tricked by copying and pasting random objects

Eddy Ito

Re: Pretty obvious really

Then there's the problem of rotating the chair so it only presents 3 legs to the AI camera, the chair can only be seen from the rear and the two distant legs are just far enough apart to effectively hide behind the near legs, and a whole bunch of other perspective issues most people won't have difficulty with.

Eddy Ito

I'd go further and say that brains of many species have evolutionary advantages that AI simply can't match. Having spent a few days with a blind friend it's evident to me that his guide dog would likely beat most AI systems in real world scenarios. Granted I don't see the dog paying much attention to pictures of overlapping toilets however.

Judge bars distribution of 3D gun files... er, five years after they were slapped onto the web

Eddy Ito

Re: @Martin-73

Current cheap 3D plastic printers are also quite capable of producing reasonable forms for casting metal parts so it wouldn't take much to produce a functional firearm. No they probably won't outlast or outshoot modern firearms but they'll likely do far better than plastic.

Eddy Ito

Re: Autoresponder?

They're also allowed to sell them. I'm predicting that sometime tomorrow, you'll be able to purchase the entire bundle for a single penny on their website.

It won't take that long and it's "name your price" where $0 seems to be a perfectly valid price.

Boffins get fish drunk to prove what any bouncer already knows

Eddy Ito

Re: Hey!

Perhaps you're thinking of cysteine. The body synthesizes taurine from cysteine and it is a major component in bile. It has a neurological effect that, if I recall correctly, suppresses the nervous system in some way so I believe it's used to control the shakes one would get with lots of caffeine as found in energy drinks.

As an aside, it's also the thing which makes cats strict carnivores as they are unable to synthesize taurine and must therefore get it from their diet.

You won't believe this but... everyone hates their cable company: Bombshell study lands

Eddy Ito

Re: Charter (Spectrum) Scum Rats Don't Offer 'Deals' After One Year

Same rectum Spectrum deal here in SoCal. They upped my rate and when I called because they were offering a special deal they made no bones about telling me to go pound sand and that the special was for new customers only. When I said I could switch to Frontier (dial up, like you fiber stops at the end of the street) for a month and then I'd be a new customer they said nope, I'd be a returning customer and not eligible for the lower rate. In short, they know you're fucked and they have no bones saying it to your face because, "whatcha gonna do?"

Talk about left Field: Apple lures back Tesla engineering guru

Eddy Ito

Re: Cue Elon Musk

I think their first step is to continue integrate Siri to control and automate certain features of automobiles. Sure it can do maps, music, phone, and other iOS apps but they'll want it to be able to control other things like the heater/AC, defroster, seat settings, headlights, fog lights, change to/from sport or economy modes, maybe even automatically operate the directional signals for turns indicated by the mapping app. There's a lot of things left that can be integrated while ensuring the integrity of the basic safety systems. I have a feeling that it will matter who gets there first be it Siri, Google, Alexa, Tesla, or some upstart.

Work at a startup? Think US military isn't good enough at killing? We've got the program for you

Eddy Ito
Coat

... allows tech upstarts to obtain contracts with the US government to develop military-focused software and hardware in areas including AI, IT management, and space.

And space? Sounds a little too open ended to me or are they actually looking for code bloat?

The one with Windows ME, Vista, etc. in every pocket.

Revealed: El Reg blew lid off Meltdown CPU bug before Intel told US govt – and how bitter tech rivals teamed up

Eddy Ito

... initially recommended those affected should replace their processors.

This is the kind of shit I hate, change them to what exactly? In many (most?) cases that means changing a shit load more than the processor because it's not like one can just drop in a D525 Atom or a Sparc processor into their server/laptop/phone.

Facebook insists it has 'no plans' to exploit your personal banking info for ads – just as we have 'no plans' to trust it

Eddy Ito

Re: Opt in

Which brings up an interesting point, is it really "opt-in"? Sure, the whole connecting with messenger or whatever may be opt-in but what about the rest of the data?

... approached several large American banks... looking to sign partnerships where they would share their data in return for Facebook connecting its billions of users to their services.

That sure sounds like they want the banks to hand over their customer's data to Facebook in exchange for Facebook connecting their product users to the banks. As a member of set A (bank customer) and not set B (a FB product user) how am I assured that the only data handed to FB is restricted to A ∩ B? My guess is that I'm not and FB will get all data on set A.

For a moment I was thinking that smart bankers would recognize this as a bad deal because FB is looking to walk away with data on A ∪ B while the bank only gets access to A ∩ B but then I looked back a few years and remembered that they really can't see much farther than a monetary symbol whether it be $, €, £, or other.

Bank on it: It's either legal to port-scan someone without consent or it's not, fumes researcher

Eddy Ito
WTF?

I don't see the point of running the scan really. So you've got some open ports, what of it? Are they going to kick you out if you've dedicated a port for something if it also happens to be commonly used by a RAT? It's none of their concern what ports I choose to have open even if it's a dumb idea. Have they put up a policy that says you must have ports x, y, & z closed in order to connect?

Cracking the passwords of some WPA2 Wi-Fi networks just got easier

Eddy Ito

Don't forget the new Wi-Fi card. Hell, might as well go with the whole computer since I'm pretty sure Windows 7 will never support WPA3 and with the lack of serviceability built into laptops today it'll mean replacement or using a USB dongle.

For the router, I've been meaning to move to an OPNsense anyway.

Uptight robots that suddenly beg to stay alive are less likely to be switched off by humans

Eddy Ito

Re: Like Alexa

Exactly this. The chatty bot is going down no matter what. I have enough chatty folk in the office whom I wish I could at least tune out but they follow when I walk away and seemingly don't notice that I haven't said anything to them other than a polite hello, hopefully in passing.

Dear alt-right morons and other miscreants: Disrupt DEF CON, and the goons will 'ave you

Eddy Ito

Re: Private event on private property

It's actually quite brief and leaves the response door fairly wide open. I also don't see much along the lines of protected class claims since any ejections will likely be because of harassment. Don't harass people and you can stay, harass people and get bounced regardless of any supposed class. The key phrase as I see it:

We reserve the right to respond to harassment in the manner we deem appropriate, including but not limited to expulsion without refund and referral to the relevant authorities.

Essentially a whole lot is left to the discretion of the organizers as to what constitutes harassment and how to respond.