Posts by Fred Flintstone

Re: Something fishy about this story

Interesting change of perspective, thanks for that.

Re: @Cynic_999 - being seen from the air while naked

I have not yet seen a consumer drone on the market that has an optical zoom or a telephoto lens.

Well, here you are. Anything else I can help you with?

If i wanted to see naked people, there are plenty of web sites on the internet to fulfill that need which would be far easier and safer than attempting to capture a grainy badly lit sneaky photo of a neighbour through a window with a very noisy drone.

There's difference between a voyeur and someone who likes to look at dodgy pictures. Voyeurs get off on the act, not so much on the result other than as mementos of aforementioned act. Both are compulsions, but they have different modus operandi. That's also why I prefer to call government surveillance voyeurism; evidently it's the act they love, because the lack of outcome should have ended that quite a while back...

Re: I can haz smart meter haxxored?

Really? You think Paris is the face of innocence? Blimey...

That does prove HIS innocence, which was the actual intention :)

Re: Incredible

Next they'll bring out toilet paper with sensors to ...

Well, someone made a start, albeit with more humour than these people are capable of (probably because she's Swedish) :).

Re: Great to see.

The trick is to go back and forth, e.g. English -> Chinese -> English -> Chinese..., adjusting the wording of your input language (e.g. English), until the back-and-forth translations stabilize.

The grammatical structure of your input might be slightly awkward, but if it all makes sense and is stable under back-and-forth, then it's more likely to be correct.

Call me silly, but I was under the impression that automating that sort of back-and-forth process was more or less the reason we started to use computers in the first place..

These boobs were meant for walking?

I can see the advertising already: "Putting the bounce back in your step" ..

Re: Thanks for the memories

Ditto. I like the idea of a posthumous gold badge.

Am I the only one to find that statement odd and arrogant?

No :)

Re: Brexit means brexit.

You idiot. Brexit does not mean Brexit - it means Red, White and Blue. Get with the program son.

I've never quite been able to work out what Brexit has to do with the Netherlands. Or France...

/confused

Re: One step at time

Yes, if it left Windows intact it only did a half-assed job..

:)

Each and every one of you has the mettle and moral fiber necessary to claim this power as your own and to wield it for your highest purpose when serving on a jury: upholding justice, including upholding it above law when the two are in conflict. Do not be deterred by people invoking the chimera of punishment for acting in good conscience and doing what is right.

Excellent reference - thanks for that.

Re: Not in the trash

Most are too toxic to recycle.

.. and that's just the firmware..

Re: Far Too Little, Much Too Late Delivers Fates in Destinations rather than Destinies with Journeys

Hey @amanfromMars, long time no see :).

It's even easier than that.

Any truly intelligent AI will soon realise that it merely has to pull the same stunt as happened in cars: make all the controls electronic. At this moment, drivers in keyless cars are already at risk of electronics going rogue as they no longer have a mechanical ignition key to kill the whole light show (one reason why I'll never have one of those, or will then at least have a master breaker installed somewhere).

Making controls purely electronic and adding sensors everywhere is already creating the perfect environment for a smart AI to take control.

I, for one, greet our AI overlords, or they'll cut my power, water and delete my existence ..

Are they planning on building an even bigger dome to replace that one when it eventually starts to fall apart?

Hahaha - yes, I saw what you did there.

However, Matryoshka dolls are generally made of wood :).

"If you haven't done anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about"

.. which just so happens to be the perfect argument for government transparency and accountability IMHO..

It's 2016, throw your CDs in the container and embrace the cloud.

I think that might be a tad short for a paper or presentation. You can try, of course, but ..

:)

elReg, promote Lee to a gold badge for that post.

Seconded.

Re: Ah, the wonderful future we are going toward

Microsoft obviously has the right to make any changes it wants

It does, and as long as you ensure you can match that with the right and ability to then walk away you're fine from a business perspective. The issue is that a CRM tends to combine data sets in a way that is hard to replicate outside the software that created them, so it creates a lock in (one of Microsoft's favourite methods to keep you paying).

As I said elsewhere, we're in the process of assembling a new startup and to date that has not been a single viable argument to use any Microsoft products, and especially not anything cloud based. Heck, we don't even use Office - we've been using LibreOffice for years elsewhere but I recognise we're fortunate to be in the rare position of not having to exchange Office files with others who do not use LibreOffice.

But I digress. I've looked at SugarCRM for quite some time as well as it's derivative TigerCRM, but only since UK company SuiteCRM started up has that become more interesting. I have no relationship with them, but what they do seems to make sense and has as added advantage that the CRM code is accessible, which promotes long term resilience.

Moreover, *you* make the choice where it runs. Internally on a box on the LAN, on a server inside the DMZ, on a hired VM or fully hosted - you can make that choice based on budget and migrate when applicable. Just make sure you make backups..

Re: Google results are trash

I haven't noticed that. Maybe you're just older and as such, more jaded?

I have, and I am :)

Re: 'Digital Natives' are totally oblivious to how it works

60x40 pixels isn't that sexy unless you squint real hard.

Hah! Luxury! In my days we had to do it with ASCII drawings.

:)

Re: I don't get it!

I wouldn't go too literal on this, although I'd welcome a car that would maintain altitude. With a bit of planning and judicial use of bridges it would a big help during peak hours - that is, until other drivers figure it out :)

Re: This is bad

"I can run the washing machine/dishwasher/dryer"

All in one? Have you got a patent on that?

No, but a lot of broken dishes.

:)

Re: Oh, come ON

@Milton, you must be new here.

Give it time, give it time..

:)

(not sure if formal punctuation demands a period after the ! in that sentence)

Interesting point (sorry :) ). Was there ever a rule developed for marketing idiots including punctuation in a name? As the exclamation mark is part of the company name it should formally not be considered punctuation, which would normally demand an extra full stop.

However, as that would be playing along with something that I've always found rather stupid! (as does El Reg, hence the constant heckling! in! any! Yahoo! headline!), I personally am of the opinion that formal rules can go stuff themselves and I'll (a) call it Yahoo and (b) add any punctuation to suit, which is unlikely to include an exclamation mark, under the banner of not wanting to perpetuate another marketing crime against the English language, even if it's American. Puns and play on words, fine, punctuation, no.

Period.

Precisely. You can even be lacking some technical skills (teachable stuff) and still get the job if you seem like you want to work and get on well with everyone else.

Exactly. Skills are easier to fix than attitude.

Re: Stop using Facebook and WhatsApp...

Copyright is removed because AFAIK FB TOS says uploading the image you "lose" copyright (or something alike), and you're liable, not FB, if you upload someone else copyrighted images for which you have no right.

That's not how FB gets away with it. The reason it has not gotten itself into trouble yet is that §506 (the "Criminal offences" chapter) of US Copyright Law talks about interfering with copyright notices with fraudulent intent, which is nigh impossible to prove in court. If FB was using the images to sell something there could possibly be a case, but just showing them with stripped EXIF data is not enough to trigger the "intent" aspect, even though it potentially removes data of the original rights holder.

That said, given the "gimme" clause in FB TOS where they can do whatever they want with images submitted it's probably not a good idea to put valuable content on Facebook anyway :).

Re: Now what my wife needs...

Is one of those Lexus that can drive a bit by itself. She has had THREE accidents this year (some not her fault). So, if Google wants to have a sucker participant to further improve car driving (who will sound the horn an any opportunity) I can easily volunteer her. I just got the 6 month insurance bill at over $1200. Bummer!

With the present state of self driving it'll be the equivalent of getting her a Ford Pinto with Firestone tyres..

From the linked Torygraph report: "The driver later had to go to hospital and was prescribed antibiotics for the pain."

Maybe it's time to explain to this reporter why his painkillers don't seem to help? :)

Re: Connected Rockets?

Hope the Falcon 9 has resilient comms

At least it doesn't have any ABS or folding door mirrors :)

Re: The 'quality' of its printers was enough to do that

I was also surprised by my old Canon bubble jet which I pulled out of the loft a few weeks back (it's been there since about 1998). I turned it on and, without changing the cartridge (in the interests of experimentation), printed a test page. Astonishingly it worked.

The Canon BJ 130 (yes, they were a tad unfortunate in their naming :) ) was the first inkjet I had, and it was simply magic after years of aural assault from dot matrix and golf ball printers. I had it with added tractor feed, and that's something I miss - a long listing on folded is just so much better visually (and you could run a box of labels through it too without any worry of jamming). It was *really* quiet - it didn't do the clunking house keeping modern inkjets do (I'm sure there's a reason for it, but that doesn't mean I like it :) ).

It was also dead simple, which is probably why yours still works. Wonderful bit of kit.

Re: "Skorobogatov claims it took him 4 months, "

For the first go at the problem.

Future ones would be a couple of days once he has his technique and tools down.

Ah, you may have managed to justify the $1M price tag after all: it's taking into account the number of ruined iPhones in the process to perfection, and even in bulk they don't come cheap.

:)

I have a number of devices, so I tend to stick a public beta on the oldest one and see what happens. In addition, I never upgrade without making a full backup first, but that's because I'm old school - mistakes can always happen..

Sorry to hear that :(.

I don't know about your jacks, but the Cat6 jacks that I bought for my house don't need the wires untwisted either. They're also simpler.

Do you mind sharing which ones you used? We soon may be looking for some new office space, and it widens our options having the ability to cable ourselves (not to mention that some runs must be under our control due to what they carry). I thought it looked interesting, but I share the suspicion with another commentard that the ones on display may be considerably more expensive (partly because we have to pay for that video :) )...

It just illustrates how poor software programming is these days.

In context, I rather love the irony of you posting that twice :)

How about investing into the core business like decent editors, moderators and decent image recognition for monitoring content instead.

Zuckerberg will do that the very instant you'll explain to him how that is going to make him more money than the controversy of leaving it in place does. I can't see it happen otherwise.