Posts by Fred Flintstone

Re: If you want to see the scary bit ..

Bizarre uses of facial recognition? In public toilets there you have to look at the camera for 3 seconds in order for toilet paper to be dispensed.

Does that also work with a strained face (on account of the specific circumstances)?

:)

Re: Lack of engagement with disable people

You may have just given Apple an argument for poor battery life.

:)

Re: Not only Apple in the EU's sights

They'll do Google AFTER they have finished Google-ing for evidence in the first two cases.

They're not silly :).

True, that's nothing to be sniffed at.

That said, you'd have to stop them even coming up the driveway to fully prevent such, er, "deposits"..

Re: shambles.gov.uk/2020-05-27#huawei

"Yes Minister" was a documentary..

Re: DWDM on a chip

I just want to see where they'll fit this on a shark, being this small..

It has ceased to be..

Ironically that reminds me more of the fantastic rib the Not The Nine O'Clock News crew pulled on the Pythons in the days of the "Life of Brian" controversy (which was IMHO indeed as idiotic as a clearly frustrated John Cleese was considering it).

Re: Same as the Nebraska meat packing plants

No, you TOUCH it, that's why it's called packaging, and that's why the incessant hand washing is so essential.

Re: This will actually be useful...

On the plus side, it teaches them early how to bypass al this nonsense.

Kid filtering is the modern version of the VCR clock blinking "12:00"

For the rest I couldn't agree with you more.

Re: Ah, ye olde tricks to ID machines..

Despite the DO NOT SWITCH OFF label on the socket and DO NOT DISCONNECT on the plug

That's just about the surest method I know to achieve the opposite. This could be a worthy attempt at an Ig Noble prize: checking what would happen if you used a label "KEEP THIS OFF, absolutely DO NOT LEAVE CONNECTED". I suspect it would peel off from old age before anyone touched that.

Re: Of course you've got to know what you're looking for

Ah, that explains why U2 never went into the spy business..

Re: DIMM Slots

That's part of it.

The full one, just for reference:

Measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk and cut with an axe.

If it doesn't fit, use a larger hammer and if it breaks, it needed replacing anyway.

Re: Thanks for reminding me...

Even SCSI was never this bad!

Oh yes it was, and don't get me started on terminators which did indeed terminate, just not as intended.

I need a drink now. No, just leave the bottle, thanks.

Re: I Would be grateful if You could find a New Photo of the Ineffable Bezos

.. need .. more .. upvotes.

LOL

Re: limit their communications to good old pen and paper.

stone, a chisel and a hammer

I think we want to avoid putting anything dangerously heavy in those hands. Quills and ink are fine, thanks.

Re: Huawei horror story!

They are the only telecoms vendor who have had their code inspected in this way.

.. as opposed to, say, 100% of US sourced gear. I find the disparity more revealing than anything else and it suggests it has really zip to do with security, more of protection of another kind.

The kind we really can do without.

Re: How long before his site is DoS'd or forced to be taken down?

I think that classes as exceptional rare honesty amongst a career where only now the number of Covid19 victims is surpassing the number of lies he has told (he's past 18.000 now).

Re: Spam spam spam spam

he's probably one of the more switched-on ministers

Now THERE is a concept: could we fit some with an off switch?

Re: Only in England the source of the Skripal fantasy would this title fly

Thank you for ending the week with what I consider a Comment Of The Week.

Well done, and yes, I had to reread that too as I initially thought I still had too much blood in my coffee stream..

Re: Trade deal?

And so, yet again, we reach for the mind bleach.

:)

That Microsoft et al have convoluted and possibly conflicting privacy statements doesn't surprise me. I would like to refer you to this rather excellent Freefall cartoon which describes the situation beautifully IMHO.

That said, when it comes to confusion I still think that Adobe remains a strong number one regarding complicating the access to legal statements. What they cooked up is award winning as requires *serious* effort to find the bit of data that applies to you - I'm assuming the idea is to make people give up halfway through their search.

If you're interested in these matters I would suggest a visit to Google's archive of previous statements, because it allows you to see which words Marketing has changed to more benign appearing texts. The words "into perpetuity", for instance, have been replaced with text that means the same, but appearing more benign.

Re: An oil drilling rig (file photo)

both have similar aerodynamic properties.

... aand I have found my Comment of the Week. Thanks :)

More than a few democracies try to head that way too.

I think we can safely call them former democracies..

Re: different colors

I had an orange one :)

Re: @notathome

Yes, it's the same story.

In a nutshell: Swiss company Crypto AG wasn't as clean as Swiss manufactured gear normally is, it had been backdoored by the Americans.

This is why you cannot trust gear whose manufacturer does not expose themselves to public testing and validation - which is what Huawei has done, but Cisco not. Hence the amused snorts heard from security specialists worldwide when US people declared Huawei to be unsafe and that the world should use US gear.

Caveat: those evaluations have a limited lifespan, though, you're but one unevaluated update away from a backdoor and you only have to look at the entries for the obfuscated C contest to see what evaluators are up against. It's a job for people far more persistent than I will ever be :).

Re: Worlds tiniest violin

Tax deductible, of course

:)

Re: Drawback....

Been binging on Black Adder episodes again?

:)

Re: So..

Methinks your sarcasm reservoir is empty.

As it is Friday, could I suggest you refuel it at the nearest pub?

Screenshots :)

Oh, the last time I moved I just put all the power blocks in one box.

I think I had about 20 of them, couldn't believe it myself.

Re: I was thinking of buying one myself

Judging by the ever increasing power demands of smartphones you will have to bite that bullet at some point anyway.

:)

Re: social impact organizations?

Cynical, and oh so correct..

Re: Out of curiosity ...

Having said that Esperanto was a universal language and hardly anyone uses that.

Ah, that explains the lack of an .esperanto TLD.

Also telling: there is actually a .fail :)

Given Trump's general scientific knowledge I reckon it would not take much to make this about cheese..

We'll end up at micro-fest, next iteration nano-fest..

Re: Soon-

Who isn't?

:)

AFAIK, 2% is on the high side - I've seen figures somewhere that were more like 0.5%. That said, there's a still a rather massive gap between 2% and 98%, also because the resulting waste has a half life measured in hundreds of years, not the galactic times of standard fissile waste.

So, simpler mechanism with far less demanding safety measures and FAR better fail safe processes, supports non-proliferation as it doesn't cook up kaboom plutonium, easy to obtain fuel (because it's a "waste" product of rare earth mineral mining) which needs very little enrichment AND it gradulaly chews away at the mountains of existing nuclear waste because it needs some to start the reaction: I honestly cannot see why someone would want to run a uranium based reactor for power anymore. Maybe a small breeding one to create elements for Xray gear and (inevitable) the plutionium stuff for bombs, but for power, this seems to be so far beyond what we do at the moment that it would be insane to continue down that road.

Oh, wait. Unless you're the one making profit off the fuel and the waste management, of course..

Re: Better here...

I'm in shape. Round IS a shape.

:)

Re: Trustworthy?

Ah yes, polluting the well. I like your thinking.