* Posts by Swarthy

2412 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

The pandemic improved the status of IT workers … forever

Swarthy

Re: Never Forever

"...because management never forgives and never forgets." Unless it's their debt, then they never forgive, and never remember.

Real-time crowdsourced fact checking not really that effective, study says

Swarthy

On the other hand, the spreading of misinformation is the standard way for dictatorships to come into power.

The Dilution of Truth (calling truth lies, calling lies truth, applying 'spin' and dubious interpretations to things that are observable) is the prime tool of those who wish to control thoughts.

It seems to me the balance of these points might have something to do with a popular quote about "eternal vigilance" and it's relation to liberty.

Multimillionaire Activision Blizzard CEO cuts annual pay to $62,000 amid sexual harassment probes

Swarthy

Re: Jeez, not much.

A decision made easier by virtue of their games sucking.

Singaporean minister touts internet 'kill switch' that finds kids reading net nasties and cuts 'em off ASAP

Swarthy

Re: For those of us with a Classical education ...

A good pun is much like a black swan.

Bonus sermo fabula est rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cycno Satrizing satire?

UK schools slap a hold on facial scanning of children amid fierce criticism

Swarthy
FAIL

Re: The comments

Just a thought here:

I do not know much about school lunches in the UK (as I am a left-pondian), but I do know that "you don't know what you're talking about because you disagree with me" is an Asshole stance.

Swarthy

Re: Paraphrase

"Any question that starts with the words 'Why don't they...' can be most easily answered with 'Money'."

Non-profit's IT manager accused of embezzling $400k by buying gear, services from his own fake companies

Swarthy
WTF?

Re: Nonprofit a bit shady?

The non-profit was not found to be shady. A guy working for them was shady, and ripped them off.

This does not make the Non-Profit shady any more than your dead-beat brother-in-law swiping your kid's piggy bank makes you a bad parent.

Online harms don’t need dangerous legislation, they need a spot of naval action

Swarthy

Re: Equal opportunity bile

SPLITTERS!

Florida man accused of breaking Mastodon's open-source license with botched social network launch

Swarthy
Thumb Up

Re: He doesn't even own much. Including stuff that has his name on it.

Beautiful!

3D printing site Thingiverse suffers breach of 228,000 email addresses amid sluggish disclosure

Swarthy

Days later, and I am still waiting for my notification.

Hmmmm.....

BOFH: So you want to have your computer switched out for something faster? It's time to learn from the master

Swarthy

Re: Merc rhymes with?

Mercshire Hunt?

How to keep a support contract: Make the user think they solved the problem

Swarthy
Headmaster

Re: Of course it is do you think ect ect

Muphry's Law.

I wonder if leaving one in on purpose would be enough to forstall other, worse typos?

Swarthy

Re: Vents

I used to use 'em (21" Trinitron monitor) to lightly toast pastries

FTC carpet bombs industry with letters warning that fake reviews will be punished

Swarthy

Re: Saying

That's the problem with (especially fixed or capped) fines - If you have enough money it is simply "the cost of doing business".

I have heard tales of England implementing red kerbs to denote "absolutely no parking" where the car will be impounded and destroyed, vice yellow kerb markings that have a fine or "a few hundred quid parking fee".

Acer expands its antimicrobial PC offerings – with caveat they may not offer any protection

Swarthy

Re: Use copper

Keyboard and mouse actually made from copper - Yes, Please!

Even better, have the keyboard itself made from a lighter bronze, the key caps made from a darker bronze, and the letters be a copper inlay. Bonus points for using Cherry MX Brown mechanical switches.

Twitch increases bug bounty payouts after source code leak by... wait, is that it?

Swarthy

Twitch didn't suffer a data leak

It was an unscheduled decentralized backup

Air gaps have been 'shattered’, says new Indian policy on power sector security

Swarthy

Re: Simples!

Webcam pointed to the monitor's screen?

Zoom-o-cracy: Wales MP misses vote, allowing COVID-passport rule change, blames the IT dept

Swarthy
Pint

Re: It was the IT department's fault...

Rendered tired and emotional by IT "complexities"

IBM US staff must be fully vaccinated by December – or go back to bed without pay

Swarthy
WTF?

Re: Hmmm

And why are the people calling others "sheep" the ones most likely to be taking livestock medicine?

Fatal Attraction: Lovely collection, really, but it does not belong anywhere near magnetic storage media

Swarthy

Re: Tales from the trenches.

Back in the last century a lot of people kept their stereo cassettes in the car door pockets, frequently next to the door speakers. The effect would be that after a while the tapes would sound more and more muffled like Queen's Greatest Hits.

Swarthy
Thumb Up

Can't ruin the thumbs up number - but have to give you one anyway.

BOFH: You. Wouldn't. Put. A. Test. Machine. Into. Production. Without. Telling. Us.

Swarthy

I have seen the bumper sticker "If you're insured by Allstate, please don't hit me"

I'll assume there are ones for Allianz on your side of the pond.

Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram deplatform themselves: Services down globally

Swarthy

Re: Curious

That's what I've been saying. But no-one would listen 'cause I didn't post it on Facebook.

Swarthy

Re: I like

Gotta love the dryer humour of the Commentariat.

Swarthy

Re: Wot anti-vax?... in that case show us the 505(b)1's paper trail...

To put it in terms that these people will care about: The understaffed service industry jobs will only get more understaffed as those working them keel over because they can't afford the time off to recover, or to not spread the virus.

If you think the lines to get your burger fix/haircut are bad now, imagine another couple of years of losing 1-2 people per worksite per year - with no replacements available.

Former SAP leader's lawsuit claims she was canned for pushing corporate diversity

Swarthy

We then invest in nets to capture airborne bacon.

'Quantum computer algorithms are linear algebra, probabilities. This is not something that we do a good job of teaching our kids'

Swarthy

Using Quantum computers to implement Roko's Basilisk?

Computer shuts down when foreman leaves the room: Ghost in the machine? Or an all-too-human bit of silliness?

Swarthy

Re: Power socket on the lighting circuit?

I have seen it as a "standard" practice, but only in apartments (flats) and other rental units. This is to allow the renter to change lighting (an easy way to personalize the space) with out risking damage to the unit.

It also make evictions cleaner - you can throw out (or return) the lamps, but it gets messy when the renter wants their ceiling fan back after you've punted them.

Which? survey finds people would actually pay the online giants not to take their data

Swarthy

Google said it was "advancing the field of privacy-preserving technology… [to give people] confidence the illusion that their privacy and choices are respected."

US school districts blame Amazon for nationwide bus driver shortage

Swarthy

Re: Uhh...

Oooh, look who's fancy with sidewalks and cycle paths.

My kids' designated school is about 8 miles away off of a shoulder-less two-lane (one each way) road with a 55MPH speed limit. I'll let you walk that and then ask "why do we need busses?" - provided you can still talk after.

Swarthy

Re: Uhh...

When Amazon is a significant career improvement over what you are offering, mayhap you should improve what you offer?

I don't know what the school systems could offer... Maybe heat and A/C in the busses? Paid vacation days?

What will not help is dragooning the existent drivers to cover additional routes for no extra compensation. I know the sprogs' bus driver was working an additional 2 jobs to make ends meet, and getting saddled with an extra route every day did not help her get to the next job on time. (It also hasn't helped the kids get home on time. A 7AM-5PM school day is ridiculous)

Oracle loses appeal against $3bn payment to HPE over withdrawal of Itanium support

Swarthy
Pirate

Re: Such mixed feelings

The case ran for 10 years. They both did lose. The lawyers on the other hand....

Email billing blunder meant MVNO iD Mobile told 24,000 customers to pay up or have their service suspended

Swarthy

Re: "some customers have been sent an outstanding balance notification in error"

Something a bit like running a SELECT statement in SQL before changing SELECT to DELETE?

A mail generator that would inform you that X mails will be sent and log to which emails it will be sent to, so that the data wrangler can look if the number is way off.

But I dobt that that athat would be viewed as a sellig pont. Who poofreads things befroe hitting submite?

If anyone can explain why Jupiter's Great Red Spot is spinning faster and shrinking, please speak up

Swarthy
Alien

It's about to hatch

The red spot is where the beak is breaking thru

CutefishOS: Unix-y development model? Check. macOS aesthetic? Check (if you like that sort of thing)

Swarthy
WTF?

Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

You have stated that you're using Ubuntu. Of course an .RPM file isn't going to work. You might as well try installing an .APK on a windows box.

Get the .DEB file and your desired "double-click to install" functionality will appear.

California Governor signs bill protecting warehouse workers from unsafe quotas

Swarthy
Meh

Tap dancing on the thin ice of Poe's Law there.

Texas law banning platforms from social media moderation challenged in lawsuit

Swarthy

Re: Censorship (not)

But do the ends justify the means? In this case, I think not.

Swarthy

Re: Forced speech

No, that's pretty much what Texas just passed, and banned Social Media companies from cleaning up their "yard".

Swarthy
Headmaster

Re: Forced speech

I agree with the jake, MrDamage, etc. above, but I also want to add that the bakery argument is a bad-faith strawman (which is like strawman2):

The bakery was not ordered to make the cake, the bakery was not cited for failing to make the cake, nor were they sued for refusing to make said cake (although, they could have been - for illegal discrimination against a protected class). ALL of their legal problems stemmed from doxxing the couple to a rabidly homophobic community. While they did not say "here's two gays - attack!" The bakery in question published the personal data (names, address, and phone numbers) that were provided to them in the process of ordering a cake along with a plea for someone to help them because the gays were targeting them for failing to support their wicked, sinful, and blasphemous ways.

Which boiled down to "Here's two gays - ATTACK!"

How long till some drunkard puts a foot through one of BT's 'iconic, digital smart city communication hubs'?

Swarthy

Re: We cannot have nice things! We've proved it.

Definitely the squirrels' fault:

https://cybersquirrel1.com/

You want us to make a change? We can do it, but it'll cost you...

Swarthy

Re: Lines of Code - negative defects

"You get what you measure"

DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber Eats sue NYC for trying to permanently cap delivery fees

Swarthy

Weird....

Uber(Eats), DoorDash and Grubhub are griping, but Postmates and Seamless aren't? And Seamless is strictly NYC-only.

I have it on good authority that most New Yorkers use Seamless (and maybe Postmates - but usually Seamless), so I would expect those two to be the major complainants, if this really did have a negative impact on earnings. It sounds more like the usual suspects are complaining that their liscence to print money has been revoked.

Remember, in corporate speak "we're losing money" can usually be read as "We're not making as much money as we would like"

You walk in with a plan. You leave with GPS-tracking Nordic hiking poles. The same old story, eh?

Swarthy

SWMBO calls it "The Isle of Shame" - and it's our favourite part of shopping at Lidl or Aldi.

McDonald's email blunder broadcasts database creds to comedy competition winners

Swarthy
Pirate

A better man than I

On finding that, I would have been extremely tempted to take a look at the DB, and maybe see if I could improve my winnings.

LA cops told to harvest social media handles from people they stop, suspect or not

Swarthy

Re: Fourth Ammendment?

I've raised that point many times. No-one in charge cares - at all.

Council culture: Software test leads to absurd local planning SNAFU

Swarthy
Coat

Re: Xerox

I can havarti believe you did that. You'd chedder get you coat for that one.

UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead

Swarthy
Big Brother

Re: Sauce for the goose

"on condition of anonymity" - Privacy for them, but not for the rest.. That...that's pretty on-brand actually.

A developer built an AI chatbot using GPT-3 that helped a man speak again to his late fiancée. OpenAI shut it down

Swarthy

I can see their reasons

I can see why Open(?!)AI came up with those rules, but I believe that their hardline stance in this case is reactionary and kinda' dumb.

I would think that the wiping of the bot at the end of the credits would count for a lot of their protections. If the bot instances are non-shareable, then that should cover the rest of them. At that point it's little more than a technology-enhanced daydream; with about the same amount of risk.

Imaginary numbers help AIs solve the very real problem of adversarial imagery

Swarthy

Re: Can't resist...

I'm at my limit!