* Posts by Swarthy

2412 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009

Can we talk about Kevin McCarthy promising revenge if Big Tech aids probe into January insurrection?

Swarthy

Re: i.e. he confesses there is evidence

I think I stole "Talibangelicals" from the very pages.

Swarthy

Re: Lawmakers or lawbreakers?

Even more mind-breaking is that the guy saying that the government can't force records from private companies is representing the party that wrote the PATRIOT Act.

Spring tears down math geek t-shirt listing because it dared to mention the trademarked word 'zeta'

Swarthy

Re: Try one of those Cyrillic 'e's

I feel bad for poor Jacob whenever certain commentards need to find the jakes....

Swarthy

Re: Oi - Merkins

Even more silly as it was barely a civil war*, it was an Attempted Secession.

Made even sillier by the fact that the Revolutionary War was not a revolution, but rather a successful secession.

* as defined above

Swarthy

Re: "There's a song in there somewhere"

Nope, not Zappa, it was Zevon.

Oh! A surprise tour of the data centre! You shouldn't have. No, you really shouldn't have

Swarthy

Another Story

Please share! :)

Swarthy

Re: year 2000

Total Grievance Recall

Spraying a boot error up the bathroom wall

Swarthy

I should have expexted these comments

Of course the commentariat would take the piss.

Arms not long enough to reach the plug socket? Room-wide wireless charging is on the way

Swarthy

Re: Inverse square law

I wonder if they are using a phased-array approach to further reduce the impact of the inverse-square gremlins. although I don't think that would work with multiple charge-ees, but I Am Not An Electrical Engineer.

Swarthy

Only if you use them at 3AM in the morning. But avoid the ones in the Sahara Desert or Lake Tahoe.

Bonkers rocket launch sees craft slip sideways, barely climb and tear up terrain

Swarthy

Kerbal?

I've had launches like that in Kerbal...They need more boosters; or to wake up Jeb.

Apple's bright idea for CSAM scanning could start 'persecution on a global basis' – 90+ civil rights groups

Swarthy

Re: Apple has learned a lot from China

To be honest, both parties are authoritarian. Even US Libertarians are authoritarian. Not that the parties have authoritarian elements, or leanings, they are straight up authoritarian. The main difference is flavor of authoritarianism: Corporate or Government.

There is no non-authoritarian element in US politics; Bernie is as close as we get, and he's not that close.

Magna Carta mayhem: Protesters lay siege to Edinburgh Castle, citing obscure Latin text that has never applied in Scotland

Swarthy
Paris Hilton

Re: Sumption is wrong

Isn't Magners Carter the bloke that delivers the cider to the pub?

Swarthy
Coat

Re: Holy Progress

Protesters are always battered, assaulted and pepper(spray)ed. How else would they be (protected and) served?

Scalpel! Superglue! This mouse won't fix its own ball

Swarthy

Re: Ball crud

Logitech's darkfield mice (IR laser, as I understand) solves that, and the red mousepad issue. However, one particular (white(-ish)) table played merry hob with the mouse.

Swarthy
Paris Hilton

Re: Ball crud

Checking scrotes for balls, that sounds...medical and unpleasant.

Amazon Game Studios to its own devs: All your codebase doesn't belong to us

Swarthy
Flame

Re: The boring, but "skipped over" text is...

Approved, or Unapproved, It's my time, not the company's. If I use their IP in my personal project, that is my misdeed; if I create a competing product, using knowledge of what the company is doing, then If one developer an make a better product than the whole corporate, they deserve to lose business.

My time is My time. My employer has no more room to tell me what personal or hobby projects I can work on than they can tell me who to date. I see no difference between the employer claiming IP on personal project and them claiming my children. I didn't make either on company time, or using company resources, so they have no claim. The company is my employer not my owner.

Tired: What3Words. Wired: A clone location-tracking service based on FOUR words – and they are all extremely rude

Swarthy

Re: Veni, vidi, vici

What would you recommend for "Illegitimi non carborundum"?

Google staff who work from home might see pay cut under corporate policy – reports

Swarthy

Re: Absolute cunt's trick

Pay may be based on assumptions, but the employer is assuming the risk of assuming.

If I assume that I'll be working a 40 hour week and the contract did not state hours, and then my employer tells me I need to do an extra 5 hours of "business development", I am on the hook because of my assumptions.

If an employer assumes that 10% of my paycheck is for commuting, but it doesn't specify that in the contract, then they don't get to claim that 10% back if I telework.

Swarthy
Paris Hilton

WTF?!

"With many businesses struggling it is unsurprising that they will be looking for ways to cut costs." - What the Hell?!

The only way businesses are struggling right now is the lack of people willing to work customer-facing jobs for shite pay. Google is NOT one of those. Although, if they put this into effect, they may well become one.

I wonder if a well-placed VPN could report your tele-working place as Fisher Island (average income in 2018 of $2.2 million) and get a commensurate pay hike?

BOFH: 'What's an NFT?' the Boss asks. In this case, 'not financially thoughtful'

Swarthy
Thumb Up

Re: Thank you

This is one of the clearest explanations of NFTs I've seen.

Made even better by being funny.

8 years ago another billionaire ploughed millions into space to harvest solar power and beam it back down to Earth

Swarthy

Re: Yes, yeah.

wouldn't the "beaming power to earth via RF" almost have to be a MASER?

The main advantage to collecting in space is that you don't have to worry about atmospheric attenuation. "Beaming" the power to ground stations will have to go through atmosphere, so you need an intensity/frequency that renders that attenuation significantly less significant, so MASER.

Engineers' Laurel and Hardy moment caused British Airways 787 to take an accidental knee

Swarthy
Headmaster

Re: Murphy's Law revisited

Edward Murphy (the actual person) was exactly talking about this when he stated his eponymous law, espousing "Defensive Design".

Gung-ho tank gamer spills classified docs in effort to win online argument

Swarthy
WTF?

Re: In the public domain

The good ol' US of A - Where you WILL break several laws each day, because to avoid breaking a law, you must break another one.

We are all guilty (of something) which grants the police and courts a lot of leverage.

(what's a police state again?))

Impromptu game of Robot Wars sparks fire in warehouse at UK e-tailer Ocado

Swarthy
Coat

You can 'ave Ocado!

Teen turned away from roller rink after AI wrongly identifies her as banned troublemaker

Swarthy

Re: exhibit ingrained racist assumptions in the design

The point being made is less "the hardware/software is racist" and more "the development and testing were not conducted using subjects of varying skin tones, and as such are optimized to a fairly narrow band, and falls down when analyzing people of color." With the implication that Systemic Racism is the reason why the system was not sufficiently tested/developed against darker skintones.

Swarthy

Re: exhibit ingrained racist assumptions in the design

Or just use the HDR setting, which is exactly what it's designed for.

Try placing a pot plant directly above your CRT monitor – it really ties the desk together

Swarthy

Re: Most common fault was Magnets

True, I only have one monitor (at home) I use the laptop screen for the secondary.

At work I have two monitors, and use the laptop screen as the tertiary.

John McAfee dead: Antivirus tycoon killed himself in prison after court OK'd extradition, says lawyer

Swarthy
Stop

Re: Why was he in a Spanish prison?

Because it costs far more to stop being a citizen.

Ouch! When the IT equipment is sound, but the setup is hole-y inappropriate

Swarthy
Thumb Up

Re: She was trying to open the hinges.

So, If I ever start up a laptop company, I should make the logo mirrored on the X-Axis, so that it's upright for the user and the admirer.

Syria and Sudan turn off the internet to suppress ... cheating by kids sitting exams

Swarthy
Big Brother

Re: Seriously? To stop cheating?

Split the difference - Cell Jammer turned on during the exams. That is, if preventing exam cheating is the goal. If, however, the goal is to have an "acceptable" reason for turning off the internet to prevent/mitigate a popular uprising....

Algorithm used to predict sepsis in hundreds of US hospitals isn’t as good as maker claims — study

Swarthy

Having done some development in the medical field

Having done some development in the medical field I can attest that "ICD10 codes" is akin to "blockchain" in the buzzword scale.

Dozens of Iranian media websites devoured by the Great Satan, apparently

Swarthy
WTF?

Re: Pravda?

Given the state of USAian politics, I feel the need to ask for sources; but at the same time, I dread trying to read those sources.

Do you have any sources that are not OAN, Fox, or Qanon? - And the My Pillow Guy doesn't count.

Emergency mode? Bah! It takes a Microsoft product to really break a digital sign

Swarthy
Mushroom

Re: Interesting choice of words

Bugcheck may be a MS non-word, but I think it's an acronym:

Blue Ugly Gremlin, Crapped-out Hapless Electronic Computer - Knackered

Price-capped broadband on hold for New York State after judge rules telcos would 'suffer unrecoverable losses'

Swarthy

What they actually meant:

"The broadband industry is committed to appearing to be working with state and federal policymakers on sustainable solutions that will serve the needs of all low-income Americans. While well-intended, the state's law ignored the $50 monthly broadband discount subsidy Congress enacted already gives us, as well as the many commitments, programs and offerings that broadband providers have made promised for low-income consumers."

We've been shown time and again that strong encryption puts crims behind bars, so why do politicos hate it?

Swarthy
Pint

Re: "the kiloscrote bust"

And another for "crimmunity"

New York State Senate first to pass landmark right-to-repair bill – but don't go popping the Champagne just yet

Swarthy
Go

Anyone remember Haynes Manuals?

The ones I can find now (when I can find them) are about half the size they used to be, with ~1/4 the information.

This needs to happen.

Dealing with the pandemic by drinking and swearing? Boffins say you're not alone

Swarthy

Re: The 5 rules of problematic drinking

Does drinking coffee out of the carafe satisfy #3? If so, I may be a problematic coffee drinker. The only one I don't hit there is #4.

BOFH: Despite the extremely hazardous staircase, our IT insurance agreement is at an all-time low. Can't think why

Swarthy
Go

Re: When I read that

No.. that's the wrong acronym.

It would be something like "Cyber Actuarial Safety and Habilitation"

PrivacyMic looks to keep your home smart without Google, Alexa, Siri and pals listening in

Swarthy
Mushroom

Re: misses the point

I was cheering for them at first. A home automation that respects privacy, I can dig that. I read the article to figure out how they did voice commands while ensuring it didn't record/leak anything else. Imagine Experience my disappointment when I read that it doesn't do voice command, it also doesn't not-spy. This is some shit the cops would pull: "It's not recording voices, so we don't need a warrant".

Sure, it won't record your political opinions, or record the phone calls of an affair; but it will know that there are two people brushing their teeth whist one partner is out (it heard the garage door and the car leave).

'Universal Processor' startup Tachyum unveils full-system Prodigy emulator ahead of sampling later this year

Swarthy

...Or any evidence.

In this round of 'Real life or Black Mirror episode', drones that hunt down humans by listening to their screams

Swarthy
Black Helicopters

Well, Shit!

We all know the road that's paved with good intentions, and now these drones don't even need a road.

But I'm sure it's fine. These technologies will not come back to hunt, err, haunt us - at all. Nope. It's all good.

I just hope there's no SNIFFDRONE near-by, it would be able to find me after reading that article

Version 8 of open-source code editor Notepad++ brings Dark Mode and an ARM64 build, but bans Bing from web searches

Swarthy

Re: the text editor for granddads

NP++ plays very well with Wine, but I agree, I wish it ran native cross-platform.

Sold: €15k invisible sculpture that's a must-see for art lovers

Swarthy
Devil

Re: Should get a better dictionary

Counter-point: con-artist has "artist" right there in the name.

Activist millionaires protest outside Jeff Bezos' homes to support tax rises for the rich

Swarthy
Alert

Re: Tax avoidance costs

Ah, there's the disconnect. You are looking at "Income earners." The individuals that are drawing the ire here do not earn an income, thus pay no income tax. Dividends or profit generated by stocks are not income, they are "Capital Gains" and taxed at a much lower rate. Alternatively, they take out loans with their "paper" wealth as collateral. The loans are not taxed (not income), and by defaulting on the loan, the transfer of collateral is not taxed, as it wasn't sold, it was repossessed.

I have said it before, if you are getting a paycheck you are getting screwed.

Guy who wrote women are 'soft, weak, cosseted, naive' lasted about a month at Apple until internal revolt

Swarthy

Re: Tolerance

An analogy I saw once:

If you have an "Inclusive" petting zoo with wolves and lambs, soon you will have a petting zoo of only wolves.

Or to quote Heinlein: "We lived like that 'Happy Family' you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently."

Swarthy
Coat

Re: "I'm actually honest, self-deprecating, and funny"

Everything is matter to the universe, or else it's energy.

Ransomware victim Colonial Pipeline paid $5m to get oil pumping again, restored from backups anyway – report

Swarthy

Re: Once you pay the Danegeld. . .

Thus why they are restoring from (hopefully untainted) backups.

Swarthy

Re: The entire IT and " security " team

needs hired

Water's wet, the Pope's Catholic, and iOS is designed to stop folk switching to Android, Epic trial judge told

Swarthy
Pint

Re: Actually the Pope isn't Catholic.....

I thought all Popes were Discordian.

Wot? No Sacred Chao icon? For shame!