* Posts by Someone Else

3577 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Dec 2009

Trump's official campaign website vandalized by hackers who 'had enough of the President's fake news'

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@ AC -- Re: A sign of the times

If you really plan to vote for suicide I suggest you don't bother and jump out of a window instead - it's quicker.

…and less collateral damage...

Researchers made an OpenAI GPT-3 medical chatbot as an experiment. It told a mock patient to kill themselves

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Re: Curious

in the meantime, use it for what it is: an experimental tool toy with limitations.

There. FTFY.

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Re: Given its data source...

However, given it is capable of churning out vaguely comprehensible English and can string several sentences together in a way that seems logical indicates that, if instead given a more refined database limited to a particular context, could produce something vaguely useable in that context.

Sounds quite like how tRump creates his twats er....tweets.

Big Tech's Section 230 Senate hearing was like Jack Dorsey’s beard: An inexplicable mess that needed a serious trim

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Re: Engineers

And what "profession" might that be? I would propose that sanitation workers ("dustmen") might be one of the few that meet that qualification.

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Amen.

After over four hours of this, it was hard not to conclude that the greater threat to democracy is the senators themselves.

This.

Touchscreen holdout? This F(x)tec Pro1 X phone with sliding QWERTY keyboard might push your buttons

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\me likes!

Count me in as one of those antediluvian "holdouts". My poor old Kyocera keyboarded soapbar is, alas, ready to die, and quite frankly, I don't care if its been 13, or 113 years since the iPhone was foisted upon us. I use a phone for making phone calls and texts, not as a status symbol or mechanism for keeping up with the Jones's. And that it supports LineageOS and will soon SailFish makes it even more attractive.

Palo Alto Networks threatens to sue security startup for comparison review, says it breaks software EULA

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Re: Boot was on the other foot not long ago..

"Corporate memory" (assuming that is not an oxymoron) Is purely transactional -- much like our current President's memory is.

Linux 5.10 to make Year 2038 problem the Year 2486 problem

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Re: Linux kernel

After much digging through the Linux include files, you can see that the time_t type on 64 bit kernels is defined as __SYSCALL_SLONG_TYPE, which appears to be a signed long integer. On x86_64. this is 8 bytes, or 64 bits.

It's been like this in the kernel for a long time (can't be arsed to go back through the kernel history).

And yet, they're still using signed time_t's, when a negative time_t value is invalid.

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And also, of course, it took extra time to execute, which mattered with real-time systems.

Real-time COBOL?!? Shirley, you jest.

Iran sent threatening pro-Trump emails to American Democrats, Russia close behind, says US intelligence

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Re: QAnus

"News stories" from sources like Fox Noise and OAN do not count.

Well, maybe they do, but only to 10...maybe....

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Re: SPF

So... how does sunblock keep the Proud Boys (or their ilk) at bay?

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Re: The thing that shocked me

"Voting Preferences" is a euphemism for party affiliation, which is part of one's voting record (in many states, it determines which party's primary you get to vote in).

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Re: the emails also made claims about America's "entire voting infrastructure"

I don't remember that with previous POTUS - even Reagan?

Well, OK, you're from outta town. Perhaps you should read up on Moscow Mitch's "taco counter meeting", where he plotted to make Obama a one-term president

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Pint

Re: QAnus

"QAnus" Love. It. For you, my friend! - - - - ->

Can I use it?

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“As we enter the last weeks before the election, we urge every American – including members of the media – to be cautious about believing or spreading unverified, sensational claims related to votes and voting," [Rubio and Warner] said in a statement.

Well, were we to follow that sage advice, we'd ignore everything that has been uttered by the Orange-utan for the last year and a half.

Waddya think the chances are that Rubio actually meant that?

Let’s check in with that 30,000-job $10bn Trump-Foxconn Wisconsin plant. Wow, way worse than we'd imagined

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Re: Tech where you need an engine block heater? Are you kidding me?

Now, North Dakota, on the other hand....

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@IceC0ld --

HOW can the legislature STOP the access to information about this ?

Welcome to your 21st-century (Banana) Republican Party!

Legality? Yeah, we've heard of it....

Will there be no end to govt attempts to break encryption? Hand over your data or the kiddies get it, threaten Five Eyes spies

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@Dr. Syntax -- Re: Put your money where your mouth is.

Instead of complaining nobody will do it for you commission someone to provide software to do this.

Hello, Doctor. I like this. In fact, how 'bout we up the ante a bit? We'll use this mythic software to encrypt the account number of some bank account that holds 1000 bitcoin, and a verified copy of the pee-pee tape. Should1 this be cracked, the cracker gets to keep the 1000 bitcoin, and may distribute the pee-pee tape as s/he sees fit, without any recrimination.

(What do you set the over/under as to the amount of time it will take to "prove" this software as not secure?)

1Read: When.

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Coat

@Mike 137 -- Re: Realism?

I seem to remember an Australian PM who said something on this topic on the lines of "we don't obey the laws of mathematics here, we obey the laws of Australia".

Wasn't this PM born in Indiana?

After Trump, Congress, Supreme Court Justice hit out at tech giants' legal immunity, now FCC boss wants to stick his oar in, too

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Coat

Re: held accountable

Come on everyone, recite the pledge with me:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under Trump, indivisible, with liberty and justice only for rich white Republicans.

There FTFY. How could possibly believe that "one Nation under Trump" could possibly be indivisible?!?

Saaaay, yer not from 'round heah, are ya?

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From the Department of Redundancy Department:

From the article:

[...] removal of a dubiously sourced New York Post story about Hunter Biden, [...]

"[D]ubiously sourced New York Post story" is rather redundant, donchathink?

Comcast’s president of tech falls offline while boasting about how great cable is for connectivity

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Karma is a thing.

(See heading...)

Five Eyes nations plus Japan, India call for Big Tech to bake backdoors into everything

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Re: They don't explain how, they never do

Do they know something about prime number mathematics that the rest of the world doesn't?

Depends on whom you ask. If you as the Stable Orange'utan, I'm sure he will tell you he does.

But then, everything he says is a lie, so bring a salt shaker to the conversation.

British Army develops AI shotgun drone with machine vision for indoor use

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Re: What could possibly go wrong?

This is all about not putting any more human beings into danger unnecessarily, so long as they are behind the drone. We don't really give a flying fuck if they are in front of the damn thing.

There, FTFY

Like I said elsewhere in this forum:

Breonna Taylor, V1.1

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Re: Doors

Breonna Taylor, V1.1

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Re: What could possibly go wrong?

Which is, of course, where the MoD got the idea in the fist place.

"I saw it wit me own eyes, Guv'nuh, so I know it wuhks!"

With H-1B workers not exactly rushing to America this year, Uncle Sam plans to spend millions home-growing IT staff

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Re: WFH

Doesn't matter if someone is 20 or 200,000 miles from the office or what country anyone is in these days.

Yeah, it does if Comcast is your ISP....

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Erm...huh?

The US Department of Labor (DoL) is offering $150m to train up unemployed Americans in IT and cyber-security in an effort to plug the skills gap caused by the Trump administration’s work visa clampdown.

Kieran, I'm rather stunned that you would parrot this tripe. As any fule nose, there is no "skills gap", there is only a "greed gap"; the industry simply doesn't want to pay American wages to American workers, when they can pay slave wages to indentured bods who are beholden to a particular company for their very existence in the Land of the Free™.

Even if the program does work and DoL-funded programs release sufficient numbers of qualified US workers to cover the shortage gap caused by visa restrictions, it is still unlikely to satisfy tech giants who proudly use their vast resources to pull in the world’s best programmers and then pay them high wages in order to stay one step ahead in the global IT market.

I do hope I missed the <sarcasm> tag here, because if you really believe this, you are either smoking something really strong (in which case, I want some), or you're Jeff Bezos, and I claim my $5.

Windows to become emulation layer atop Linux kernel, predicts Eric Raymond

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Thumb Up

Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

Two upvotes from me in a row, bob. You're on a roll!

Bad news for 'cool dads' trying to bond with their teens: China-owned TikTok and WeChat face US download ban by Sunday

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<background_music>Here I come to save the DAAAAY!</background_music>

One needs to look at this through the lens of the Orange-utan's hyperinflated ego.1 Here is a homemade (and ham-fisted...but what other type of action is tRump capable of?) photo-op when at the last possible minute, he <background_noise type="swoosh"> swoops in </background_noise> and saves the day for pre-pubescent teens (and adults with the mentality of pre-pubescent teens) throughout the 48 states! Hurrah!

1Ewwww! I'll never be able to get that image out of my head!

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Truth in advertising...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Republican Party has demonstrated the means and motives to use these apps what ever means necessary to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the U.S,” said the American government agency in a statement earlier today.

There FTFY.

Behold the Bloo Screen of Death: Bathroom borkage stops spray play

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It's a street near Wrigley Field....

Ever found yourself praying to whatever deity runs Microsoft Teams? You're not alone

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Maybe MS should have tried getting the basics right before they moved onto the complicated stuff.

But...but...but...they can't get the basics right, either. So sure, why not try a triple Axel before learning how to skate in a straight line?

We want weaponised urban drones flying through your house, says UK defence ministry as it waves a fistful of banknotes

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Re: So... free guns!!??!

OK, so this may have been sarcasm. If it was, it's just not funny. If it is not, you're Donald tRump, and I claim my $5.

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Re: Perfectly safe

<pollyanna-voice>Weaponised drones in a civilian environment. I'm sure that will never, ever go wrong go wrong go wrong go wrong wrong wrong go.</pollyanna-voice>

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Pint

@IGotOut -- Re: Dystopian future

Icon says it all - - - ->

As if you needed another reason not to use Visual Studio, C++ extension for Visual Studio Code is live

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I dunno

QtCreator and/or CLion FTW. Either are more mature, more flexible, and are not from Micros~1 (3 great reasons to choose them over VSCode).

Tesco self-service separates innocent Reg reader from beer after collapsing into heap of Windows dialog boxes

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TLAs

The offending application might be an emission from POS flinger NCR [...]

I know that POS is supposed to mean Point Of Sale, but on this side of the pond, we also know it as meaning Piece Of Shit. In this context (regarding both Windows and NCR), that alternative interpretation fits well.

Vinyl sales top CDs for the first time in decades in America, streaming rules

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@ Mr Banana -- Re: You are all thieves

You are wrong about the 8-track cartridge, or maybe remembering something else. It had FF and rewind, and a button to change which of the 4 stereo tracks you wanted to hear.

You are 2/3rds right. FF and the track change button existed; there as no capability to rewind. That's because (as stated earlier in this thread) tape was pulled off of the hub to be played, and then deposited on the outside of the continuous loop after passing the heads. There was no way to get the tape to stuff itself back onto the hub1

1Well, at least not safely. Certain kinds of malfunctions would attempt to do that from time to time, resulting what was referred to in the industry as a "birds nest", also stretched tape and occasional broken loops. Nasty.

Classy move: C++ 20 wins final approval in ISO technical ballot, formal publication expected by end of year

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Re: @Stjalodbaer-- Object

I didn't ask you. (Unless, of course, your other handle is 'Stjalodbaer'....)

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@Stjalodbaer-- Re: Object

Like most programming languages, it has no formal logical or mathematical basis and is just a bundle of nostrums, as it seemed good in someone’s judgement.

So a language that can be formally defined by BNF " has no formal logical or mathematical basis", and is "just a bundle of nostrums"?

Wow! Just plain Wow...

So what constitutes a "formal logical or mathematical basis", in your nsHO?

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Re: C++ – never classy

Now here's the thing. People who have used such other languages and systems seem to be able to move on.

Yes, and they seem to have moved on to C and C++....

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Re: The old problem of the programmer perisope view of the world..

"Look! Actual code!"

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Re: C++ is great

It is you who miss the point. C and C++ are self-obsessed languages. You absolutely have to know what there is and why it might be marked deprecated or something softer. To understand C++, you must understand that.

Complete garbage. I believe I have a firm understanding of C++ (I've been using it successfully and commercially since '92, so were I to not have a firm understanding of it, I doubt that I would have been commercially successful with it). Yes, I do have to know the syntax of the language to use it, as would you of Eiffel, or whatever your chosen expression of perfection might be. But understanding the history of the changes? Bah. I just have to know how to use the language to achieve my goals. And I really don't give a flying fig about how it got there. YMMV, of course, but this way, I get my job done in a timely fashion, and my blood pressure remains manageable.

Oh, and "self-obsessed"? Puh-LEEZE! You have a lot of damn gall to project your personal opinion on the entirety of the ANSI and ISO standards committees. Methinks you overreach, my friend.

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Re: C++ is great

It is much more than that. You need to learn what to use and not use and that means understanding why it was there, or still is there.

No, you miss the point (and now I finally understand why you whine so much about C++ and revere academic oddities like Eiffel). You don't need to learn what to use, based on some abstruse history lesson. Rather, you need to learn when to use a feature, and by induction, when not to use it.

It's a different mindset, and one that may not be available to you.

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Re: The old problem of the programmer perisope view of the world..

In other words, Mr. Holier-than-thou AC(oward), Dan 55 has written working code. In C++. Multiple times1.

You might want to look at this to get some perspective..

1Well, to be fair, I do not know this for sure, but given the number of Dan 55's posts I've read over the years, I believe this is a very good assumption. I'm sure Dan 55 will correct me if I'm wrong....

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God, I'm glad I don't go near C++, it's increasingly getting to become such a nightmare that I don't even understand some of the new features at all.

Your peers are glad you don't go near C++, too. For the same reason.

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Oh, that we have that in Python....

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Re: Contracts

Seems like the ISO committee doesn't want to go off half cocked and turn C++ into another Eiffel. Forethought beats willy-waving any day of the week.