* Posts by Meerkatjie

71 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2010

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You're all too skeptical of super-duper self-driving cars, apparently

Meerkatjie

Re: Behavior

I'm guessing you're not in London. I regularly see people stepping out into moving traffic if they think they have half a chance of making it across. I don't think that behaviour will be significantly changed by driverless/automated cars being the norm.

Today I saw 3 people make the same calculation for an oncoming bus; they all had to do the quick-step leap to safety when they all realised they had misjudged the bus' speed. No one else at the lights even blinked let alone tutted.

SPY-tunes scandal: Bloke sues Bose after headphones app squeals on his playlist

Meerkatjie

Do they warn you before you buy the headphones? I would be a bit miffed if I bought something and only found out afterwards that I needed to give away my personal details in order to use it properly.

Game authors demand missing ZX Spectrum reboot royalties

Meerkatjie

Re: I'm a little in between with this...

Sort of. In the fine tradition of UK law there are a lot of caveats. The code for the game can be treated as a literary work, the on screen representation as an artistic work, any animation can be considered film, and the soundtrack as music. In general a released game will be in copyright for 70 years from the date it was first published.

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/uk_law_summary has a list of the baseline durations for each type of work.

Google fumes after US Dept of Labor accuses ad giant of lowballing pay for women

Meerkatjie

Re: Correlation is not causality

https://hbr.org/2014/06/why-women-dont-negotiate-their-job-offers

Women get penalised more for negotiating a pay rise than men which is why women don't negotiate for pay rises more often. Men aren't inherently better at negotiating than women.

'Sorry, I've forgotten my decryption password' is contempt of court, pal – US appeal judges

Meerkatjie

Re: so Desperation

They already have machine that can read peoples thoughts - a lie detector - which people have been forced to use for years. It just happens that the detector is absolutely useless.

What would be your solution be in this case that balances the right of the individual against the right of the public? Whose rights should take precedence here - a person who is indirectly responsible for harm against children or the children?

To make this more grey and less emotive we can have a different scenario. Someone films themselves stealing something which they then toss/destroy so there is no evidence. The film is encrypted but the police have a fairly good idea what the film shows because the person mentioned they did something like it to their friends. Whose rights should take precedence - the person who stole or the person who was stolen from?

Meerkatjie

Re: Hashes of Encrypted files?

I think in this case it's more like getting a warrant to search. They have enough to show the judge that they should be given access but not enough to convict. In the case of houses they could just break down the door or drill out the locks but with encryption they have to rely on the person charged to open it for them.

Toxic Uber sued after driver allegedly tried to rape passenger in car

Meerkatjie

Re: Not an Uber fan, but

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/over-400-london-cab-drivers-charged-with-crimes-last-year-a3226396.html (2015)

NASA's Curiosity puts cat among the climate pigeons: Lack of CO2 sinks water theory

Meerkatjie

Water vapour is a short term greenhouse gas that relies on temperature and pressure to determine how much of it is active. CO2 and other greenhouse gases are not reliant on temperature and pressure to determine how much of it is active. That is the reason why we try to limit our CO2 production rather than our H2O production.

Water vapour could have been the greenhouse gas but then we would need something else driving the temperature and pressure up. Maybe Mars' core was a highly radioactive, short half-life, very dense element that artificially drove up the temperature and gravity but now no longer exists but was enough to cause water vapour to be the greenhouse gas.

God save the Queen... from Donald Trump. So say 1 million Britons

Meerkatjie

Re: People

When 100% have voted for the same thing otherwise it is the majority that have spoken. So what we should be saying in terms of the Brexit vote, is that a (slim) majority of people who voted on the referendum voted to leave the EU.

White House report cautiously optimistic about job-killing AI

Meerkatjie

I worked for a store that was trialling it about 10 years ago - everything would have a rfid and a narrow field scanner at the front of the store would guess at what you had bought and then update your store card with the total. You could literally grab something off the shelf and run out the door without interacting with anything. It never went anywhere because it was a little bit useless at being consistent enough (i.e. it gave too much away to the customers and sometimes the wrong customer) for them to use.

Meerkatjie

They replace fleshies - so they are beneficial for the company and minimally beneficial for anyone else

Parliament takes axe to 2nd EU referendum petition

Meerkatjie

Easy, we keep having the referendum until one or the other meets the grade since the result is not binding until it meets the threshold.

Meerkatjie

It wasn't the amount of money sent to the EU as the deductions and rebates were applied first.

Vanished global warming may not return – UK Met Office

Meerkatjie

I'm confused about the 'absence' of warming temperatures that the article mentions. I read the summary at the end of the linked report and it says that the global temperatures have been rising (not as fast as originally thought so research is ongoing) over the last couple decades.

The Pacific has been in a cool phase so has been damping some of the growth but it's likely to hit its warm phase in the next few years. The Atlantic has been in its warm phase and is likely to hit its cool phase in the next few years.

So my understanding is that temperatures will continue to rise because the AMO cooling will probably be offset by the PDO warming. The only scenario I can see where there will be an absence of rising temperatures would be if the AMO started cooling and the PDO stayed as it is.

Don't want to upgrade to Windows 10? You'll download it WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT

Meerkatjie

Re: Something Missing

This would explain why I got a warning the other day from my ISP saying I am about to exceed my download limit. I have 4 windows machines in the house and if they all downloaded the same files that's a lot of extra files that I don't really need.

Well, what d'you know: Raising e-book prices doesn't raise sales

Meerkatjie

Re: Shift to paper?

Last I heard the costs of paper vs e-book was pretty comparable as most of the costs are in the areas common to both rather than in the physical/virtual creation area.

Watch this cartoon on proposed new EU data rules – or you’re DOOMED. Maybe

Meerkatjie

Maybe he's not so much a boyfriend as a stalker who managed to see her name tag once?

Krebs: I know who hacked Ashley Madison

Meerkatjie

Re: Thunderstruck

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap

TXT message leaves Corvette wrecked

Meerkatjie

They do know but realised that it's expensive to make something good so decided to go with cheapness and faith that not enough bad stuff would happen to cause it to cost them more.

It's incredibly easy to bump someone off online, and here's how to do it – infosec bod

Meerkatjie

Re: Interesting, but...

I think it's more about how easy it is to do rather than it can be done. If the governments are going to entirely rely on online form filling and automated repercussions then they need to cater for rolling back when the systems make an error.

HTC caught storing fingerprints AS WORLD-READABLE CLEARTEXT

Meerkatjie

Re: Another proof that Android isn't secure

Only because Apple is not letting anyone else play in their playground. From the article it appears that Google did put something into Android that would have protected the biometrics but HTC didn't use it.

New study into lack of women in Tech: It's not the men's fault

Meerkatjie

Re: Media stereotypes?

I've seen parents rush over to stop their young children playing with gendered toys when they are the wrong apparent gender. Recently there was a male child playing with the princess lego set so the parent took it off the child and gave him the weapons of mass destruction lego set instead.

Gamers Steaming over dumb Valve password vuln

Meerkatjie

Re: Steam Guard is a PIA

I had the same issue - every time I logged in I had to enter the steam guard code. Since I don't leave my password in or leave steam running constantly I was having to do this 2-3 times each day. A nice 'remember this machine for a week' would have been good.

Now car hackers can bust in through your motor's DAB RADIO

Meerkatjie

Re: WTF?

Indeed - all critical systems should be separated from the fluff systems. If I decide to go to some bloated map service on my onboard gps I wouldn't want my brakes to stop responding until the service finally responds.

Driverless cars banished to fake Michigan 'town' until they learn to read

Meerkatjie

Re: Finally...

It will be paying more attention than most of us in that same situation. We recently had someone get their bike crushed because the driver of the bus was paying more attention to the lights than to what was around the corner. It didn't need any unlikely-to-occur often event to cause that accident - just the usual inattention most of us have regularly.

Meerkatjie

Re: Sheep, Cyclists, Pedestrians, Townies, Bridges, buses

Having driven past many different types of animals I would say they all pretty much are the same - they are all liable to jump off walls and rush across the road at importune times. I'm including humans in that list of animals after seeing some of the dumbest reactions ever from them.

Reg top tip: Don't have the same name as someone else if you use Facebook's Instagram

Meerkatjie

I think they would prefer we used our Facebook number as our government id. It would simplify everything if the governments were aligned with Facebook.

Smartphones are ludicrously under-used, so steal their brains

Meerkatjie

I can see one problem already - the cradle will need to handle different types of phone connection options. I don't see Apple changing their ways to use the same connector Android phones use and that assumes Android phones wouldn't change in the future either.

Silly Google's Photos app labelled black people as gorillas

Meerkatjie

Re: Maybe

Like the time we had to test an off-the-shelf IVR system that failed to recognise female voices. Was a bit of a problem for us since the majority of our callers were female.

UH OH: Windows 10 will share your Wi-Fi key with your friends' friends

Meerkatjie

Re: Nothing new here

The office I work in has wired and wireless networks - to get access to the wireless network you use your windows login details.

That shot you heard? SSLv3 is now DEAD

Meerkatjie

Oh joy - I just checked my bank site and they are on SSL 3. They got a C so I suppose they passed a GCSE equivalent.

Don't panic. Stupid smart meters are still 50 years away

Meerkatjie

Re: Madness

I live in a long row of zone 1 London apartments that were built just after the war. We had the sparky come round to install it for us - mandated by the housing collective - he took one look at the wiring and said it couldn't be done. To install it he would need to turn of every other apartments electricity during the installation since the wiring was setup badly because it was cheaper and easier at the time. I'm guessing there's going a whole lot of those elsewhere as well.

Meerkatjie

They don't trust us already - I've had the meter man come in twice over the last 2ish years to check I haven't been doing anything dodgy.

Scientists love MacBooks (true) – but what about you?

Meerkatjie

I would beg to differ - I use both a macbook and pc at work for different tasks and I have the same amount of issues with both. With windows I have to go through some arcane paths to get software to work that on the mac does just work. But the mac sometimes does things for no apparent reasons that can take days to fix. My recent one was the network printer disappearing and being impossible to get back - a week later it magically reappeared (no system or printer updates in that time).

Funny you mention IT simply swapping windows laptops if things don't work - my colleague has just had their macbook replaced twice because it had weirdness that couldn't be solved by a reboot or simple flowchart-based support. The latest one seems to be behaving so far - no idea why the others weren't.

TLDR; all systems have quirks and don't "just work" for all situations so use what's appropriate and don't judge people for using something you don't agree with if they have valid reasons.

Google: Our self-driving cars would be tip-top if you meatheads didn’t crash into them

Meerkatjie

Re: Defensive driving

To me it sounds like they are starting simple and adding complexity as they need too - the benefit of this is if they only add more complexity once the previous stuff is working then they know in which area they need to look to find the problem.

There is a possibility of painting yourself in a corner with this approach so it will be interesting to see how they (or anyone else building self-drive cars) deal with this.

Boffins silently track train commuters without tripping Android checks

Meerkatjie

Re: Yes you could...

Like sitting in the station for a few days eyeballing a few likely people to assist in achieving a decluttered lifestyle?

Safari URL-spoofing vuln reveals how fanbois can be led astray

Meerkatjie

I think it will be easier to remove what ever nasty I would get from the phishing site than trying to forget what I would see/read in the Daily Mail.

Nuclear waste spill: How a pro-organic push sparked $240m blunder

Meerkatjie

Re: Fast Integral Reactor.

If we did store radioactives on the moon we would likely stick it on the far side (don't want our pretty moonscapes ruined by unsightly piles of waste) so if it did go boom it would push the moon at us rather than space. Nice bit of karma there.

Revenge porn forbidden: Twitter bans hobby of bitter ex-boyfriends

Meerkatjie

You need a bit of reading comprehension practice. "... usually spiteful former boyfriends" implies that it's not only men that do it but that it is mostly men who do

Meerkatjie

Re: Almost none of those photos are actually presented as "revenge" porn

It all depends on whether they got permission first and if anyone complains about it

Grab your pitchforks: Ubuntu to switch to systemd on Monday

Meerkatjie

Re: Cue...

Resistance is futile.

In assault on American values, Lockheed blasts pickup with raygun

Meerkatjie

Re: @beast666

My guess is that this was funded by Holywood so that they can have a sequel to American Sniper. Cue lens flares and explosions from their favourite directors.

The BBC wants to slap a TAX on EVERYONE in BLIGHTY

Meerkatjie

If they split out the British culture from the tv/radio station then I would get behind it. In New Zealand we have a government body (NZ On Air) that funds various NZ culture related things. If your show is appropriate then you can ask for funding. The body gets a bit of money allocated to them each year and once that's used up then no-one gets any more funding. The shows can then get sold overseas or to multiple channels depending on what the producers want to do.

Trolls prevail because good men do nothing: boffins

Meerkatjie

Re: Welll that's a stupid report...

It appears to be a bad article rather than a bad report. The article says victims of cyber bullying are asking for it because they don't stop the bullying.

The study however appears to be another in a long list of studies that show that bystanders almost never help someone when they need help - which applies just as much online as it does in real life.

Bad journalist - fix your byline so it matches the report or cite the report where it matches what you said.

Back seat drivers fear lead-footed autonomous cars, say boffins

Meerkatjie

Re: good distances between cars is just good for overall traffic flow

The assumption being that all the auto cars are running the same software. I can see Apple* car keeping certain features/information hidden from Android car in order to make Android car look stupid or Apple car look better.

* Randomly picked names - use Linux and Windows if that pleases

This optical disc will keep your gumble safe for 2,000 YEARS

Meerkatjie

Considering the ancient tech sitting in my local library I would say libraries could still probably read it in a 1000 years,

Nexus 6 would have had a fingerprint reader, but Apple RUINED IT ALL

Meerkatjie

Re: Court ruling

My guess is they'll say your finger print is public since you leave it around all over the place so you have no expectations of keeping it private.

Dongle bingle makes two MEELLION cars open to exploit

Meerkatjie

Re: Can someone explain...

I think the tool is only monitoring but it has been so badly coded that if some person hacks the server or the dongle there is nothing stopping the tool being adjusted to do whatever that person wants it to do.

Boffins: It's EASY to make you GRASS YOURSELF UP for crimes you never did

Meerkatjie

I remember watching a TED(?) talk where a criminal lawyer said you should not say anything to the police. Because anything you say will be twisted and paraphrased back at you and when you don't completely agree with there version then all of a sudden your memory is faulty and you are now guilty.

Erik Meijer: AGILE must be destroyed, once and for all

Meerkatjie

Any code that deals with life and safety really needs to be bug-light when it gets released, "move fast and break things" is not going to be good. I really don't want to be in hospital with an automatic drug dispenser that may be confused between mg and Kg

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