* Posts by lglethal

3885 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2007

Florida's content-moderation law kept on ice, likely unconstitutional, court says

lglethal Silver badge
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Re: Oh, now sites are responsible for what's posted on them?

I have to say I disagree with you on this.

To play devils advocate, (and to steal the excellent analogy of the bulletin board from Mr Cobb) what your proposing is that should a Church put up a bulletin board, they can either act as a platform and not be liable for what is put up on the board, but also not be allowed to remove that flyer for the Satanic Church just down the road; or they act as a publisher, where they can remove or ban anything they want from the board, but can be sued for spreading hate speech when they start posting anything from the Old Testament on the board, or if they are just too slow to react to one of the parishioners posting up a rant against Gay people or in support of the KKK.

Now, I'm pretty certain in the real world, most people would expect the church to be able to decide what is allowed to be posted on the church bulletin board and to remove anything they dont like. It would also be expected that they remove anything hate filled and illegal as well, although people would be inclined to give them a bit of time to notice the problem and remove it.

Now if the Church moves there bulleting board online, does that change anything? Same rules would apply, no? Maybe we might expect them to act faster than with the physical Church to remove the bad stuff, but other than that the same rules apply, no?

Now define why a social media company should be held to a different standard to the local church bulletin board? That way lies madness...

Lonestar plans to put datacenters in the Moon's lava tubes

lglethal Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Store your data offsite on multiple continents on earth at 0.01% of the cost of a moon backup...

I can't see a scenario where moon backups offer sifnificant advantage over traditional ones.

Cool Factor and Marketing...

That's about it...

Seriously, you do not want to make that cable your earth

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Re: almost whoops

So obviously you were the PFY, and your manager was the BOFH. Good to know traditions hold firm...

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Trollface

Re: Bee-sting ?

Come on now Bee reasonable. Otherwise we'll have to re-Vamp the whole naming convention...

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Trollface

Re: almost whoops

And as a hard working and dedicated BOFH, you took the time (most likely in the middle of the night, with the security cameras having mysteriously gone down for the evening) to tidy up the arrangement and clear out all that unneccesary copper cabling. You were also no doubt, so dedicated to the task that you took the cable for recycling to the nearest Copper recycler, and didnt even charge the company money for the transportation of the "scrap" cable.

The whole, being able to afford a new car afterwards thing, that's just purely coincidence...

Lawmakers launch bill to break up tech giants' ad dominance

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It's usually just like this because the Justice Department doesnt have that many people and so they can only afford to go after the big fish.

However, it's always seemed a bit of a daft way to go about it. For me, I would have the justice department go after some relatively small fish (say $10-50million bucks worth). Get convictions, and get the case law sorted. THEN go after the big fish and there ridiculously high priced lawyers who can afford to fight you on every single minor technical point for the next decade. If the case law is there, their wiggle room disappears, and they wont be able to fight with anything like there usual vehemence.

But I guess going after the small fry that no one outside of the industry has heard of first doesnt make headlines quickly enough for the politicians...

Iran, China-linked gangs join Putin's disinformation war online

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Holmes

Re: Who is Mandiant?

Anyone using a handle as pompous as "Voice of truth" is clearly someone who's opinions you can safely ignore...

AMD claims its GPUs beat Nvidia on performance per dollar

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Since prices are finally beginning to drop down to the actual RRP for a lot of Graphics cards, using that value might have been a better option. Especially since Nvidia cards have generally been significantly higher above RRP then AMD cards.

NASA's InSight doomed as Mars dust coats solar panels

lglethal Silver badge
Pint

Good night InSight! Sleep well...

Best project I ever had the pleasure to work on! Beers for the whole team...

lglethal Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Insight?

InSight had a design life of 2 years. It has so far lasted almost 4 years.

If your design life is such that the solar panels getting covered is not an issue (which with a 2 year life would not be an issue), why would you add weight/cost/complexity adding some sort of solution?

If it had been planned for a design life greater than 5 years, absolutely something would have been done to rectify the problem, but that would have added costs, and it was felt that within 2 years, the Projects goals would have been achieved. The fact they've been able to extend it to nearly 4 years means more data, for confirmation, but the goals have already been long achieved.

Don't assume space engineers are stupid. It just makes you look like an idiot...

China reveals its top five sources of online fraud

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Whenever some politician starts bleating about making everyone sign in with their real names, and all that bollocks as a means of protecting "the people", we really do need to make sure we shove this report in their faces. Even with China's STRICT control of the Chinese internet, the requirement for people to use their real names, the mandated use of the chinese government controlled financial system, Fraud is STILL a massive problem.

If China with all of it's anti-privacy legislation cant stop Fraud, then I do not see any benefit to bringing that sort of bollocks out here. I'll accept the risk of a bit of fraud in order to protect my privacy. How about you?

Arm CPU ran on electricity generated by algae for over six months

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Re: I, for one, welcome our power spewing* algal overlords...

Rob you seem to be confusing a few ideas here.

Solar panels produce electricity, so unless your willing to retrofit your house with electric heating, solar panels are not going to let you heat your house. They will however, help you reduce your electricity bill. Hell our neighbours tell us they get back about €3000 a year from their solar panels (not they save €3000 a year, but they are paid €3000 for their electricity generation, plus whatever they save from not having to pay an electricity bill). We have our Panels on order, although I dont expect to actually get any money back, as we're a relatively high usage household. But if the payback period is 10-15 years then that's what it is. I'll still save money in the long run and help the environment, and I'm happy with that. Your personal calculation may vary.

There are solar thermal installations which could cover your heating, but quite frankly unless your living in the tropics, they aren't worth it. And any competent installer will tell you so. They just dont work well enough in our European climates.

As for Ground heat pumps, 48 years is a lot of bollocks. At least for a new built home - they're highly efficient and relatively cheap to install. I have, however, never heard of anyone getting one installed into an existing home, that I can imagine would be super expensive and pretty dangerous for the house no doubt. You have to dig through the fundament and thats never going to end well. So maybe for a retrofit, the costs would be so high that 48 years might be possible. But no one ever does that. In a new built house, Ground Heat Pumps are an excellent choice and will definitely work out cheaper over 10 years...

lglethal Silver badge
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I, for one, welcome our power spweing algal overlords...

... gotta be better than the tyrants and wankers who run our current power production and generation equipment...

Elon Musk 'violated' Twitter NDA over bot-check sample size

lglethal Silver badge
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Wait a second...

After the offer had been approved by the board, shouldn't trading in twitter shares have stopped? So how does their share price drop?

If trading hadn't been stopped, quite frankly they were asking for it with Elon. This deal was never going to be smooth...

Elon Musk puts Twitter deal on hold over bot numbers claim

lglethal Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: "...fewer than 5 percent of our mDAU [monetizable daily active users]"

There's definitely weasel words in use here.

I would suggest that most bots do not post daily - they do a flurry of activity around a certain activity and then go silent until the next campaign. As such, they would not be included in the mDAU figures.

So they've basically chosen a group that is unrepresentative of bots, and declared that amongst that group they dont have many bots! Success!

Confirmation dialog Groundhog Day: I click OK and it keeps coming back

lglethal Silver badge
Joke

Re: Standup

Colleagues of mine keep getting called into Scrums (which thankfully so far I've avoided).

I keep asking which one of them is the Hooker, but for some reason they tend to get offended by that?

IBM's autonomous Mayflower ship breaks down in second transatlantic attempt

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Joke

Re: Size of vessel

Ahh so those were the murderers that could be patient... Revenge is a dish best served cold after all...

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Trollface

Re: The crewless AI-powered Mayflower ship

Davy Jones BitLocker...

FTFY...

lglethal Silver badge
Joke

Re: Size of vessel

Well you know that 130 people made it to the US. There's no real record of how many people started out on the voyage is there, now? ;)

It's time to kick China off social media, says tech governance expert

lglethal Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: re: Digital societies need to be protected.

I'm guessing the troll icon was lost on you then? :)

lglethal Silver badge
Trollface

Re: re: Digital societies need to be protected.

You know you could try turning of your computer, tablet, and phone. And maybe the TV as well. Probably the fridge too if you have one of those internet fridges.

I hear there are certain places where these companies have ZERO effect on the daily lives of their residents. You know like Cultist Communes, Amish Communities, Buddhist Monk Mountain Retreats, Indigenous Villages in the middle of the Amazon, I'm sure you can find something to fit...

Indian government accuses Uber of jacking up prices for loyal customers

lglethal Silver badge
Facepalm

Uber being naughty? who woulda thunk it...

Palantir summons specter of nuclear conflict as share price collapses

lglethal Silver badge
WTF?

So in his argument...

Is Palantir Russia? Are they threatening to unleash "nuclear war" against their "customers"? Is Karp Putin in this scenario? Or is that Thiel? And Karp is more the Foreign Department Spokesman, Lavrov?

I dont know too many businesses that imply that they go to war with their customers. Well at least not publicly...

China plans to toss foreign-made PCs from government agencies 'in two years'

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Facepalm

Re: Unpredictable

China's not authoritarian? Right...

And Ukraine is full of Nazis, Russia is not invading them, the Moon is made of Cheese, Donald Trump is merely misunderstood, and the Sun rotates around the Earth.

Thinnet cables are no match for director's morning workout

lglethal Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Full names please.......

I used to work with a woman by the name of Rain. She married a man with the surname Day. Everyone meet Rain Day... I never did have the courage to ask her if middle name started with E...

lglethal Silver badge
Happy

Height Adjustable Desks and short cables

Shortly after our firm had started giving people the sort of desks that can be used either whilst sitting or standing, I was visiting a colleague in another office. He had the desk standing and was pointing out some things on the screen to me, when I heard a light clunk. I looked around but couldnt see what was causing it. When a minute later I heard it again, I casually mentioned that the noise must be annoying if its happening regularly. He shrugged and said it only happened when he had the desk standing and it didnt really bother him.

After a moment I stooped slightly and looked under the standing desk and saw his computer case was dangling from the monitor cable and slowly swinging around on said cable. The clunking was when it occasionally banged softly against one of the legs of the desk. I pointed out to him that the computer shouldnt be airborne like that and he was just asking for it to destroy his computer and/or his monitor, when it eventually decided to start obeying gravity.

He grumpily replied what was the point of having a standing desk if he couldnt use it that way. I simply advised him to ask IT for a longer monitor cable. Whatever the case I was extremely impressed by the strength of the Cable and the fact that its connectors hadnt ripped out of their Sockets under the weight of the whole case. Must have been some good quality cable...

Twitter buyout: Larry Ellison bursts into Elon's office, slaps $1b down on the desk

lglethal Silver badge
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Re: Whose money?

It's the old problem of the Super rich, they dont leave money lying around, it gets taxed that way. So you leave it in shares were you can point to the share price and say "Wow, look how rich I am!". But should you actually need to access those riches, well then you need to sell those shares. And what happens, when people realise you're selling shares in your own company, other people sell as well, and the share price tanks, and suddenly you're not as rich as you thought. And if you keep selling shares, the price tanks further and suddenly, someone else might buy up enough shares to take control off you.

So Elon sold $8billion of Tesla stock, and the share price tanked by about 15%. Selling more stock would now not get him as much as he had planned on. And if he sold more, the price would likely fall further and he would be even poorer. What to do, what to do? Well, call up a few friends and ask them to put in some money. Don't they also want to back him up? Haven't they seen how good he's done with all his other firms?

You also have to keep in mind that Morgan Stanley have put up the $21 billion based on collateral of Elon's other holdings. So if he causes the share prices to tank further, suddenly Morgan Stanley might decide the collateral is not enough and pull out (or demand a greater slice of the pie).

For a clearly very smart man, the fact that he didn't see this coming is somewhat surprising...

Samsung unveils hardened SD card that can last 16 years if you treat it right

lglethal Silver badge
Trollface

Re: "can sustain 16 years of continual writes."

Hey, how did you know about our backup policy?

Putin threatens supply chains with counter-sanction order

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Stop

Re: You want to play hardball?

I'm at work so I cant watch that video, but all I will say is this.

An independent nation is free to do as it chooses, based on the will of its own people.

And maybe Russia should consider the old saying - if the people you considered friends/allies/subordinates start turning away from you and seeking new friends and allies, perhaps the problem isn't with them, or the new people they are talking to, but with yourself. Maybe Russia should think about why all those old soviet block countries turned away from them, rather than trying to bully and scare them into coming back...

lglethal Silver badge
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Re: You want to play hardball?

None of those things led to Putin deciding to go nuts and invade Ukraine with a woefully (thankfully) unprepared military that can do nothing but try to bomb Ukraine back to the stone age.

Well apart from perhaps that Putin seemed to put himself in isolation throughout Covid reducing the number of people he was talking to, which seems to have left him only talking to the Yes men, and no one telling him he was being utterly stupid.

All those other things are the new "normal". We're changing the definition of insanity as we speak...

SEC nearly doubles cryptocurrency cop roles in special cyber unit

lglethal Silver badge
WTF?

Geez I wish I could get a loan for $100 million without any sort of collateral or actual personal details. Actually you know what I can slum it, I'll be happy with just a million.

Where do I sign up (anonymously of course)? I promise I wont just take the money and run. Trust me...

Mozilla browser Firefox hits the big 100

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Facepalm

Re: Firefox is dead

It's over. Internet Explorer circa 1995 has won. Everyone should give up on this new fangled Web browser nonsense. We all know things never change in computing...

Rocket Lab successfully catches falling rocket booster with a helicopter

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Re: Does it work economically

"I suspect it's one of if not the most cost effective solutions launching."

Just because its cost effective doesnt mean its cheap. Cheaper than the competition perhaps, but your still looking at millions of dollars per unit.(I naturally do not have the figures, and have no relation to Rocket Lab, but Rocket motors and engines are always the most expensive part of the rocket and usually make up a very large proportion of the costs).

A 30m Superyacht is cheaper than a 40m Superyacht, but its still not what you would consider a bargain... ;)

lglethal Silver badge
Boffin

Re: Does it work economically

Whilst I agree with you on the huge costs for the recovery, you might be underestimating the costs involved in building a rocket motor. They are hugely complex pices of kit, usually made from very expensive materials. Even being able to reuse only half of the rocket motor would probably make it profitable to retrieve the Rocket as they are planning. Even better if they can keep it out of the Sea next time...

lglethal Silver badge
Pint

Look its not exactly rocket science is it? Oh wait...

Beers for all involved!

After historic win, Amazon workers at another NYC warehouse reject unionization

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Re: Oh the humanity...

Why should russians get to hear from independent news sources about Ukraine? The Kremlin is paying for their roads and hospitals, and everything else.

People should be free to make their own choices when it comes to Unions. If the company is turning around and saying "If you join you'll be fired" or " if a union is formed, we'll move elsewhere". Probably hedged in slightly more legal language but with the strong threat implied, then people are not being given a free choice, they're not being given the opportunity to hear what a union might bring to the table.

Living in Europe, the american hatred of unions is really not understandable. The union in my firm works with the firm to a) make sure its nice and profitable, and b) that people are paid an appropriate wage, and are safe and have good working conditions. There is no need for this to be massively confrontational. I guess in America it reflects American politics where compromise and mutual respect are considered weaknesses and failures. A sad state of affairs...

Arm China website posts letter from staff opposing change of management

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Trollface

Re: Have they tried

Maybe they just need to twist their Arm?

A discounting disaster averted at the expense of one's own employment

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Trollface

Re: Beancounters

I assume the cattle prod was an effective training tool?

lglethal Silver badge

Unfortunately, it's never Manglement that suffer the pain, it's everyone in the trenches...

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Trollface

Ahh the good ol Theranos play...

lglethal Silver badge
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Re: Alarming, fired.

I have to say I'm forever grateful to one university professor I had, who had actually moved from industry into academia. He drilled into us that you never put your name to something that you were not willing to back up 100%. A very important lesson as in our industry (aerospace) you can go to prison if your mistake leads directly to people dying.

I've had managers try to demand I just sign something before. It's usually ended with me informing them of its so important then it requires the signature and if it fails they can be the one go to prison. Amazing how the risk of personal consequences can suddenly change people's minds about cutting corners...

US appeals court ruling could 'eliminate internet privacy'

lglethal Silver badge
WTF?

This a is a very strange ruling. The comments written by the judges about the Terms of Service and that Copying is not seizure are rightly scary and Orin Kerr's write up is very good and accurate.

But the thing is, in this case I really don't see how any of that was particularly relevant for how this case proceeded (assuming the write up by the article's author is correct).

A third party provider (Xoom) identified email accounts associated with an illegal activity. Yahoo, the email account provider, investigated, agreed that there was evidence of illegal activity and passed that information on to the authorities. The authorities, obtained a preservation order. This was not a fishing expedition, they had evidence of illegal activity and email accounts involved, even if they did not have the details of the owner of the accounts. This is not so different to when the authorities get actions against unidentified people in criminal actions. The courts will often freeze bank accounts associated with illegal activity even if the exact owner of the bank account is unidentified.

Over time they were able to identify the owner of the accounts and go after him, and make the arrest. Ok, I dont really no why it should have taken 2 years to identify the owner of the accounts, but maybe he was very good at covering his tracks, or he took a hiatus from being a dirty scumbag for a couple of years, who knows.

But none of this implies that the obtaining of the account info was conducted as a fishing expedition. So why the court felt the need to make a determination and base it on such flimsy ground as Terms of Service and copying is not seizing, when simply saying that the moment the accounts where identified as being involved in illegal activity, then the police where within their rights to obtain proof of the activity (so its not an unreasonable search, when there is proof of illegal activity) and use the information within to identify the criminal involved. This is a hugely dangerous ruling based on very flimsy arguments, which where just completely unnecessary.

Crazy!

Your software doesn't work when my PC is in 'O' mode

lglethal Silver badge
Coat

Sooo...

can we safely say that Ivor's problem was a Biggin'?

Ok, OK I'm leaving... Stop pushing at the back...

Meetings in the metaverse: Are your Mikes on?

lglethal Silver badge
Trollface

So many Mike's? Are you taking the Mickey...

Sorry, I'll get my coat....

US Army may be about to 'waste' up to $22b on Microsoft HoloLens

lglethal Silver badge
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Re: It's not wasted

Wait, there have been Oligarchs dropping dead? Why haven't I read about that? Do you have a link somewhere?

I have noticed that old Vlad doesn't seem to look as healthy as he normally does in the few videos I've seen. I guess not being able to go out and ride a bear in Siberia is beginning to get to him... :P

Smart contract developers not really focused on security. Who knew?

lglethal Silver badge
Trollface

Re: Experience counts

Yeah but nobody with 10 years experience would get involved in writing SMART contracts! They'd take one look at the requirements document, burst out laughing, and head for the door...

lglethal Silver badge
Go

I'm just spitballing...

It would be interesting to see what the overlap is between Smart Contract authors and the Hackers who take advantage of the bugs involved.

Probably, the authors dont do the hacking directly, but all it takes is a bit of a discussion about what sort of bugs can be found and suddenly you have an active exploit.

Seems like it would be a profitable little sideline... But then maybe I'm just overly cynical about anything crypto. I know the old expression "Don't attribute to Malice what can be equally attributed to Stupidity", but when it comes to everything Cryptocurrency/NFT/Smart Contracts, the opposite seems significantly more likely...

Chinese drone-maker DJI suspends ops in Russia, Ukraine

lglethal Silver badge
Holmes

DJI has only ever made products for civilian use; they are not designed for military applications," insisted DJI.

American forces are banned from using its products.

I'm seeing something of a disconnect here...

Apple's grip on iOS browser engines disallowed under latest draft EU rules

lglethal Silver badge
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Your problem then is with your firm, and its mandate that you use Duo and Google.

The government is not going to force you to use any program. You choose the programs on your phone.

If your firm requires you to use programs you dont want to use, you have options - discuss it with your firm and try to convince them there wrong with those programs, ask for a company phone so you dont have to put these programs on your personal phone, or quit. All are options. All things available because you have choice.

Apple is currently blocking you from having any choice. That should always be fought against. Your phone - YOUR CHOICE.

lglethal Silver badge
Facepalm

*sigh* And if this law passes, there's nothing to say you have to install any Chrome based programs on your Phone. No-one is going to hold a gun to your head and say you have to use Chrome instead of WebKit versions.

But guess what, you would now have the option to install something based on Chrome if you so fucking chose...

Why on Earth, would you consider this a bad thing???