Posts by auburnman

Re: Ignorant Politicians?

It's entertaining reading either way. Do you have a website Don?

Re: So, the EFF gets donations from Google.

Sometimes it's about having someone in their organisation knowing the names and faces of a few people in your organisation. That way next time the EFF or whoever discover a scandal at Google they just might phone up and call name & face out on it. This tips off big G that they need to kick the PR dept into top gear, and named face just might be able to spin that it is "something we are looking into, and would you mind giving us a few days to complete our investigation before you make a big announcement to the interwebs."

After a few years of cordial relationships, reps at your company are making speeches at EFF conference/shindigs (bankrolled by you) and there's a low-level indoctrination throughout their organisation that your lot are a decent bunch.

Re: Useful ruling for the new Apple price fixing racket

Did they plead no contest? I thought the usual corporate bargain was that they'd pay a big settlement fine in return for dropping proceedings against them (hence no guilty verdict and no open floodgates for lawsuits.)

Re: "Telepresence robots." Hmm.

That actually sounds like something that could really improve the 3rd world if it was possible and done properly, but I think it would take a lot of capital. You'd have to put in the technical and social infrastucture to support this - fibre optic data links to control the robot, and at least basic clean food, water, education in English and literacy and housing for the servants. The incidental benefits to your chosen cheap labour country would be immense even before you gave them the opportunity to earn a salary many times higher than locally available.

Re: What about the Euro mandate?

"better" is relative. The new model will be better in terms of occasionally saving people five seconds plugging it in. Micro USB is better in terms of millions of chargers already being in circulation saving significant manufacturing and shipping costs.

Re: Feedback

I think what he meant was that valuable economic activity takes place outwith the realm of milliseconds, not that slowness is inherently good.

Although I think you could make the argument that Ford speeding up the car process could have made it less good for the economy in terms of lowering the flow of money from wealthy industrialists to factory workers & taking jobs out of the economy. Not that I'm making that argument as I don't have the facts, I just think it could be debated.

Re: Robotics will be great...

But just think! This could be the first step towards an all-robot football league. This could be something your average nerd could actually get behind.

Re: Oh come on...

I think with high quality spoof sites like theOnion and theDailyMash putting out top notch spoofs daily it must be hard nowadays to put out a standout gag article that, well, stands out.

Re: Might want to re-think the name

Agreed, I kept seeing vrArse.

Comparatively, yes. That's the entire point. The US has degraded to the stage that asylum in Russia is necessary.

Re: Surrendered Control

Strictly speaking, as long as he's CEO he can run the company how he likes until the owners fire him. If I were in his shoes, I'd be tempted to piss off Facebook enough that they paid me to retire.

Re: Justified?

I think it'll all depend on how easily the Japanese bank brushes this off. Unless the lawsuit-flingers have proper evidence that the bank really did do something wrong, I can't see this sticking. I would imagine other banks around the world are in "wait and see" mode, much like the rest of us (possibly +/- popcorn.)

Re: "Everyone knows the NSA can legally eavesdrop on foreigners outside US soil"

Yeah I worded that pretty poorly. Didn't mean to imply Europe could tell the Commonwealth what to do.

Re: "Back door" = "Security weakness"

"Back Door" implies it was deliberately designed in for illicit access, which is not an allegation which the currently available facts can support.

Re: Use the fine to help them become compliant

That puts the practice of fining government agencies into a whole new light. I previously thought they were trying their best with the tools available, but if they've had this capacity all this time...

Re: On the upside...

The other downside is the possibility that his colleagues will take him seriously. I'm sure governments would love to move to electronic transactions only instead of untrackable physical cash.

I would put the joke icon up, put I'm not sure if I'm joking or not.

Re: call center work?

They don't have to be a fraudster themselves, they just have to know a fraudster through the prison network who is willing to trade them contraband for personal data.

No it doesn't. I got one for my dad thinking exactly this at the weekend only to find lots of Motorola cruft that won't uninstall.

Re: Confused

I'm picturing a civil war within Nokia as certain factions resist being borged with their dying breaths.

Re: You never realise

Did you mean to put "without a data connection" somewhere in there?

Re: but...Dyson sphere

Stashing it in the cupboard would be murder though