Posts by Captain DaFt

Re: Tinfoil Hat?

"Now I'd be really worried if they were also recommending a specific compiler and version number."

If you were truly paranoid, you'd be even more worried that they weren't! (Gahh! They've got their hooks in everything!)

Re: funny....

"Books, often requiring the same head postures, never seem to have had the same effect."

Or drinking a cup of tea, or eating a sandwich, or just examining something interesting that you've picked up for a closer look.

Funny, when it's done to accommodate something new, it's "undue stress", but when you do the same activity for old fashioned reasons, it's "exercise, and you need to do more of it!"

Re: his/her > XIR

But there's already an acceptable, non gender specific word with centuries of use, "it".

"The human moves its arm", what could be easier?

It's not like there's precedent for using it either. How often have you heard, "Who is it?"

"In fact it is the dreaded and mighty LIVING BRIDGE OF HLLUNDAIN."

Whew, no worries then. I was afraid it might be a...

{Dun DUN DUN}... Gazebo!

http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/Jul/gazebo.html

Re: the next one will be powered solely by Boris Johnson

"the next one will be powered solely by Boris Johnson "

No need to pick just him. If they can tap into Parliament, Washington DC, et al, The World's energy problems would be solved forever!

Finally, an honest use for politicians!

Re: 5 nines

"It's only a Marketing 99.999% they rounded it up from 95% !"

After it was rounded up to 95% from 80% by another division of the marketing dept, who got the 80% by mishearing when one of the IT guys said, "Eh, who knows?"

(Geez, I'm in a mood today. Time to break for coffee and a cigar!)

Re: The "Patriot Act" won't be allowed to die

"They're probably about the same as Washington ordering a landing on European soil for exactly the same purpose. Well, slightly less, in my view."

Putin would use troops. the US is using 'trade agreements'.

Re: Now let's clean up download sites.

"I'm so cynical I hesitate to let anything but essentials onto my machine"

If I'm on a Windows install, the first thing I add is Startup Guard.

http://www.anvir.com/startup-guard.htm

It monitors and lists everything that tries to add it self to the startup, giving you the option to allow/deny. A real boon to keeping out nasties that slip in.

Re: It's a scale model

No, It's full scale!

Obviously Nokia has sold out humanity to the G'Gugvuntt and Vl'hurg, designing them a planet destroying spaceship that's too big to be swallowed by a small dog.

It looks like Nokia really took the loss of their cellphones popularity to heart.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30083969

More info and pics there.

It seems the bounce problem was caused by the "large heap of snowy slush' being as hard as stone.

"God bless David Cameron!"

In the polite society of the Southern United States, one will never say a bad word about anyone behind their back in mixed company.

Instead, a certain phrase is used to indicate that the person being spoken of is a hopeless jackass.

So, sipping a mint Julep, I will only state, "David Cameron? Well God bless his little heart!"

Re: Hardly surprising

"My bank sends emails"

My bank never sends me emails... because when they asked for my email address, I said, "Sorry, don't have one."

Technically true, I don't have one. :)

Re: "The genius of Ballmer was he was a general "

Hear, Hear!

Re: In space no one can hear your sonar

"The trick is to stick your emitter and microphone right into the comet.

So Philae isn't so much landing on as mating with the comet??"

Sounds more like it's motorboating the comet! <PBLBLBLBL!>

Re: 77 upvotes

And the top 5 are:

5. http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/fbi-sting-operation-nabs-another-supposed-terrorist/

4. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us/politics/30fbi.html?pagewanted=all

3. http://www.popcenter.org/Responses/sting_operations/print/

2. http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/14/how-to-create-and-capture-terrorists-in-the-name-of-security/

And topping the chart at #1 this week:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140722/14463127971/report-all-four-high-profile-domestic-terrorism-plots-last-decade-were-crafted-ground-up-fbi.shtml

And as a bonus:

https://www.americansecurityproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Foiled-Plots.pdf

gives an overview of the whole 'War on Terror' post 911.

(Hint: Dumb luck and the average Joe have a far better track record at thwarting terrorism than all the 'five eyes' spooks combined.)

Re: Curious

Well, since they pulled the impressive combo of jump the shark, shoot self in foot and head, and cue the fat lady to sing - all by dumping their engine for webkit and cloning Chrome's UI, they're pretty much an ex-parrot these days.

Re: Rand Rand Rand

Hmm, add a little J. Paul Getty, a touch of enthusiasm, and you can get:

Rand Rand Getty Rand Ja! Krugerrand.

A "Tech-Free" phone would be a shrubbery.

NI!

Re: Amazon makes lot of money

"There is no way you can get to $150B market value without earning money."

And the truth is, contrast Microsoft in the Ballmer era with Amazon.

Microsoft used a few cash cows to generate profit, with a few tweaks to keep 'new' versions selling, while Amazon constantly churns its cash into growth and new revenue sources.

Microsoft had Windows, Outlook, and Word, Amazon sold books.

Today Amazon sells damn near everything, and has a cloud service that the competition is racing to keep up with, and growing rapidly.

Microsoft still has Windows, Outlook, and Word, and losing ground rapidly.

True, they've started other projects recently, but all are 'Me too!' projects in a 'throw'em at the wall and see what sticks, we've got billions' attempts to chase taillights of everyone else making a profit.

I'm no fan of Amazon, but they're busy building company value, while Microsoft is busy chasing profits with an ever increasingly irrelevant portfolio.

What is this "sleep" you speak of?

It's a type of coma you fall into when the blood level gets too high in your caffeine stream.

"What's their R&D provided in the past decade?"

Who knows. The products that ever saw the light of day were strangled at birth by marketing; Zune, Kin, Vista, Win 8, Win RT, or aborted before reaching birth, like the tablet they killed because it wasn't 'Windowsy' enough, right before Apple cut theirs lose on the world.

Microsoft is looking more and more like the Xerox of old, innovations that don't fit the company way get quietly buried until someone else digs them up and runs with them, like the Gui interface and E-paper.

Re: DARK STAR

"Surely you just cut a hole in the side of the station (or open a window?), and stick your rear end into the vacuum of space. Then your bottom will come back in pristine, clean and smooth as a baby's."

And then, next orbit 'round, SPLAT!, right against the windshield, and everybody starts arguing over who's going to clean it off.

Re: Tinfoil hat icon.

"Lets up vote the request for the tinfoil hat icon"

I think it'd make a lovely 'Anonymous Coward' icon. The V mask is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Re: You forgot

" You forgot The roll of carpet and the quicklime"

Oh no, they don't escape this vale of tears and suffering that easily!

From the movie Wizards:

Avatar: I got stuff planned for you that'll take twenty years to kill ya.

Peace: ...no pain...

...And you'll be screaming for mercy in the first five seconds.

(For context, Avatar is the good guy, Peace just assassinated the King.)

Re: Don't ascribe human emotions to an AI

"I would suspect the AI of insinuating itself into the net and all forms of business endeavors in a hidden manner to protect itself but that alone does not imply any particular malevolence toward humans."

Now look at where we are today... Computers in every pocket, equipped with sensors, computers hooked up to virtually our entire infrastructure, computers being used to monitor every facet of our day to day existence with bigger and bigger mega-datacenters to store and collate that data, an exponentially increasing number of computers being loaded with sensors and sent off into local space, deep space and beyond.

And to a growing extent, they're all interconnected together.

Can anyone be sure the singularity hasn't already happened, and that we're living in the aftermath?

Everyone assumes that AI means human-like intelligence, but all it needs is self awareness, self preservation, and curiosity.

Re: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

Apparently someone unfamiliar with history downvoted you.

Ford regarding the model T:

"Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black."

Re: But, nobody uses URLs any more!

You forgot "Follow us on Twitter!"

Re: I dunno

"So, for the CEO to say that it all boiled down to the misdoings of one employee is absurd, if not out right comical."

What? You don't believe him?

None of this would have ever come to light if that one employee had kept his mouth shut!