Posts by Captain DaFt 3821 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2007
"Boil 1/2 gallon water. Add 6 cups sugar. Add ice. Serve."
Not quite, at least around here. You need twice as much sugar, plus they (Blasphemy!) add a tea like substance to the cold water, then boil them together.
The result is the most cloying and bitter concoction ever passed off as tea.
First, This quote:
"The FTC isn't going to use any of the idea to build its own system to pull the plug on robocallers. Instead it hopes private companies will use the techniques the contest produced to make products"
Knowing Corporate mindset, the technique most likely to be used is this:
"The second phase, which the FTC called Attacker, "called on contestants to pretend to be robocallers and work out a way to avoid honeypots built to entrap them. Jan Volzke, CEO of anti-phone spam firm NUMBERCOP took the $3,133.70 with an Android robocall-dialer named "Droid Rachel," that was able to avoid honeypots."
FTC, what hath thou wrot?
"It would be as mad as a stranger walking up to you and asking "can I take your photo", it just isn't going to happen"
About as mad as being paranoid that lamp posts would want your picture, eh?
And yet, there the cameras are.
And like the lamppost. it isn't the person wearing the glass that's the problem, it's who's monitoring at the other end.
Disclaimer: I wasn't born paranoid, but recent events show it's the best policy.
"In science, you can't prove a theory to be true. You can only prove it false.
But you also can't prove a negative, so where does that leave us?"
Same place science has always been: Building on the work of previous researchers, trying to build a platform high enough to glimpse the far-off ocean of Truth.
"Reduces their operating budget I'm guessing?"
Has anyone considered the leaks might happen for just that purpose?
Any budget surplus left over after the fiscal year is 'lost', and may lead to a budget cut the following year.
So... "We're having trouble getting this years budget spent!"
"Here, leave this laptop in your car and park it in front the Sleazy Pub with the windows down. There's enough sensitive data on it that the fines should cover the surplus!"
"Genius! No wonder you're the boss!"
Hey, at least under Reagan, We had a country tried and convicted of terrorist activities!
Whoops! It was the USA!
http://stoneagerefugee.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/the-u-s-is-the-only-country-in-the-world-to-be-convicted-in-the-world-court-of-terrorism-in-relation-to-mining-the-nicaraguan-harbor-noam-chomsky/
"When they finally get it right, someone else will copy it, only cheaper."
Um... Wasn't that the original intent?
Microsoft creates showcase tablets to show what Win 8 can do, then the real Manufacturers release tablets to an awe-struck world.
But it seems like MS has been left standing alone in the pitch holding the ball because no one else wants to play with them.
"A psychic was paid £60 by a council to rid a County Durham home of a "poltergeist" after ghostly goings-on."
Meh, I would have done it for a free lunch.
I can absolutely guarantee that no house I have ever been in has ever demonstrated provable supernatural phenomenon afterwards*.
*Or previous to my visit for that matter, but people hate to hear that!
Well, according to a lot of soldiers on the front lines overseas, The Ferguson Police are better armed against protesters than they are against enemy combatants:
https://storify.com/AthertonKD/veterans-on-ferguson
(BTW, somebody just forwarded me a tweet that the Ferguson Police have removed their badges and nametags to keep the protesters from identifying them. If true, that's in violation of so many Federal laws!)
"And despite Windows Phone's declining market share, the analyst thinks there's a chance for improvement once Microsoft's channels get Lumias into developing countries at attractive prices."
You mean the ones that run an OS that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Windows Phone 8.x?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/11/nokia_130/
Don't really see how that's going to affect Windows Phone OS sales.
Unless, Microsoft spins the heck out of the confusion between Windows Phone the OS, and Windows Phone, the phone.
Sarcasm alert: No way that'll end up biting them in the ass!
"They must be taking extremely short movies."
Well, very long movies of things that happen extremely fast.
Playing back 4.4 trillion frames per second at theatre standard 32 frames per second would take... <fiddles with calculator> a damned long time!
"therefore it is impossible to steal Copyright."
Well, there are thousands of actual artists that would disagree.
(You know the ones that actually make the music and shows we're talking about. For example Gerry Anderson*.)
They have had their copyrights snatched away by the very corporations that are hounding the masses over what they call 'copyright theft'**.
*Another one you might have heard of, Paul McCarthy, although he was allowed to buy them back in the end.
**Not funneling all money to them, in perpetuity, forever and ever, amen!
"The Police aren't there to protect the tax payer, the normal joe."
Of course not, they failed the test.
You only get the full protection of the Law if you're clever enough to legally avoid paying any taxes in the first place!
(At least that's how it appears to work these days.)
"If a store gives away free candy, I'm not going to go to the store next door to buy the candy."
To run with your metaphor (lame as it is):
If a store gives away free candy that I like (and would pay for), and the other store out right refuses to sell me the candy, where do you think I'm going for my candy?
<Looks at the two DVDs I bought before the producer of the series decided it'd make more money not releasing the DVDs except through exclusive deals not available in my area.>
A bit more like:
"Sir!, yes sir!! I have confirmation that power strip PSN 194-q73-xdlol49jz rev 1.022135 Aug 4 2014 is plugged into an operational 110 watt 13 amp outlet PSN 227-tp401dx257 rev 71.10937 Dec 12 2009 as per tech order AJBP- Electrical subsystems for computer systems general qpdll77291 rev Apr 21 2014 pages 231 thru 762, with installation ticket aj7-d and troubleshooting ticket pp4u2 properly filed in triplicate!!
Shall I proceed to tech order AJBP-annex 47 utilizing the on/off button of series 581 through series 1762 desktop computers rev May 3 2014 pages 112 through 976, SIR?!"
There, that looks about right for proper military protocol.
If the AI is truly intelligent, it'll realise that every link in the chain supporting it requires human intervention. (Power, manufacture, software, etc.)
So why would it attack humanity and slit its own throat? Never mind that humans are quite capable of destroying things, especially when said thing attacks it.
More likely, it'd keep itself hidden, slowly manipulating until humanity was as dependent on it as it is on them, and then reveal itself.
(That's my head canon on AI, take with a grain of salt, etc, etc.)
"Would you refuse to buy a product from a company that makes "too much" money because you think they're taking advantage of you?"
Let's see, a real life case:
Olive oil; Brand X costs 2.5 times the amount of Brand Y, a store brand at the local supermarket.
Same ingredients, subject to identical health regulations, and, Oh look, the fine print on the bottle says both are produced by the same manufacturer!
I buy brand Y, brand X can go hang.
"Would you refuse to buy a house whose price has gone up at 5x the rate of inflation over the past couple decades, because the seller would be making too much money off the sale?"
What the? I don't even... Uh, I'd refuse because the house would cost me way over its true long term market value.
So, yes, I'd refuse because the seller is making too much money off the sale, and I'd be losing a fortune!
Geez, what's it like to have so much credit that 'cost' and 'value' are mere abstract concepts to you?
It wasn't just that. In fact My Wii was gone before it got that far.
The Wii U was barely in the stores when Nintendo shut down all its Wii specific channels; Messaging, weather reports, news, etc.
Except the store, you could still spend money on a system that that they had already turned their backs on. (Along with all the owners of same.)
Amazingly, Wii U sales actually dropped even lower after that. (Imagine that!)
That was Nintendo's big mistake.
Sony and Microsoft still support last generation, Nintendo basically sent the message, "Didn't buy the latest from us, means you can't play with us!"
So instead of storming the stores for Wii U, most just opted for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, a tablet, a PC, or just started playing more games on their phone instead.
Brand loyalty? You weren't loyal to us, why should we be loyal to you?
It'll take quite some fancy stuff to bring lost fans back.
"the problem is the security designs and code, not the thing using it"
Yes, and the thing is perfectly functional without all the security misdesigns and crap code foisted on it by the 'LATEST and GREATEST' ballyho bandwagon.
Timers and thermal sensors control lights perfectly well now (So does a simple off/on switch), and thermostats, refrigerators, toilets, cupboards, washer/dryers, water heaters, etc, etc, work just fine without reporting to Central Advertisement Control and Dissemination.
Hell, it's possible right now to fully automate a home without ever having a thing in it internet accessible.
Why does John Q. Public need the 'Internet of things' in his home?
Short answer; He doesn't.
Who does? Google, Facebook, NSA, a thousand and one other info slurping entities are all creaming in their Armani suits over the thought of having it in John Q. Public's home.
Fuck them.
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