* Posts by handleoclast

1287 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jan 2012

Staff at Steria gov shared services centre offered voluntary redundo

handleoclast
Coat

Reg writers are going downhill

Shirley you could have worked in "a night at the Sopra" or some such.

What is the world coming to?

Boffins foresee most software written by machines in 2040

handleoclast

I wondered how long it would take

Before some moron came up with this idea (AI couldn't have come up with this idea because AI isn't that fucking stupid).

Allow me to summarize:

Add 1 to 4GL giving 5GL.

Netflix mulls using AI to craft personalized movie trailers for viewers

handleoclast
Coat

Re: I know where this is going

Big disappointment.

I watched that page for 30 minutes and the boobs didn't explode.

Dentist-turned bug-biter given a taste of freedom

handleoclast
Thumb Up

One should be very careful

About repeating the sentiment that Patterson Dental's Eaglesoft has security issues (as mentioned by several commentards). That might influence google's search results in a way that leads searchers to conclude that Eaglesoft, from Patterson Dental, has serious security issues.

Let me repeat. Be careful about mentioning the serious security issues with Patterson Dental's Eaglesoft. It cannot be stated too often that one should take very great care about mentioning the serious secuirty issues with Patterson Dental's Eaglesoft.

Damn, we need a "sit on this and swivel" icon. I've gone with the closest equivalent.

From the graaaaaave! WileyFox's Windows 10 phone delayed again

handleoclast

Re: Getting rid of Truephone

You can do that???

I can find the google dialler on the playstore but it says I can't use it on my phone. I can find the apk elsewhere, but I don't trust those places.

Wileyfox sent you an APK for the google dialler? I will have to e-mail them about that.

As for the Foxhole launcher, I hated the drawer after the upgrade to Android 7. No more letter bar. The letter bar was fiddly (close-spaced along the bottom) but still good. So I went for Jina as a drawer. Jina has a letter bar down the side (less fiddly). But Foxhole wouldn't let me swap the drawer app. Which led me to install the Nova launcher, just so I could use Jina as the drawer app.

The only thing that leaves me unhappy is Truephone, and you've just given me hope...

Voyager 1 fires thrusters last used in 1980 – and they worked!

handleoclast

Re: time dilation

You would need to be going a respectable chunk of C to get any noticeable effect.

However, even a small chunk of Java will slow your computer to a crawl.

UK government bans all Russian anti-virus software from Secret-rated systems

handleoclast

Re: I guess NOFORN doesn't apply anymore?

The equivalent security caveat in the UK is (or was) "UK EYES ONLY." Subdivided into "UK EYES A" (aka "UK EYES ALPHA") and "UK EYES B" (aka "UK EYES BRAVO"). There is some dispute over the exact meanings of A and B. As best I can tell, A means only people in gov't service whilst B includes people working for defence contractors. The exact meanings are probably classified far higher than UK EYES A are permitted to know about.

Oops: LinkedIn country subdomains SSL cert just expired

handleoclast

Re: And who is to say Linkedin doesn't run on Linux?

Don't turn a task like this into a Windows vs Linux/MacOS argument, just because they include a Telnet client in the OS by default. It's perfectly valid for Microsoft not to, given that only a small percentage of users would want one.

I was talking of the Microsoft-supplied telnet client, not a third-party one. You're right. For just about anything you want to do on Windows, don't rely on the shit that Microsoft supply. Wise words, indeed.

There have been two versions of Microsoft telnet client I've encountered, one black text on white, the other white text on black. Both had two serious shortcomings when used to connect to web servers for a quick HEAD request. One shortcoming was common to both, the other shortcoming differed.

As I recall, both handled the delete key incorrectly and sent a backspace rather than deleting the character from the send buffer (or maybe the output was unbuffered). Either way, you couldn't afford to make a typo because you couldn't correct it. Fail. Maybe using ctrl-H would have worked, I kept meaning to try but always forgot to because after the first fail I'd switch to a Linux machine if there were one around or find some other way (and swear to never use Windows for anything ever again, no matter how simple).

One of them didn't local echo. Which made typos (that you can't correct) very likely. Supposedly you could enable it somehow but I never got it to work. I'm willing to put the blame on me for being unable to get it to work but firmly blame Microsoft for not defaulting to local echo when connecting to a non-telnet port in the first place, like every non-Microsoft telnet client I've ever used does.

The other timed out before you could type the entire request (minimum of "HEAD resource," "HOST domain" and an extra carriage-return. Of course, you could type really fast, but rarely fast enough and then you had typos you could see but not correct.

Both were a pile of steaming shit. Yeah, you can say not many people need telnet, and even fewer need telnet to do quick HEAD tests on web servers, but every other telnet client I've ever used got it right. It's not like Microsoft didn't have examples to emulate (and code to rip off).

BTW, one of them (can't remember which, think it was white-on-black-no-local-echo) was included with Win 7, it was just well-hidden and you needed admin privs to make it unhide itself (as I recall, "super-installing" something that is already installed). Which may well also be the case with Win 10.

Don't try to defend the indifensible.

handleoclast

This isn't rocket surgery

Any time I've set up services/network monitoring in the past 17 years, I've always added a check for SSL certificate expiry. Just in case somebody misses the e-mails the certificate issuer sends.

How do these clowns manage to let certificates expire???

handleoclast

Re: And who is to say Linkedin doesn't run on Linux?

If you wanted to find out, you could use telnet to talk raw HTTP to the site and issue a HEAD request. If you're using Windows, this is painful to do (different types of painful depending on the version of Windows/telnet client) but on Linux or even MacOS it's a piece of piss. If you're a wimp you can always try netcraft.com/whats.

Foil snack food bags make a decent Faraday cage, judge finds

handleoclast
Coat

New-fangled gimickry

Wrap the phone in kitchen foil, like your grandfather did back in the old days. Aluminized plastic film is for hipsters.

Crown Prosecution Service is coming for crooks' cryptocurrency

handleoclast

Peculate

@AC

I wonder how many are going to understand that joke without looking it up, or even thought to look it up. I knew the word, but most probably thought either you couldn't spell "percolate" when you posted a non sequitur or wondered why you were speculating about coffee.

We go live to the Uber-Waymo court battle... You are not going to believe this. The judge certainly doesn't

handleoclast
Coat

Shouldn't be more than $1 million, $1.2 million tops. Maybe $1.5 million if he had to get it reviewed by a senior partner. But that's it!

The $3 million is because Uber's lawyers use surge pricing.

Unfit to plead before a US court? You may face 'indefinite detention'

handleoclast

CMA

because there will almost certainly be some criminal relevant offences under UK legislation which have been broken.

Computer Misuse Act. gets you coming and going. It's an offence if you do naughty things to a computer outside the UK from inside the UK. It's an offence if you do naughty things to a computer inside the UK from outside the UK.

Maybe lesson one in any GCSE (or whatever they're called these days) curriculum should be an introduction to the CMA.

Lauri Love appeal: 'If he's dead, no victim's going to get anything'

handleoclast
Trollface

Re: "I'll kill myself if you extradite me" isn't a defense,

Indeed. Otherwise everyone would try it.

Ignoring whatever merits his defence might have (I haven't looked and don't really care) my first, instinctive reaction to somebody saying that is "Fine. Go right ahead. Can I watch?" I don't respond well to threats of any kind, whether or not they directly affect me.

Yeah, I know. That makes me unempathic, dysfunctional, sociopathic and possibly psychopathic. It's just the way I'm wired. And if anyone criticises me for thinking that way, I'll threaten to kill myself.

More seriously, eczema as an excuse? Fucking eczema? I have some of that. It itches, sometimes. I also have worse.

Asthma? OK, some US prisons are notorious for keeping prisoners in high temperature conditions that imperil healthy prisoners, let alone those with asthma. So that is a valid concern. But more a reason to fix the broken US penal system than to prevent him receiving any punishment. I have asthma. And worse. And don't see either as sufficient excuse to dodge a prison sentence.

If you want to say that the proposed sentence is far too high, I'll agree with you - it's not like he killed or raped somebody. If you want to argue his asperger's in mitigation, maybe (it's a broad-spectrum disorder so you'd have to show convincingly that he didn't understand what he was doing was wrong). But "if you put me in prison I'll kill myself"? Go right ahead. The sooner the better.

Wondering why your internal .dev web app has stopped working?

handleoclast
Coat

.test.icann?

Surely ithink.icann is a better choice.

Apple and Qualcomm become best pals... lol jk the sueballs keep flying

handleoclast

Clive Sinclair

Uncle Clive used "innovative"¹ technology to run his cheap, shitty pocket calculators back in the mid-70s. Maybe Qualcomm can claim prior art.

¹Innovative as in running chips way outside their specs.² Pre-test the chips to see if they performed outside of spec, throw away (or sell on) those that fail. Throw away (or rework) assembled devices that fail production testing. Accept a large number of returns because even those that passed both sets of tests were likely to be marginal and fail as they age.

² He took desktop calculator chips and reduced their average current consumption by pulsing the power rail. It gambled on the capacitance of CMOS gates retaining enough voltage while the power was off that it would not lose state when the power returned. Most of his products relied on using components outside their spec.³

³Including his very first product, the MAT101 transistor. This was at a time when transistors were new and very expensive. His were merely expensive. They were also Plessey transistors that had failed testing and were outside spec, but still retained some marginal transistor action. So that was all he claimed: that they exhibited transistor action and could be used for experimenting, not that they could be used in any practical way.

Almost, but not quite, as deceptive as the Japanese company that bought defective Ferranti transistors. They used them in their radios. The standard superhet design of the time used 6 transistors, and radios from all manufacturers used to boast in the advertising and on the case of the radio itself that they were 6-transistor designs. This company released a 7-transistor radio. The seventh transistor was a dud and not connected to the rest of the circuitry, but the radio had 7 transistors, so was obviously better.

The six simple questions Facebook refused to answer about its creepy suicide-detection AI

handleoclast

Re: Trust?

On a practical level, if you're feeling down, get a couple of kittens.

For an immediate fix of cuteness, watch this and this. If those don't work, you may need a larger dose.

handleoclast

Re: Ridiculous trying to automate this

I wonder how they're going to try and derive advertising revenue from the suicidally depressed

Feeling suicidal? Ask your doctor if Bloggs' Happy Pills are right for you.

Judge stalls Uber trade-secret theft trial after learning upstart 'ran a trade-secret stealing op'

handleoclast
Coat

Re: When do the magic words...

but you can't sue the legal entity known as Uber for being a member of Uber, because it isn't a member of itself.

The law is complicated. When it drags in Russell's paradox it becomes very complicated. If Gödel's incompleteness theorem shows up then it has become insanely complicated.

Pro tip: You can log into macOS High Sierra as root with no password

handleoclast

Re: Linux root p/w

Not true, I'm a Linux sysadmin and none of the Ubuntu variants I've installed over the past 10 years have asked. You have to do this manually after install..

From what I've read in other responses, root logins are disabled. So you still have to consciously choose to have a passwordless root login.

handleoclast

Linux root p/w

@kain preacher

Would you have root in linux with no password ?

Every Linux distro I've installed has asked you to set a root p/w. Never checked if you can leave it blank during install. Even if you can't leave it blank at that stage, it's possible to set a null p/w later. Either way, if you end up with a null p/w for root, it's because you deliberately chose to have it that way. You can't have a null root p/w by accident, or simply by doing nothing as you install the system.

And no, I wouldn't set a null root p/w deliberately. That would be crazy. I have a somewhat warped mind but I cannot conceive of any circumstance, no matter how bizarre, in which I would legitimately (no criminal intent) want a null root p/w (feel free to prove your mind is more warped than mine by coming up with one).

I remember the time DEC persuaded me that remote diagnostics were a great idea and that I should have one of those new-fangled modem dooberries. They said I could ensure it would only pick up when I was around to allow them in (which was true). We gave it a try. They told me they couldn't get in with FIELD/SERVICE (those standard superuser accounts had their passwords changed as the very first thing I did on that box) and would I mind changing it back. I gave them a hell of a bollocking over that one. Got a free curry out of it by way of an apology. If they'd suggested I leave the p/w blank on the FIELD account I'd have nuked them from orbit. Null password for superuser accounts? No fucking way.

You live in the right galaxy: Milky Way to eat Small Magellanic Cloud even sooner

handleoclast

Re: We're in for a bit of a shake up anyway

Is the Flat Earth Society not some sort of joke?

Depends which one of the societies you're talking about. One of them was started as a satire on the others, which are very serious about their delusions.

To get a feel for just how serious these morons are, take a look at this series from youtuber CoolHardLogic debunking them. CHL does other good series too, such as debunking geocentrism (yes, that too has its followers) and The World of Batshit.

iPhone X Face ID fooled again by 'evil twin' mask

handleoclast
Coat

Re: What else can you use that doesn't rely on unreliable recall.

You could perhaps rely on unreliable recall itself.

Phone asks questions. Attacker answers. Real owner can't remember the answers to some of the questions. Add a touch of magic AI powder to detect patterns in the failure to answer and you have a recognition system.

I think I left my phne in my coat pocket ---->

Pokémon GO caused hundreds of deaths, increased crashes

handleoclast

Re: Presumably, Jake ...

@Pompous Git

I find fighting constipation and constant drowsiness a tad boring.

Yeah, both are very common side-effects of opiods. As is suppression of the breathing reflex. That last one is often the cause of death if you overdose on them.

A possible fix for the constipation is lots of chilli in your food. It irritates the bowels, causing mucous secretion, which loosens faecal matter. Works well for my haemorrhoids, lubricating things enough that they no longer cause problems. However, don't overdo the chillis, otherwise if you cough hard you end up walking like a penguin to get a change of underwear.

As for the heads off, I figured that out many years ago. Caught something on TV (it was back when I had a TV, so many, many years ago) about some farmer whose farm was going bust shooting his jaw off with a shotgun. How humiliating: you decide to kill yourself because you're a failure and you fail at it. Enough to make you want to kill yourself. It was easy enough to figure out what he'd done wrong and how to do it right. Top tip: if you decide to go that way, do it outside, because otherwise you leave somebody with a very unpleasant redecorating job.

handleoclast

Re: Presumably, Jake ...

@Pompous Git

Sorry to hear about your problems.

the decision to terminate my own life was something of a relief.

Apparently a lot of people feel a weight taken off them once they make the decision that, when the time comes, they'll take a quick and easy way out rather than a lingering, debilitating, painful one. So much so that, once they realize that it's possible and they have the will to do it, they no longer feel the urgency and can tolerate discomfort more easily than before.

That said, I think I'd wait to find out how much fun the opiods are before committing myself.

Which reminds me, marijuana is found by some to deal more effectively with some types of pain than opioids can. But if you find it works for you don't tell the doctors because they'll give you fun opioids too (sell them on if you don't find them enjoyable).

The best quick suicide weapon is a shotgun through the roof of the mouth.

More awkward than having the shotgun under the jaw.

Either way can fail. Do it wrong and you end up blowing your front teeth and nose off, or blowing your jaw off. And now I've said that, anyone with a basic knowledge of physics can figure out the difference between the right and wrong way to do it. One of Newton's laws and one of Archimedes' laws and you can figure it out.

handleoclast
Coat

Re: It's no one, not "noone".

Thanks for that. I have taken my collection of Herman's Hermits records and amended the artist's name to "Peter No one."

handleoclast

Re: Presumably, Jake ...

@Timmy B

They are not killed by their own weapons they are killed by themselves using their own weapons.

That may be true for cases of people dealing with intruders. However, take a look at the suicide statistics. A lot of gun fatalities in the US are suicides.

Oh, and then there are the frequent cases when a child gets hold of the gun and accidentally kills somebody. Which reminds me of one of my uncles. Many years ago, long before drink-driving became illegal, some people drove home after a heavy night of boozing. My uncle was one such. One day I heard how his young son had somehow climbed into the car, released the handbrake, and it rolled downhill and caused damage to the car and whatever it hit. Only years later did I find out that "the kid did it" was the cover story told to the police and everyone else and what really happened was that my uncle did it after driving home pissed out of his skull. So I have my doubts about the veracity of the many stories of children accidentally firing guns and killing people.

Huawei's Honor 9: The only mobe of its spec asking 'why blow £500?'

handleoclast

Re: Image quality

Yep. Camera is the very, very last of my priorities in getting a phone.

How much does it cost? Number one, top priority.

Can it make phone calls? Pretty essential in a phone.

Does the design screw up the sensitivity of the antenna if you hold it wrong (or even if you hold it right)? Coverage is rather patchy and intermittent where I am, so I want a sensitive antenna.

How long does the battery last?

How heavy is it?

How big is it?

Does it do intertoobz stuff?

How rapidly does it get updated after an OS fix is released?

How many years of OS updates can I expect?

Oh, it has a camera. Does it have a camera flash that can double as a flashlight to save me carrying around a flashlight on dark nights?

Is the camera any good? I don't really care, but if I'm comparing models and they are about the same on the other items, I might as well go for the one with the better camera.

Sadly, all El Reg seems to focus on is the camera.

Don't shame idiots about their idiotically weak passwords

handleoclast

@DuchessofDukeStreet

Perhaps you should show them this advice from NCSC. Which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of GCHQ. And then sweetly point out that their enforced password changes go against the advice of the UK's top (in terms of statutory powers, not necessarily in competence) comcyber-security organization.

Neural networks: Today, classifying flowers... tomorrow, Skynet maybe

handleoclast
Coat

Back propagation, back propagation, back propagation

I said it three times, and thus I have summoned...

Except this is probably the one time he won't spring out of the woodwork to say what a crock of shit he thinks back propagation is.

.GIF garage Imgur plugs 1.7 million-subscriber creds breach

handleoclast

Re: SHA-256 brute force?

@Lysenko

Plenty of systems like this use the email address as salt

Really? I'm not doubting you here, just sitting here with my jaw dropped wondering at the sheer stupidity involved. I'm astounded that even one person would do it, but that there are plenty of them???

Have these people never heard of /dev/urandom? Or the entropy-gathering daemon that preceded it?

Hell, there's even EGDW for Windows.

If you were stupid enough to use the e-mail address for salt, why not at least throw in the IP address too? Predictable in some cases, not in most cases.

Sheesh. Use the e-mail address as salt. Gah!

Forget Sesame Street, scientists pretty much watched Big Bird evolve on Galápagos island

handleoclast

What makes a species?

There are different operational definitions used in different sub-fields of biology. These days, however, having a common gene pool tends to be the fundamental definition.

If they're not interfertile, they're different species.

If the offspring are sterile, different species.

If the offspring are fertile but incapable of surviving for long in the wild, different species.

Even if none of the above are a problem, if they could successfully mate and have offspring that could continue to contribute to the same gene pool but choose not to mate, different species.

All of which gets complicated by ring species and clines, which can exist because gene pools are viscous.

Oh, and then there are rabbits in Australia. They've been artificially separated.. If you brought Australian rabbits back to Britain they're probably still the same species (don't do it the other way around because the Australians will get upset if you bring rabbits into the country) but eventually will no longer be.

156K spam text-sending firm to ICO: It wasn't us, Commissioner

handleoclast

Re: 30p/text

You've just given me a great idea for an app.

It combines voice recognition, voice synthesis and a simple Eliza-bot. Get a call from one of these wankers and hand it off to customer-bot, who will keep them talking for hours.

They're stupid enough to fall for it. They really are.

Last one I got happened to be when I was in a relatively good mood. So I gave him three options.

1) I can keep you talking for an hour, asking stupid questions and wasting your time, then say I'm not interested.

2) I can shout obscenities at you until you hang up.

3) You can hang up right now.

The stupid fucker went for option 2. He didn't explicitly ask for it, he just continued to try to sell me whatever it was he was selling as though I hadn't just given him those options, or he was too stupid to understand what they meant. One or the other, because he seemed genuinely taken aback when I started swearing at him.

handleoclast

Shifting your ground like that is soooo convincing.

And her head came off when she fell down the ladder in the sub.

10 years of the Kindle and the curious incident of a dog in the day-time

handleoclast
Coat

The one place a paperback is better

Is the toilet. When you're having a crap. And notice at the Magnus Magnusson stage (I've started, so I'll finish) that you've run out of toilet paper. You can rip pages out of a paperback in this sort of emergency. A kindle isn't up to the task.

Linus Torvalds on security: 'Do no harm, don't break users'

handleoclast

As I understand it

This wasn't about patching an existing bug, this was about putting mechanisms in place that would close off potential lines of attack by using white lists. As such it was a feature, not a bug-fix.

Linux was advocating, in such pre-emptive cases, that the correct approach is something like:

1) Include in kernel, but default to off. Brave users can enable warning mode (which might accidentally break things). See how it goes.

2) After a testing period in the wild, default to warning mode. Brave users can enable secure mode (which might accidentally break things). See how it goes.

3) After a testing period in the wild, default to secure mode. Anybody who has problems can set it to warning mode at their own risk.

4) Maybe, a long way down the line, if nobody reports problems for a very long while, remove the possibility of disabling it. How long has SELinux been around? It's still possible to disable it.

What Linus was complaining about was the inclusion of this whitelisting stuff in the kernel with no way of disabling it and before there had been any testing in the wild. It wasn't dealing with an existing exploit. It wasn't dealing with an imminent exploit predicated on some bug that had just been found. It was a security WIBNI and it should not have been shipped in secure mode with no way of disabling it before any testing in the wild.

Reinforcing Linus' point was that there was a last-minute change when the developer found there was some important, fairly common things he'd forgotten to whitelist.

Some commentards are responding as though this were a fix for a bug that was already being exploited in the wild. It wasn't.

Some commentards are responding as though this were a fix for a bug that has no known exploits yet, but exploits are expected soon. It wasn't.

This is a security WIBNI, and in that context Linus was right. In my opinion he didn't swear enough, because that was a fucktarded thing for the security guy to do.

SurfaceBook 2 battery drains even when plugged in

handleoclast

Re: 'cause more damage to your brand'

Fuck their Windows 10 spyware and Office 365 rent-not-own software.

I definitely agree with you about Windows 10 because the UI is shit. Nowhere near as shit as Win 8. Not as shit as Vista. But far shittier than Win 7 (or even XP). Fuck them.

I definitely agree with you about spyware. Fuck them.

I definitely agree with you that Office (in any incarnation) is buggy shit not fit for purpose. Fuck them.

I don't fully agree with you about rent-not-own. Software is as overpriced as it is partly because you get "free" bugfixes and security fixes for some period after purchase (mainly because Microsoft are thieving bastards, but the price does have a component for continued fixes). Users would be better served (by an ethical company) if the software were free but they paid for support. Except many people would forgo support, and we'd have even more infected machines than we already do.

So the best model is software rental, which would mean Microsoft wouldn't have to re-arrange the entire UI every few years to make users think it's a good idea to purchase a new version. Most UI changes from Microsoft have been to create a new revenue stream, not to improve the product, and often the only way to drastically change the UI (enough to make it seem like a must-have upgrade) makes it worse. Of course, that rental model is only a good idea if the company is ethical, honest, and cares about its customers. Microsoft will just use it as a way of forcing lock-in (sorry, you can't export your data from 365 in anything other than a simple text format that discards a lot of vital information).

Rent-not-own is a good idea when dealing with an ethical, honest company that cares about its customers. Neither renting nor buying is a good idea when dealing with Microsoft.

Firefox to warn users who visit p0wned sites

handleoclast
Flame

Re: 'Giving users what they don't want is classic Mozilla'

On the occasions I use my mobile to browse, the baked-in list of suggestions really fucking annoys me.

There are two sites I visit regularly which start with "n" (I'm lazy, so never type the "www." unless the site is so badly designed that it won't work without it). Neither of them is netflix. I have never visited netflix on any computer, let alone my mobile. Guess which site is suggested as soon as I type "n", forcing me to type at least one more letter. For one of those two sites, the second letter is "e", so guess which one doesn't appear in the URL bar unless I type a third letter (it does, however, appear near the top in the suggestions list, but that requires moving my finger further to activate).

If it were just that one site, I might not be so annoyed. But it's just about every site, even the ones I use regularly and frequently.

If the rankings of baked-in suggestions changed as I visited other sites, I could live with that. But the ranking never changes. It doesn't matter how many times I visit the other "n" sites, netflix is the first suggestion. It doesn't matter how many times I visit a "w" site, up pops fucking walmart (which I've never been to on any computer and have no intention of ever visiting). That's what changes it from being a useful feature (start out by offering popular sites and learn from what the user actually visits) to a piece of fucking stupid incompetent shit implemented by people who should be banned from ever designing a user interface.

handleoclast

Re: Until we can breed more clueful users...

I deal with people every day that think the way to go to a site is NOT to bookmark it or enter it into the address bar, but to search for it every time.

There is a reason some people do that. It may even be a valid one.

The theory goes that the more people who use Google to search for a specific web site, the more popular that site becomes in the rankings. Therefore, going to your own website that way pushes it up (even if ever-so-slightly) in the rankings.

Even if that theory is correct (I'm not saying it is), most people search for web sites that way because they're clueless idiots.

Facebook notifications to reveal who saw dodgy Russian election ads

handleoclast

Re: "Zuckerberg knows how to do something, and other people don’t, so he does it."

@bombastic bob

The OP said we were all sociopaths and narcissists. I qualified that by saying we were all sociopathic and narcissistic to some extent. To the extent that some of us, at times, strongly favour our own opinion over that of everyone else, we're all to some degree narcissistic. The the extent that almost all of us have stronger feelings for friends than strangers, we're all to some degree sociopathic.

I agree with you very much that people who want to do things to you "for your own good" can be a major problem. Not always: a surgeon who wants to chop off your gangrenous hand for your own good is probably doing you a favour, but mostly they are dangerous. Some of them believe they know better than you do what is for your own good so will ignore your protests and will happily do really bad things for your own good. Some of them only use it as an excuse to exercise power or get rich. The ones who really believe what they say are the most dangerous because they will do anything their ideology tells them is a good thing.

Where I start to disagree with you is in your postscript. In my experience, most of the religious people on the right who try this don't actually believe the shit they spout, they just want the money. As such, if what they say becomes too unpopular with too many people they'll have a divine revelation that modifies their preachings. Joel Osteen, Pat Robertson and Ted Haggard (who is completely heterosexual) are amongst the many who spring to mind. It's the ones who really believe it who are dangerous because they'll stop at nothing to do whatever it is "for your own good."

handleoclast

Re: "Zuckerberg knows how to do something, and other people don’t, so he does it."

@post-truth

We're all sociopaths and narcissists.

Yeah, and? :)

This is true. But in some cases these traits are mitigated/ameliorated by others.

For me, laziness also plays a big part in my decisions. Laziness is not the same as bone-idleness or being work-shy. I seek solutions that satisfy all constraints with the minimum amount of work. I try to work smarter not harder (that phrase goes down much better on a CV than admitting laziness). But my laziness also extends to the principle of not doing something if it doesn't need doing. I don't do things just because I can, I have to have a purpose in mind. Not necessarily a noble purpose, but a purpose. Admittedly, when I was younger (much younger), there was also a strong element of "I wonder what would happen if..." coupled with "Ooooh, I can do this..." involved, but with age laziness has pretty much overwhelmed that urge.

As for sociopathy, we're all sociopathic to a degree. There are people I have never met and do not know of undergoing all sorts of privations, but unless the media exposes their plight I don't give a shit about them (how could I if I don't know them or what is happening to them?). Most of us manage to extend our interest in the well-being of humanity beyond a single person (ourselves) to a small (perhaps very small) number of friends and acquaintances, and may even help a stranger we perceive to be in need.

On top of all that, some of us have intellectually grasped the principles of evolutionarily stable strategies and/or iterated prisoner's dilemma. It is possible to make a large short-term gain at the expense of others but it is usually possible to make a much larger gain over the long term by co-operating. Even without an emotional urge not to harm others, that intellectual understanding curbs our actions.

Zuckerberg seems to be more narcissistic and sociopathic than many, but how much of our perception of him is skewed by the fact that he has an eminently punchable face and red hair?

Just some random rambles.

Stick to the script, kiddies: Some dos and don'ts for the workplace

handleoclast
Coat

Do not run with scissors

Do not point gun at foot and pull trigger.

Do not stand directly behind somebody about to fire an RPG.

Scripts can be useful, but be careful with them.

'Water on Mars' re-classified as just 'sand on Mars'

handleoclast
Coat

"That finding pours cold water on hopes..."

Cold sand, shirley.

Microsoft scoops Search UI out from the gaping black maw of Cortana

handleoclast

PowerHell

@JLV

PS is consistent and I suspect it really flows once you get it, but that hasn't happened yet with me

I was told that the trick with PowerHell is to wear out your tab key (and/or arrow key? It's been so long I forget), cycling through the choices until you get one that looks like it might be what you want (and often turns out not to be).

To be fair to PowerHell, it makes bash's autocomplete (even if you have bash-completion installed) look a bit crude. To be fair to bash, it's far easier to remember options you use a lot so you can use a letter or two to allow autocomplete to quickly get the answer

I tried PowerHell a couple of times. I hated it with a passion. Maybe I was doing it wrong. I couldn't bring myself to experiment for long enough to see if it was possible to drive it better.

handleoclast
Flame

Everyone has their price

@AC

Hang on, if you've paid for a copy of the operating system, why on earth should the vendor still be pushing ads at you?

Presumably for the same reason some people pay way over the odds for clothes, shoes and accessories that have the manufacturer's name plastered all over them, meaning they're paying the manufacturer to do the manufacturer's advertising for free. That reason being they're fucking idiots, so the manufacturer can get away with it.

You want me to advertise your clothes? You fucking pay me, you shower of cunts.

You want me to pay for your OS or s/w? You don't get to fling adverts at me, you show of cunts.

Baaa-d moooo-ve: Debian Linux depicts intimate cow-sheep action in ASCII artwork

handleoclast

Sheep should be obscene and not herd?

AT&T insists it's not sweating US govt block of Time-Warner gobble

handleoclast

CNN hurt Trump's feelings

That's the only reason the DoJ are blocking the deal.

Cops jam a warrant into Apple to make it cough up Texas mass killer's iPhone, iCloud files

handleoclast

Guns vs encryption

How many shootings (both individual and mass) will be prevented if gun control is tightened up? Comparative statistics (both between states in the US and between the US and other countries) says a lot.

How many shootings will be prevented if phones can be decrypted by law enforcement? Zero. Not individual shootings. Not mass shootings by a lone nutcase. And, these days now that terrorists know not to trust electronic communications for long-term planning, not mass shootings by terrorists. Yeah, you might find out that just before he went on a rampage, a terrorist messaged his buddies asking them to wish him luck, and that's about it.

Uber slapped with $9m fine for letting dodgy drivers pick up punters

handleoclast

I have this great idea for business model

What could possibly go wrong?