Posts by DropBear

Re: Am I just too pessimistic?

Can't wrap my head around why a few pieces of plastic and metal tubing should ever cost more. This is NOT a painstakingly-calibrated-by-elves fragile instrument, FFS! On the other hand I wouldn't agree to "test drive" the printed dialysis machine...

Re: Shavian

"if hes not one thing hes another"

...you mean like, um, binary?

"Do you really not meet people and make friends during your day to day life?"

No, I really - really, really - don't. I actually DO know guys every single girl they meet want to get to... know. Mostly while trying equally hard to pretend I'm invisible.

Re: the shock wave at 0:28 seconds

I'd say anyone witnessing that fire-cloud and not ducking _instantly_ as far away from any windows as possible hasn't been watching any Discovery shows and/or is angling for a Darwin Award...

"What does Yahoo! actually do anymore?"

Well, for one, provides the (literally) only free email service that a) isn't Google b) isn't a shady Russian portal and c) can be accessed directly through a mail client and not just through some webmail portal (although inexplicably they seem to... erm... not advertise this feature)*.

*- Yes, I'm aware of GMX, they just happen to boot people out of their own accounts without any appeal or justification; so no they don't count - there's something wrong with their definition of the word "service".

Re: The rise

"But if the robots are already making all the spoons we need then why not have painted nails?"

Because spoons either became cheaper due to the increased productivity (in which case I might decide that once I get some change back buying a spoon I might also want a fork - great for the existing fork makers who will happily ramp up production possibly even hiring some of the desperate jobless for half their old wages in the process, but does nothing for the ex-spoon-makers still out of a job because painted nails are way down on my list) or they don't really become cheaper at all (great for the 1%-er bastard who owns the shiny new robo-spoon factory but does nothing for the ex-spoon-makers still out of a job because I haven't any new income to spend on them).

Re: Battery life?

"How long do the 4 * CR123 cells last?"

I can only guess, but if they are continuously processing video looking for movement it might eat juice fairly hungrily. Which is why (well, that, and the smaller "dome" under the lens) I suspect they might actually use a good old fashioned PIR sensor to sense movement and only turn the camera on then - it could last for quite a while that way.

Re: Known technique

That's what got me wondering too, actually. Such a sequence is fine for _keypad_ devices that transmit keypress after keypress as distinct messages, but what is it doing in a _keyfob_ device that is supposed to transmit its code within one single message, inevitably flanked by a bunch of other bits that identify the code part as such?!? This smells fishy... Did that garage door opener setup also have an external wireless PIN-based keypad too perchance...?

Re: IoT

Yes yes sure, but will it look like an accident...?

Re: Star office ?

"SternOffice", shurely (of course, "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" is also always an option)...

Re: Bollocks

I'm kinda wondering what would he do if someone were to tell him there's an awful lot of MUCH higher frequency "electo-magnetic smog" sloshing around, also known as "thermal radiation" (and even worse - "light"!) which he could completely escape only by leaving the solar system entirely (not a bad idea, actually)...

Re: Memorex DVD marked 'secret'

"What might work is having a whole bunch of blank or coaster discs marked "Top Secret" so that they have to check each one"

Ever since Lem's blue bolts in the "Cyberiad" it has become quite obvious that the impossibility to prove something really isn't concealed damning evidence can be a fairly significant problem once you decide you'd rather come clean.

Re: Only thing wrong is ......

"Note for LG: Even us old people have learned how to text."

I, for one, would absolutely murder whoever necessary without thinking twice for an up-to-date full-qwerty Android. Emphasis on "FULL" though - none of that "portrait" Blackberry-style nonsense. And yes, my typing accuracy after several years of touch-torture is still under 50% (as in over half of letters typed go in wrong). Sigh... one can dream...

Re: I wonder....

"I dont like the massive invasion of privacy, but there is little I can do..."

It's called "learned helplessness". Look it up. It's also false.

"...or really want to do tbh im too lazy,"

Oh, now that's an entirely different issue, innit. "The Grasshopper and the Ant" comes to mind. After all it's clearly profoundly dumb to "work hard" if "food is plentiful"; unfortunately, by the time it's not, it's too late.

Re: Linux (@ Rumournz)

@Rumournz: Thanks, I didn't know that. I'll definitely have to look into this!

@Paul Crawford: Thank you, that's certainly sound advice for a fresh install - but as it it, my HDD is already full partitioned into NTFS drives for Windows use (which I expect to mount under Linux), except for a ~50GB slot I reserved for a Linux system drive. Splitting that up yet again seems a bit much trouble if possible at all without upsetting the existing partition table (non-GPT); I guess "home" will have to stay on the same drive until the next PC upgrade (probably quite a few LTSs away - I'm a highly-averse-to-change kinda guy, it always takes too much effort for nothing).

Re: Blowing it up sounds great...

because none of us have seen the film veritable insult to any sane mind and / or science that is the thoroughly ludicrous abomination called "gravity". TFTFY...