Posts by a_yank_lurker 4138 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2013
Mark Twain compared the intelligence of the a Congress critter to that of a flea with the conclusion the flea was more intelligent. Czar Reed of Maine once noted that when Congress critters speak they subtract from the sum total of human knowledge. The average 'Stupidity Quotient' for Congress critters has been increasing for decades so expect more idiocies as this bill.
Repeating the complete stupidities of the past is what they are doing. Often, a loudmouth blowhard who makes President Blowhard look like a rank amateur rallies enough assorted dark bulbs to pressure the current crop Congress critters into doing something(TM). Usually the 'doing something' is much worse the problem they are trying to 'solve'. I doubt SESTA will do much in any form to truly stop sex trafficking except to occasionally grab some low hanging fruit.
The key is context and lighting. Something flapping around on the road is a hazard to avoid. Some are more dangerous than others. Even if one initially misidentifies the item the key point is it is likely a hazard. However, in the context of automating and speeding up screenings, false reports will lead to either annoying an innocent person or letting someone get a weapon through.
'AI' lacks one key attribute of true intelligence; the ability to infer something based on previous experience and knowledge when confronted with a new situation. I am now offer to pet my meowing guacamole.
As someone who has dealt with the USEPA in professional capacity, I have found them to be remarkably incompetent with little details. Details that are not difficult to get right (like publishing a valid detection limit for a test method) that one should question their competence on larger issues.
EVs tax cuts were always a boondoggle as most could not afford the price of one. So the benefit was to the wealthy who could afford an EV even without the tax break.
Also, EVs have had a much longer history than their promoters bother to mention. They were among the first cars made back around 1900 and remained in production until the mid 20's. What killed them off was the long recharging time and their very short range at the time. The range problem is partially solved by bigger and hire capacity batteries but the recharging time is still an issue. So the real question for the promoters, is what really has changed since 1910?
@ASAC - The problem with dumb sourcing is it done to 'save money' in the budget for something like salary. But what is overlooked, is when the brown storm hits, you will almost certainly be hit with some very significant charges that escalate depending on scope and speed to solve. These charges probably wipe out the salary savings but they are in a different line item.
There was an old TV ad over here for automotive oil filters with the tag line "Pay me now or pay me later". The point of the ad was spending money upfront is often much cheaper than spending money later. Same principle applies here, hire quality locals as internal staff will cost money now but the crisis will be less costly, if it occurs.
The owner will be responsible for maintenance. What is likely to happen is different types of tickets are the responsibility of different parties. Software issues which would be likely cause of speeding would be the manufacturer's responsibility, maintenance the owners, accidents will be split depending on fault between the manufacturer and owner.
@Mark85, There is a notorious sleaze operation called Pine Mountain in metro Atlanta. At one point the county made sure the local media noted that Pine Mountain PD 'tickets' can be moved to county courts. This did two things, the county is not a greedy to shakier cases got dismissed and other traffic cases got more lenient fines, etc. with Pine Mountain getting nada.
@hatti, If this were an accidental death or negligent homicide there would be no reason to dismember the body. Carbon monoxide poisoning, blunt force trauma to the top of the head (hatch scenario), or even drowning leave specific forensic clues that could validate a story. Also, most homicide detectives get very suspicious when the story makes no sense with the known facts and even more so when the suspect keeps changing his story. A person telling the truth does not change the story in any significant detail over a few weeks. Dismembering a body is almost always done to hide a murder.
There can be a series of prototypes testing various configurations and designs for a project like this. The key is the power consumption requires a power source. It sounds like a trade off between an extremely quiet engine with a noisier power source. This ignores other sources of noise like propeller cavitation which can be significant at speed. Also, one has to generate the electrical power on the sub which implies a reactor with a turbine driving a generator. This the area that makes nuke boats noisy not the propeller (at low speeds at least)
The rule for subs has been to be stealthy one must be moving relatively slowly as higher speeds mean more noise is generated from something.
It seems the only issue is whether the database is public or private as someone actually owns the domain. So the question becomes how to treat owning a domain. Is considered something like real estate with the owner registered and the information available for public inspection (may be not online)? Or is considered something closer to a diary which probably contains private and very personal information? If the first then the registrant's info would be routinely available but if the latter then the info is kept private. I think good arguments exist on both sides so how the EU privacy laws actually will work is probably murky right now.
As far as keeping the registration generally private as a matter routine, I see no real reason to object. The only issues would be what situations would allow someone to get access to the registration and who has the authority to grant the access. For ICANN, they need to get their heads out of their arses and smell the roses.
There seems to be something missing - robust internal procedures for paying invoices, setting up bank accounts, etc. might be more valuable. What strikes me is that most phishing attacks seem to take advantage of less than robust internal procedures. For example, paying an invoice is not done to a link in an email but via the payment system directly to a known, valid account. Also, all invoices must reference an internal authorization code that is verified before paying. It sounds as if the backend processes are in poor shape.
If it is illegal it makes using it difficult in a court case because of something called a search warrant. Currently, the Nine Seniles have allowed these rather dubious searches to stand. It would be nice if they still had the mentally ability to comprehend what the Bill of Rights says, but that is pipe dream on a good day.
The problem any content hosting platform has is determining what they should take down for very narrow and solid reasons (like outright copyright infringement). To require them to judge the content will lead them into a no-win situation as they get sued continuously by aggrieved parties who had their content removed. This is not because monitoring would necessarily be targeting one group or another but because major mistakes will be made.
Another problem is the world wide reach of the web. This begs the question of whose laws and mores should be used. This would lead to another set of lawsuits trying to sort out jurisdiction.
@AC "Could anyone realistically cause death / destruction via attacking an industrial control system would be my real question?" Having been around chemical plants, I would say yes to causing death & destruction. Mess with temperature settings, holding times, pressures, etc. with the wrong stuff in the the wrong process vessel and watch for a nasty mess. The major 'safety' feature is I doubt most hackers know enough about the processes to cause major mayhem except by pure dumb (bad) luck. How to upset a process to make major problem is specific to the process itself. So knowledge about one process does not usually help with a different process.
In most processes there are safety interlocks to prevent a major mess but they are not fool proof as the history of recent industrial accidents will show. For example reaching a maximum pressure or temperature might shut the process down.
Is there a common thread these powerful predators have that keeps people in the closet from fear? The stories sound similar enough it seems the second verse is the same as first with different names. It is as if the Stasi are bought and paid for so reporting the crimes does not good as they never get charged.
What is confusing to most about this situation is the fact that Native American Tribes and a unique legal status in the US. Many feral and state laws do not apply on the reservations, especially excise taxes. Precisely what the tribal rights are is determined by specific treaty between the tribe and the ferals.
I remember an incident while living in the Buffalo NY area when the Senecas shut down the NY State Thruway over whether they owned NY state any taxes on sales on the reservation (they do not by treaty with the ferals). Since the Thruway ran through the reservation they simply blocked it until the state backed down. The Senecas had very strong local support and I think many in Western NY were hoping Mario Cuomo would opt for a showdown forcing the ferals to support the Senecas. But Mario backed down.
What I tend to notice with Linux and Mac users (family and friends) I support is the most of the support calls have a simple resolution which can be done over the phone. Windows on the other had tended to have weirder and more complex problems that are often very frustrating to solve. I have not really read Fruit's documentation but my experience with most Linux distros is the documentation is very complete but Slurp's looks like it was often written by someone who never saw a computer.
Also, I have heard from others Fruits in house support is very good and with reasonable rates and they usually fix the problem. My personal experience with Slurp's support is that is inept at best and at worst will further cripple the box.
TCO has long been an area of FUD by Slurp but it seems like a few heavy hitters are saying that Macs are overall cheaper to maintain than Bloat by Slurp and they appear to have the numbers to back it up.
From my small sample size, Bloat requires more effort to support than Fruity as there are more weird things that seem to go wrong with Bloat. Fruity seems just to work much more reliably. Most of the initial support 'issues' occur in the transition as the user learns a new OS (some are in their mid-70s). I miss the money but I also do not have panicky phone calls requiring my near immediate attention at weird hours.
With Bloat10 being barely an alpha release, support costs will go up especially if the 'upgrade' have to be installed very often. I can see a Fruity OS and others making inroads on the desktop as Slurp ignores what users really need. Note, I saw a post today (Thurrot.com) that Samsung is making rumblings about Linux being part of their offerings. Did read it carefully but given the site it was posted on I thought it was interesting.
It is not that unusual for an employee to get an email about tickets to an event or something similar which looks legitimate at a skim. It is not like one is going to look at the email header or verify every sender in large organization, if it feels legitimate then some will respond.
Part of the problem is DDE is an Office 'feature' that has probably outlived its usefulness by a couple of decades. But Slurp will not deprecate it in new releases as it breaks backwards compatibility even if it is security risk.
This case preexists Trump becoming President. I think it started in the Obama administration. As I understand the Slurp case, Slurp has overseas operating companies set up for issues like EU privacy requirements. The Irish data center is run by Irish company that is ultimately owned Slurp. The key is that Irish company is legally an independent company governed by Irish/EU laws. Thus serving warrant on Slurp US is idiotic as the warrant has to come from an Irish/EU court with territorial jurisdiction over the operating company. Proper procedure is ask the local courts to issue a warrant based as there are treaties in place for just this purpose. But given feral privacy law and EU/Irish privacy laws are very different that amount of information an EU/Irish court will allow to be turned over is less than what a feral court will allow.
If a case reaches the Nine Seniles, it has been kicking around the feral courts for a number of years. This is one Trump inherited.
It's not Chrome that is at fault as it does not ask for root privileges on Linux. Bloat has long been known for its poor security design and the necessity to run escalated privileges for idiotic reasons. Plus many installs of Bloat did force one to make and use a user account. So many users are using the admin account, whether intentional or not, which leaves the box in the worst possible security posture.
Bloat10 seems to be the turd that keeps on giving to those who are wary of Slurp's Spyware-as-a-Service. Slurp seems to be headed to a nasty court fight over the appetite for useless user data. Either a regulator is going to hammer them hard or they will be caught up in data breach that is tied back to Bloat10. Either scenario is nothing but self-inflicted stupidity.
3D is likely DOA for most as it generally does very little for most broadcasts. Also, it is known to make some people sick.
4K strikes me as not terribly useful for most people even if they have equipment and a 4K signal. Part of the problem is the physiology of the human eye and one's ability to focus. Also, I suspect the higher resolution would be pointless at the distances many are from the boob tube when they are watching.
No one every accused Congress critters of being intelligent or ethical. In fact, it is a good assumption to assume that adding up the IQs of all the critters would result in large negative number. And it is a good assumption they have are on someone else's till as well as the US taxpayers. Party affiliation only influences whose payroll they are on.
The supposed effects of the Russian advertising is just a smokescreen to cover up the fact Hilary ran an incompetent campaign and earned the loss by her ineptitude. Her sidekick Bubba, who knows a couple of things about winning Presidential elections, told her campaign she needed to campaign in the Midwestern states she lost not in California which she was going to win. But the campaign basically told Bubba he is an idiot and she did not need campaign in what are called 'battleground states' for a good reason. So they blame the loss on everything and everyone except themselves.
Stock market valuations are bullshit as they are often based on investor wishful thinking and navel gazing. The major issue for any company is whether they are producing real profits. If they are producing real profits and seem to have a grasp of their market, they should continue to do so. If a software company is making money with open source they will probably continue to do so (and many do).
As developer I respect good testers as they can save you from a lot mistakes. The key is the system has to have different people do the development, code review, and testing even if it is because different people can interpret an ambiguous spec differently forcing someone to clarify what they want.
The is the Nine Seniles do not grasp there is a difference between unauthorized access and data theft and sharing Netflix passwords or email passwords with friends and family. The shysters defined hacking as knowing the credentials without distinguishing between intent to harm or innocent convenience. Given there is a standing precedent, a shyster with a vendetta can charge someone with hacking for logging into a family members email or Failbook account.
Given that a couple of the Nine Seniles are doddering idiots and probably really borderline senile does not help either.
@AndyS - It's a combination of multiple accounts, phishing, and multiple transactions per account. They are getting inside the decision loop of the bank by various tricks. Keep the amounts 'reasonable', the transactions following reasonable pattern, etc. it will take awhile before anyone will notice. Plus, if one uses the accounts sort of correctly, the bank may be slow to realize they are fake.
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