* Posts by DNTP

726 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jan 2014

GCHQ dismisses Trump wiretap rumours as tosh

DNTP

Re: That was then...

As an American I probably shouldn't be supportive of the Brits spying on our President.

As an American I hope for sure that as many external observers as possible are keeping an eye on this damn nutcase in the White House.

NASA swerves serious cash cuts – but Earth climate probes, asteroid snatcher face axe

DNTP

It's not a cut, its streamlining

Trump is just trying to make government spending more efficient. NASA will get to focus on space while their climate project funding is redirected towards other agencies.

You know, like the EPA, the UN climate project, the Dept. of Energy's clean sources research, the NOAA, the various health and human services groups trying to prevent human suffering due to climatic displacement, various academic climate projects supported by the government...

Fire brigade called to free man's bits from titanium ring's grip

DNTP

Re: So what was the IT angle?

Ring dick guy tragically misunderstood network topology while searching for network-accessible adult content, and thought he needed to apply the "token ring" in order to communicate with the porn server.

Force employees to take DNA tests for bosses? We've got a new law to make that happen, beam House Republicans

DNTP

Re: Won't past muster.

They'll either gut HIPPA, or more likely simply force employees to waive their HIPPA rights as a condition of employment/enrollment.

Royal Navy's newest ship formally named in Glasgow yard

DNTP

No, start from the beginning. Your first ship of service.

DNTP

Re: 30mm gun

Tune in next week to find out more amazing facts about the armed forces, such as:

1. Not all Air Force aircraft carry missiles,

2. The Army has vehicles that don't mount tank cannons,

3. Your taxes pay some soldiers to not carry rifles while conducting their duties.

Fraud detection system with 93% failure rate gets IT companies sued

DNTP

93% Failure rate was deemed 'acceptable'

Since the ultra-conservatives apparently believe that 93% of the people on government assistance are just lazy bums who choose handouts over work.

Ohi-D'oh! US prison hands inmates' SSNs over to... an identity thief

DNTP

Re: Why not tell them they made a mistake?

Yeah, because based on this guy's past, the authorities wouldn't have made him a scapegoat and used that to sweep the whole affair under the rug.

In a completely fair world, it's reasonable to expect the accidental receiver of a leak to contact the sender before going completely public, and work out some kind of productive narrative that improves security in the future; in this case the balance of power is completely unfair.

RadioShack bankruptcy savior to file for, you guessed it, bankruptcy

DNTP

Things I want: replacement USB cables, fuses

Things I don't want: To be told I need to consider changing wireless providers before a purchasing experience pertaining to the desired items can occur.

How did anyone think this would be a good idea.

Ex penetrated us almost 700 times through secret backdoor, biz alleges

DNTP

Re: Temptation is a terrible thing...

"Professionals never bother spending the effort to get even, just to get paid."

Or, as one of my teachers put it, "You can wield your sword, or your anger, but not both."

UK watchdog to probe political campaigns trading personal info

DNTP

Re: We didn't break any laws

"Yes, protecting privacy is great for the users, but I don't see how that makes us money."

Passport and binary tree code, please: CompSci quizzes at US border just business as usual

DNTP

This would make more sense...

If the agents doing the screening knew what they were talking about, instead of just reading scripts off Google. Of course then they would probably be too smart to be front-rank screeners in the first place. And then they'd be able to detect and identify software engineers efficiently and courteously, which would defeat the real intent of the program, which is to harass and intimidate brown people.

We found a hidden backdoor in Chinese Internet of Things devices – researchers

DNTP

Re: I realized there is a self-describing acronym for use of IoT...

but what if

I Don't Internet Of Things

Net neutrality? Bye bye, says American Pai

DNTP

Pai: "America's approach to broadband will be practical, not ideological"

*Ignores all practical data supporting Wheeler's assertion that net neutrality had no significant limiting effect on network infrastructure investment or business growth

*Frames his entire argument around a "regulations are bad for businesses" generalist ideology that historically, has tended to work out horribly for consumers, commons, and sustainable capitalism

Just straight up abandoning any kind of pretense of working for anyone but the dudes slipping bucks into his pocket.

In a loving tribute to its fiery washing machines and Note 7... Samsung management explodes

DNTP
Flame

the modern update:

"It's like disconnecting the battery after the phablet explodes."

Scality guarantees 100% availability

DNTP

I know what they want to imply by "100 %"

But my brain is telling me "One significant figure? Better put a +/-5% range of error on that."

This isn't a criticism of the company, I'm sure they are professionals doing their best, but if I saw a number like that in a vendor bid the voices in my head my numeric OCD would ask exactly how many zeros worth of uptime availability really were promised after the first digit.

Two million recordings of families imperiled by cloud-connected toys' crappy MongoDB

DNTP

Re: But it's Cloud!

Harry Harrison's "I Always Do What Teddy Says"

Somehow it seems that I've been posting comments relating to this story a lot more in the last two years, children's toys are probably beyond the line where the current IoT craze should have stopped.

81's 99 in 17: Still a lotta love for the TI‑99/4A – TI's forgotten classic

DNTP

Re: While we're on the subject of TI...

I have the same TI-89 that I (got my parents to) bought when I was in high school. Even for 1999 it had a slow, outdated processor; today it's absolutely stone-age compared to a modern smartphone.

Anyway, this overpriced clunky monopolized chunk of ugly black plastic, dim puke-grey screen and obscurely confusing interface, got me through two years of high school, 4 years of college, and 10 years of molecular genetics and it still works just as well right now where it is a permanent feature of my desk.

That's why people buy TI graphing calculators, aside from all the superficially horrible overpriced features they are in fact extremely useful general purpose mathematical tools.

Brit cops can keep millions of mugshots of innocent folks on file

DNTP
FAIL

LEO Logic:

Here in America, cops who want you to consent to a search will argue that refusal to consent to a search is suspicious enough to be grounds for a forcible search. So obviously, asking to get your picture removed should be a clear sign to law enforcement that you're going to be committing crimes in the near future, and thus they need to keep your pictures on file.

Remember, you wouldn't have had a mug shot taken if you weren't guilty of something, and the innocent have nothing to hide.

Sysadmin's sole client was his wife – and she queried his bill

DNTP

Tech for the Ex

The ex-GF just started a job as an admin assistant in a sales office. About a week after she started, I wanted to pick her up after work for a night out, but I was early and got there at 4pm, before they closed. When I walked in, she and some other people were having trouble with their Tektronics network printer, so I introduced myself and walked her boss through the admin interface and the fix.

Then: "Maybe we should hire you instead of her".

Well as soon as we got out of there my GF had a major emotional incident because she had confidence issues and really needed the job, and didn't think the joke was funny. I gave her manager my card and contract pricing information in case they needed a support consultant in the future, but never heard back from them.

MIT goes down to the wire: Brain cable pipes electricity, chemicals, light straight into minds

DNTP

Re: There's some cruel buggers out there

PETA kills 80% of the animals they get their hands on- most of them healthy and re-homable, and then fritters away donations from well-meaning people on celebrity billboards and publicity stunts.

Meanwhile in the real world, responsible researchers are answerable to in-house animal ethics oversight, as well as funding agencies, the government, Retractionwatch, and the popular media. If you have any evidence that a specific project, particularly one that has just got a media profile, is cruel and unnecessary, lots of people will want to hear about it- assuming you're not just blowing hot air, of course.

Get this: Tech industry thinks journos are too mean. TOO MEAN?!

DNTP

Biting the hand that feeds IT?

I guess tech companies find that too aggressive. Try licking the hand. Become romantically obsessed with the fine, soft hands of IT and stalk tech companies relentlessly until they give in under the force of love, or something.

Amid new push to make Pluto a planet again... Get over it, ice-world's assassin tells El Reg

DNTP

Re: Large Satellites?

Well, I like to learn and comment about space science despite not being a space scientist, so in a sense reflect and refract the light of knowledge instead of generating it.

Pendantically.

DNTP

Re: Large Satellites?

Yeah that's kind of an obvious problem, and when you get there it's mostly just sighing, facepalming, and but Tradition!, which is kind of the whole Pluto=planet argument anyway.

But you have to be careful with the "sun orbit" requirement anyway, since pendants like myself will point out that the Jupiter-Sol barycenter is outside the sun, so technically they orbit each other.

Your next PC is… your 'Droid? Remix unveils Continuum-killer

DNTP

Re: Luddite here

You're making too much sense to be a Luddite. I'm also firmly in the camp of wanting my phone to operate as a phone over anything else. And I can tether other things through it if I want more functionality.

Is your child a hacker? Liverpudlian parents get warning signs checklist

DNTP

I'd like to thank my parents

for encouraging the sorts of independent learning that this newest guide seems to be discouraging, for supporting my interests leading to a career even if they didn't always understand what I wanted to do, and for not putting up with this kind of "warning signs of X" bullshit.

Huge if true: iPhone 8 will feature 3D selfies, rodent defibrillator

DNTP

Re: Come along commentards, pay your way!

Honesty in the technology sector news, what is this world coming to.

Although you neglected to mention that despite featuring wireless recharging, the phone still needs to be plugged into the iCharger for so that you have to buy a $99 charger for each phone security authentication purposes. Oh and the wall cable on the iCharger starts to fray and split after 12 months.

Smash up your kid's Bluetooth-connected Cayla 'surveillance' doll, Germany urges parents

DNTP

Thanks for nothing, TECHNOLOGY

We could have had moon colonies and cancer cures, but instead got a future where evil dolls are an actual, real threat to children instead of just being eBay legends.

NASA picks three Martian wet patches for 2020 splashdown

DNTP

Iron Oxide is red

Rayleigh scattering is blue

There's a face on Mars

Its looking at you

King's College London bods recruit members for penis ring study

DNTP

Ysgramor

He killed all the elves. But not all of them, because some are still around.

GoDaddy CEO says US is 'tech illiterate' (so, yeah, don't shut off that cheap H-1B supply)

DNTP

As an American biologist-techie, I could get paid a lot more by simply being a technie. No one is importing biologists because we already get paid peanuts.

University DDoS'd by its own seafood-curious malware-infected vending machines

DNTP

water heater in jeopardy

Probably find out that the IoT company that made the water heater had gone out of business five years ago, or that their "warranty" only covered hardware malfunctions and they had no interest in supporting a software or security problem.

Bloke, 27, arrested, tech gear seized by cops over UK Sports Direct hack

DNTP

What is the value of employee data?

Company lawyer in court: "The value of this data to our corporation is effectively priceless, therefore we are not going to accept anything less than the highest settlement and stiffest sentence against the defendant."

Company HR rep email to all staff: "Nothing of value to us was stolen, and you'd never be able to prove that this directly led to your identity being stolen, so don't even try suing us over our obvious negligence. In fact we wouldn't even be telling you this if the communists in the media hadn't picked it up, that's how little you mean to us."

Samsung's Chromebook Pro: Overpriced vanilla PC with a stylus. 'Wow'

DNTP

An important part of a Reg review of any laptop should be the experience of trying to install Ubuntu/Mint/Debian on it, because it seems that's what a significant minority of the readers here are going to want to do to anything as soon as they buy it. And Best Buy salespeople get all flustered and stern when you try to do that to their demo machines.

Alleged HPE fraud man Peter Sage once ran dodgy pharma biz

DNTP

Stripper who controls... [the] Enterprise

I nominate Thea Thorpe to play Seven of Nine in the upcoming "Voyager" remake (yes I know it's not the Enterprise).

IT guy checks to see if PC is virus-free, with virus-ridden USB stick

DNTP

It's going to be a bad day...

...when the first email you see Monday morning is an innocuous little thing from the director, asking "I have a file I can't open on my personal laptop, the extension is .osiris."

Hey, if they want to pay me for a couple of easy hours to do a nuke, reinstall, and backup restore, instead of my more difficult actual job... they're the management.

NASA bakes Venus-proof electronics

DNTP

Re: Other materials

"Victory Unintentional", 1942.

Comcast lied and now it must STFU: Its cable broadband is not 'the fastest' in the US

DNTP

Wifi router speed limitation hinders Comcast connection?

Considering the average Comcast connection, you'd probably have to be running a pre-802.11b early '90s SOHO infrared type thing, before that becomes more limiting than some of the dodgy crap Comcast passes off as 'fast'.

Ex-NSA contractor Harold Martin indicted: He spent 'up to 20 years stealing top-secret files'

DNTP

Re: Except for the fact...

Uh... ok, I know you might not think too highly of American intelligence at the moment, and you'd probably largely be justified in feeling that way, but possibly my joke at our leader's idiocy went a little over your head?

DNTP

It's traitors like these...

...that make me realize the need to ban people from the "Dangerous Seven" and then charge Mexico for that wall.

Revealed: 'Suicide bomber Barbie' and other TSA quack science that cost $1.5 billion

DNTP

Re: TSA

Well, be careful where you say that- according to the TSA themselves, irritation, contempt, belittlement, ridicule, amusement, insistence on legal rights regarding, or logical criticism towards TSA procedures is a clear indication of terrorist intent.

Samsung battery factory bursts into flame in touching Note 7 tribute

DNTP

Re: Irony

As an American I understand irony very well, which is ironic because many Americans do not understand irony, despite the irony of irony itself being a trendy means of expression although ironically, it is often interpreted as a counter-cultural viewpoint.

Conviction by computer is go, confirms UK Ministry of Justice

DNTP

Re: "it works well enough"

The reason you're getting a downvote is that I got one of these automatically generated citations for:

1. A different state I'd never been in at the time

2. A car I don't own and in fact have no license to operate

So do I travel to court in a different state to dispute the charge, just pay the $50, or hire an out-of-state lawyer to represent me? Why is the system set up so that when the charge is inevitably dismissed, the company automatically generating these complaints doesn't have to cover the costs of their perjury or face any legal penalty?

Australia wants to jail infosec researchers for pointing out dodgy data

DNTP

Instead of all that fanciful cryptography stuff

I'm going to sell the Aussies my ULTRACODE system for anonymizing names into accession numbers:

A=1 B=2 etc

Its the perfect code since no one will be legally allowed to try and crack it, therefore it is unbreakable.

Sage Business School founder imprisoned – but you wouldn't know it

DNTP

You say "term of imprisonment..."

I call it a creative incubation sabbatical, fully funded through certain agencies of the government with an interest towards improving general public morality and responsibility.

Also I misread the name of the refund representative as Noorah Naked and that peaked my interest.

Careless Licking gets a nasty infection: County stiffed by ransomware

DNTP

Licking county

Hmm yes I have a great idea lets name a county after a thing that for health purposes we try to train out of everyone starting as young children.

Oh well if we get infected out here in my home of Middle Sex County I fully expect The Reg to headline that with "Software Transmittable Disease" or similar.

Motivational speaker in the slammer after HPE applies for court order

DNTP

a little self-confidence

Well when nerdy social anxiety somehow becomes a capitalistically important trait then I'm all set for success to quietly leave the room before anyone notices.

We need to talk about Granny: She's way more likely to fall for phishing

DNTP

Re: Happens everywhere

Well here in the US a 70 year old senile asshole keeps inviting robber barons into the government...

Revealed: Soros Group behind mystery unit that gobbled Violin Memory

DNTP

Best Buy, their salespeople will likely take your request seriously, put your request into their product finder, offer to look for it in the back, try to upsell you on actual computer RAM that's "totally compatible" with your stringed instrument, and then offer a three year warranty at checkout.

PDP-10 enthusiasts resurrect ancient MIT operating system

DNTP

Re: If nothing else...

They display incomprehensible technical printouts like that as public artwork in Boston and Cambridge, every few blocks.

Oh wait that's the MBTA bus network map and it is actually worse.