* Posts by iromko

33 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Sep 2014

DNAaaahahaha: Twins' 23andMe, Ancestry, etc genetic tests vary wildly, surprising no one

iromko
Flame

Don't listen to naysayers

Reading this thread is like reading a flat-Earth society meeting notes.

Genealogy DNA testing has provided amazing tools for genealogists researching their roots and helped bring down many brick walls in their research. These tools are precise and scientifically sound. How else would they have assisted in finding lost relatives and biological families for adoptees?

Unfortunately, to make quick $$$, some companies promoted these tests heavily as a way to get your "ethnicity". Which is neither precise nor very scientific, but potential market for such tools is bigger. Efforts for proper promotion of really useful aspects of consumer DNA testing are left to volunteer bloggers, such like this:

http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2019/01/is-genealogical-dna-testing-junk-science.html

iromko

Re: 2) These tests are full of crap.

You've got it wrong: simple paternity test done in a lab in France goes for €150 because France has blocked other commercial services and allows peddling outdated technology from 90s for crazy price. That 99$ (during sale you could get it for 49$) test is several generations more advanced than that paternity test crap.

With sorry Soyuz stuffed, who's going to run NASA's space station taxi service now?

iromko
Devil

Re: Lose one bloody capsule in 50 years

>> This event was a launch booster failure and that is an astonishingly rare event with these rockets.

Russian rockets have quite a tendency of failures recently. Not to mention holes drilled at random in the sides of spacecraft.

So the problem usually is not in design or materials, but in deteriorated work ethics and skills.

Day two – and Windows 10 October 2018 Update trips over Intel audio

iromko
WTF?

mapped network drives

The problem with mapped network drives not reconnecting automatically is there in Windows 10, like forever. I believe I saw it occurring even before upgrade to Win10 when I had Win8. So that's hardly a new thing.

GDPR v2 – Gradually Diminishing Psychotic Robots: Brussels kills Terminator apocalypse

iromko
Terminator

Countering the threat from the real culprits

OK, suppose they'd pass such resolutions in EU and UN. How are they going to keep China and Russia from developing those killer robots? What about US, Israel and Turkey, or Pakistan and India? In fact, EU has no way to stop them. The only sane course in such situation is developing advanced defense systems aimed at stopping autonomous killer robots invasion. Operated by humans, of course.

Trump kept ZTE alive as ‘personal favour’ to Chinese president Xi

iromko
Devil

Re: "The US president claims he’s a negotiator"...

Only if you consider a combination of sociopathy, misogyny and propensity to stealing and lying as mental illness. He may as well claim that on his trial, though...

In World Cup Russia, our Wi-Fi networks will log on to you!

iromko
Holmes

Re: Why would you even let Russia host the world cup ?

Yep, I agree with you in part. Still, football, and to lesser degree other sports with international competitions, is substitute for international violence. Basically, modern society is channeling the spirit of competitiveness towards other nations into relatively safe and civilized venue.

With that regard, it's against all logic to award World Cup to a nation which subjugates its neighbors, wages two "hot" wars, and is involved in hostile subversive operations in many other countries.

iromko
Facepalm

Re: Why would you even let Russia host the world cup ?

And given all that, I don't understand why would any sane person travel to said World Cup. So any useful idiots attending this event fully deserve having their phones hacked into and their asses beaten by Cossack morality patrols sniffing around W. Cup venues for suspected gay activity.

And THIS is how you do it, Apple: Huawei shames Cupertino with under-glass sensor

iromko
Holmes

Too good to be true?

Such a low price for such shiny piece of technology seems suspicious. It looks like desperate effort to put spy tool into as many user hands as possible before they get under sanctions as their comrades from ZTE did.

Facebook: Crisis? What crisis? Look at our revenue, it's fantastic

iromko

Re: "you should sell Facebook stock"

I saw no indication that these jobs will be in US. Certainly, some would be, but if they declare intent to police the content in places like Myanmar, they surely won't hire people in US for that.

Sony Xperia XZ2: High-res audio but no headphone jack

iromko
Go

Price as a competitive advantage

I wonder why the prices of these handsets aren't touted as a competitive advantage.

£549 and £449 for top-of-the-line handsets may have been a lot 3-4 years ago, but now, when the flagships go for 800-900, the Sony top brass starts looking pretty cheap, considering the characteristics and top brand.

Russia claims it repelled home-grown drone swarm in Syria

iromko
Holmes

Turkish proxies

"Unclear to me whether this is ISIS or the brave democratic resistance to the dreadful tyrant Assad"

Well, it's becoming clear to me that this attack was performed by Turkish proxies operating in the same region. The indications for that are stern words from Russian authorities towards Turkey and it's proxies (https://www.rt.com/news/415454-drone-attack-syria-turkey/, sorry for posting RT link), and Russian ambassador being summoned by Turkish government yesterday.

iromko
FAIL

Troll factory worker detected

Are you Russian, by any chance?

Because you've managed to sprout three points of their propaganda in three sentences:

1) "We're not at war with Russia" - you are lying, if by 'we' you mean EU; Russia in fact wages hybrid war on EU for years.

2) "best efforts of the USA" - you are trying to implicate USA into anything.

3) "Russia have done more to combat ISIS in Syria" - you are lying, Russia was in fact too scared to engage ISIS, and mostly fought Assad's enemies, as others commented.

iromko
Mushroom

Russian Defense Ministry

Why would any reputable publication cite those disgraced liars from Russian Defense Ministry? They couldn't provide truthful report on anything even if they tried, like it was the case when they gave fake video of Russian airstrike to Putin:

http://www.newsweek.com/putin-fake-video-oliver-stone-genuine-kremlin-insists-627871

Coming live to a warzone near you: Army Truck Driver for Xbox!

iromko

Second hand sources?

The article says "an attack of the type Russia used to destroy two Ukrainian mechanised infantry battalions during Russia's invasion of the Crimea", but nowhere in the linked article there's mention that the attack you describe took place in Crimea.

Also, during entire war with Russia in Donbas, there wasn't a single episode or attack to destroy two infantry battalions at the same time. The most devastating attack of the type described (UAV reconnaissance followed by rockets barrage) happened near Zelenopillya in the summer of 2014: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelenopillya_rocket_attack. It was horrible, and sources probably refer to this episode, but fail to mention specifics.

Facebook, Google, Twitter are the shady bouncers of the web. They should be fired

iromko

Re: Just like the Sun (News of the World) then

>> $100000 dollars is a big ad campaign?

I don't believe it's final score. It's just the sum that was proven so far to come from Russia and directed at election ads. The real sums spent are probably in millions of dollars, but FB might be not eager to produce evidence until really pressed.

Besides, with Cambridge Analytica targetting algorithms, they didn't need vast sums of money; they made sure to influence just the right people in right places.

Google finds 200m more people to advertise to in a single day

iromko

Re: And next....

Let them tap into China first.

Unloved Microsoft Edge is much improved – but will anyone use it?

iromko

The current version of Edge on Windows 10 Mobile works very well, that's sure. It's a pity MS stopped making new models of WP handsets. Their loss.

Sweet Christmas: Micron more than triples SSD capacity with 9200

iromko

What about the price? Any indications?

Uber borgs with Yandex's ride-sharing biz in Russosphere

iromko

I'd think this means that Uber got an offer they couldn't refuse - give up your business for pittance or we'd take it anyway by force. I expect that in a couple of years, Yandex would take over the remaining 36% and be the only online taxi service in the entire russian sphere of influence. And FSB would have a handy tool to spy on all taxi rides.

Huge ransomware outbreak spreads in Ukraine and beyond

iromko
Flame

Re: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

"And your evidence is, what" - typical Russian troll response :)

For others, here's The Register take on this: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/28/petya_notpetya_ransomware/?page=3

iromko
Thumb Down

Re: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

For a country which is target of Russian aggression, it's only natural to assume that any widespread attack on it's infrastructure was initiated by the aggressor. And only after that was disproved, other possibilities may be considered. Of course, if some administrators failed to protect their systems (big 'if', we don't really know), they should be held accountable.

But still the blame should be placed where it belongs, on the perpetrator, not the victims.

Despite high-profile hires, Apple's TV plans are doomed

iromko

Re: "There's more premium original content than consumers can even watch."

"This is a genuine question: I'm curious to understand how so much telly gets made, and watched, and still pays for itself."

That brings the possibility that we're inside the bubble similar to that of dotCom era. If Apple would join the fray now, it probably won't bankrupt itself by losing a couple of billion, but it may drain the market so others would get less income, and that may topple some of them.

Russian search engine Yandex's Ukraine offices raided for 'treason'

iromko

Let's see what Yandex is about: https://informnapalm.org/en/hybrid-wars-yandex-s-hidden-threat-infographic/

They concentrated their efforts on Ukraine until recently, with Russia Today targeting the Europe, but after getting the boot in Ukraine they're going to bring more of it's "services" to EU.

iromko

Do you have any proof of that?

Or just a task from your boss to support fake news, and spread rumors and innuendos?

iromko

Re: foresight

Why? What's so unique about Yandex and other to require the commissioning of replacement?

Yandex services are rip-offs of Google, Uber and others; VKontakte is a bastardized Facebook with pirate music and porn; Mail.ru - free web mail; etc. Good riddance.

EU must consider banning them - their destructive influence targets EU countries too.

Kremlin-linked hacker crew's tactics exposed

iromko

Re: Check is in the mail, SecureWorks

Why everyone assumes the intent was to promote one candidate over the other? May be the meddlers wanted to undermine the credibility of elected President, whoever that would be. For that purpose, the bigger mess they created, the better. They even had no need to hide the meddling carefully, because if they covered everything properly, no one would question the legitimacy of elected President, as they do now.

Uber blackballs 'Greyball' tool it used to deny rides to regulators

iromko

It seems that Uber and specifically its CEO are getting punished for stepping down from Donald Trump’s economic advisory council back at the beginning of February.

I think board would admit that they must replace the CEO in several weeks, and after that all these regulatory woes would disappear.

Chocolate Factory exudes Nougat as Android 7 begins rollout

iromko

Re: Ever increasing hardware demands

>> Is it not possible to write a better OS that doesn't have an even greater hardware requirement than its forbears? Or just not desirable?

It's certainly possible, and has been done recently - compare Windows 7 with Windows 8 or 10. The latter two just fly compared to the sluggish Win7 on the same hardware. But still most commentards are unimpressed and find the reasons to complain.

So Google is probably right - it lets them cry about how bloated the new version is, so no one looks any further for the reasons to complain.

Derelict TrueCrypt Russia portal 'is command hub for Ukraine spying op'

iromko

Re: MMM

Original MMM indeed imploded a long time ago. One of its organizers even did some jail time, IIRC.

But then a new generation grew up and he decided to market the MMM brand once more, saying he was sincere before, and if not for some evil people who undermined the enterprise, it'd have succeded. This time there are many independent Ponzi scheme franchises under MMM brand, so if one falls, it's just evil people in that particular franchise. People joining it know about the scheme, but they believe if they join early they can pull out in time with a profit.

Ballmer's billion-dollar blunders: When he gambled Microsoft's money and lost

iromko

Re: Hmmm

But they didn't buy Nokia *brand*, that's the point - guys at Nokia sold over 20.000 phone engineers to Microsoft, and loaned the brand for limited time. Next year Nokia would be able to sell it's own branded phones again, and Microsoft won't be part of it (perhaps it'd be collecting license fees if those phones would be Android).

Nokia Lumia 735: Ignore the selfie hype, it's a grown-up phone

iromko

Re: 8gb? really?

There's slot for SD card. So one can insert as much additional storage as they like. At additional cost, yes. But that certainly better than having several SKU differing only in amount of storage and at ridiculous prices.

And then there's Lumia 925 at a price ~30$ lower with 16 GB and no SD card slot. Which makes buying decisions more complicated.

Report: Sprint to bring Sony Xperia into tough US smartphone market

iromko

No Xperias in tough US market yet?

The article gives impression that no one is selling any Xperias in US, and Sprint is going to break this sad (for Sony) state of affairs. But if true, that's somewhat baffling - for major mobile phones maker not to have presence in such large market.