* Posts by allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

6157 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Oct 2015

Alphabetti spaghetti: What Wall Street isn't telling you about Google

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: How Great Minds Occupy Themselves.

Ooh, "The Best and the Brightest" - that takes me back.

BT broadband is down: Former state monopoly goes TITSUP UK-wide

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Mine's fine

"I'm on TalkTalk so I'm fine."

That's a definition of "fine" that's somewhat debatable.

For sale: One 236-bed nuclear bunker

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: preserving government

At the time, the general "accuracy" of ICBMs was what prompted the drive for hydrogen bombs in the multi-megaton range. If the yield is high enough, "close enough" is close enough.

(Anyone remember Dr. Strangelove? I'd like to have one of those "World Targets in Megadeaths" ring binders. And if you think Kubrick made up stuff like that for a laugh, think again.)

Firing a water rocket to 1km? Piece of cake

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

550 kg thrust

is impressive, but would only lift a VERY small car - a Smart weighs in at 880 kg (empty).

Plan B hoovers up NZ-based cloud outfit ICONZ

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Once again, life imitates art.

GCHQ’s Xmas puzzle proves uncrackable

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: puzzles...

Now I am puzzled - how would glue be any help in solving the GCHQ crypto challenge?

"This is glue - strong stuff." - Elwood Blues

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

"Wasn't there are certain Starfleet captain who solved an unsolvable computer-based puzzle?"

Okay, I'll bite *sigh* (1) ... not a puzzle, the simulation of a lose-lose-scenario which was more of a test to build a psychological profile than anything else. JTK refused to be in a situation without any real options, so he rigged the test by hacking the simulation computer and tweaking it's program.

(1) "Sometimes it isn't easy being me." - DNA

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: QR code?

@1st 2nd 3rd: there's an app for that... easiest way is via the playstore, lots of 'free' ones. Mind the level of dataslurp the app wants you to agree to, though...

Why the Sun is setting on the Boeing 747

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Greatest respect etc

Not the article, some of the comments. But I'm okay with this, because planes.

NASA preps silicon-photonic modem for space laser internet test

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Nested acronyms

YAANOCMHOTO.

But my all-time favourite is still TWAIN.

Sure, encrypt your email – while your shiny IoT toothbrush spies on you

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: The IoT vision always makes me shudder slightly

Time to throw the nutrimatic cup.

Alphabet, cough, Google most valuable biz on Earth as it pours billions into 'other bets'

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

The alchemists of old tried to turn lead into gold and failed.

Secret Service Silk Road scammer in the slammer

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Not bright

Yup. You can mail just about anything you need almost anywhere using FedEx etc.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Read up on the case (very interesting, quite a lot of WTF?!?-moments, you couln't make this up), no need for backdoors. Pro tip: even old school cash is not very anonymous if you start waving it around.

US government's $6bn super firewall doesn't even monitor web traffic

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: governments and ANY projects

This reminds me of the Great Wall of China. Good idea* on paper, pretty much useless after implementation.

*Some claim that it was an even bigger failure as usually percieved. Alledgedly the project wasn't meant to shield the whole kingdom against babarian hordes, it started as a garden wall for the emeror's summer palace and then somehow snowballed. Given how bureaucracies worked even then, well...

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

What the...

... oh, DHS, you say? Right, carry on.

Hackers mirror 250GB of NASA files on the web

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: conspiracies

I do love a good conspiracy theory - they can be great entertainment! They can also be a good mental exercise (finding factual errors, finding logical errors, honing your skills of debate and argumentation, etc.)

Although my favourite ones usually are fictitious (they tend to be funnier than the others), like Red Dwarf's take on the JFK assasination or The Simpsons's spoof of The Prisoner (The Computer Wore Menace Shoes)

Anyway, if you want to know everything there is to know about conspiracy theories, read Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. (The first quarter or so is actually more work than entertainment, the action unfolds somewhat less-than-hectic. But very, very instructive, well worth the time.)

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17841.Foucault_s_Pendulum

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

TL;DR - the 'hackers' found lost of stuff they could have got from the NASA webpage and assorted pages?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Too much X-Files watching

@Michael Hoffmann: Cool! (No pun intended.) Any stories, perhaps for the 'On Call' pages?

Network builders: LTE costs will transform the cell tower biz in 2016

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

@P.Lee: I think you misspelled accounting.

How Symantec scuppered Veritas sell-off six ways to Sunday

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Optimistic on Veritas Independence Day

4/10

Pointers: next time, include synergy, DevOps, exciting, proactive, disruptive, creative, next-gen, paradigm, game changer, digital or cyber (NEVER mix those two), cloud, innovative, virtual, mobile apps and aeromancy. Have I mentioned DevOps?

I love you. I will kill you! I want to make love to you: The evolution of AI in pop culture

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

A drone is just as much of a robot as a computerized artillery cannon that lobs a grenade over, say, 30 km to it's target. In other words: not at all. Controlled by humans all the way, just remote. Heck, a Roomba is more of a robot than a drone right now.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: @Cranky_Yank - IBM loved 2001

I would have gone with "Open the fucking pod bay doors you positronic motherfucker!!!" but then again I'm not a screen writer. (Not to mention what you were allowed to say on screen in the 1960ies. Hey, Tarantino should do e remake of 2001.)

Anyway, I came here to pledge that I will call my IT-startup* "JCN - One Step Beyond". Cue Madness...

*BTW: any VCs around? Please start sending me money. It's just an idea right now, but with a couple of millions I can turn it into a concept. Can't disclose any details yet, but it's going to be bigger than Facebook and Google, promise!

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: "what it is that makes us human when computers and machines can educate themselves"

"I've yet to see a human "learn" chess without being given the ruleset ... "

Point.

But: what about inventing chess, etc ?

I have yet to see a computer system invent something new - in other words show the ability of creativity, of original thougt. (Random errors from buggy code or malfunctions do not count.)

Now that would be AI.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Other AI robot shockers

Short Circuit :

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091949/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Danish Sith Lord fined in Galactic Republic rumpus

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Cue cantina scene music...

Euro-security group ENISA notices cars are insecure, plots fixfest

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Well, fairly quick reaction, considering. I also like the broad input they are looking for. I'll cerainly look into it.

Exascale project wants machine with TEN MEEELLION ARMS

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
Coat

8.5 million EUR - you'd think this would cost an arm and a leg...

Chef reviews internal update plans after 'degradation incident'

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Errm...?

DevOps is SO last year.

2016 is the year of Brisk OpDev !

UK taxpayers should foot £2bn or more to adopt Snoopers' Charter, says Inquiry

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Maybe

the UK can apply for some sort of EU grant programme?

EU agency warns of cyber risks from using big data tools

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: The headline

Could be. Should be!

Won't be (thanks to the good old MBA pukes) because bad things only ever happen to other companies. Until a considerable amount of fecal matter comes in close proximity to a ventilation system.

Microsoft sinks to new depths with underwater data centre experiment

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Just think of

the potential for new, exciting BOFH stories in a submarine setting! Harpoons! Decompression chambers! Sharks! Torpedoes! The possibilities are endless!

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: "Offshore" data storage

The NSA had the Navy tap Soviet submarine phone lines back in the 1960ies - AFAIK they still have subs and divers. A very interesting book on the subject is 'Blind Man's Bluff'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Man's_Bluff:_The_Untold_Story_of_American_Submarine_Espionage

(sorry about the source, but the book is good)

Random ideas sought to improve cryptography

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: See published work...

Same here... found some nice songs by N. Coward, though. Catchy, but definitely not random.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

I've just come across this, now I know why NIST is croudsourcing this - the monkey approach doesn't work:

http://boingboing.net/2016/01/28/monkeys-make-surprisingly-terr.html?utm_source=moreatbb&utm_medium=nextpost&utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Reliable way to check the output

Yes, some sort... it's in the mail already.

Anyway, obligatory xkcd

30 years on from Challenger, NASA remembers the fallen

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

AFAIK, 4 cosmonauts died on a mission:

Sojus 1, 1967 - parachute failed during landing phase. Wladimir Komarow

Sojus 11, 1971 - after a stay at the Saljut-1 space station, on the return trip a valve malfunctioned and the capsule lost pressure. Crew were not wearing pressure suits due to limited room in capsule (3 men without suits could fit into a craft originally designed for 2 men wearing suits. Barely.). Georgi Dobrowolski, Wladislaw Wolkow, Wiktor Pazajew

----

Sojus 18-1 (or Sojus 18A) was supposed to go to Saljut-4 in 1975, but stage 2 failed to separate properly from stage 3. Stage 3 ignited and tore away from stage 2, but all vectors were wrong, so the safety automatic initiated abort and successful emergency landing - way off, almost in China, but as they say: any landing you can walk away from, etc. Wassili Grigorjewitsch Lasarew, Oleg Grigorjewitsch Makarow

Sojus T-10-1 actually blew up on the launch pad on 1983-09-26, but the crew was saved by the emergency rocket. Duration of flight 5 Min 13 Sec. Wladimir Georgjewitsch Titow and Gennadi Michailowitsch Strekalow had to endure between 14 and 17 G, but lived to tell the tale.

The monitor didn't work but the problem was between the user's ears

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Intermittent mouse

"But where do they make and test these things where daylight is not a normal condition?"

I always thought all IT people avoided the evil daylight star?

Israeli drones and jet signals slurped by UK and US SIGINT teams

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Eastenders

The studies were inconclusive, I'll grant you that. However, shouldn't we err on the safe side?

Ginni Rometty to pocket $4.5m bonus for IBM leadership

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Well, if it's in her contract... And who knows - maybe her work prevented much, much higher losses. We can only speculate.

Anyway, peanuts compared to what you can make by driving fast cars in circles or kicking a ball.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: It's even more fun working there

@Solmyr ibn Wali Barad: as far as analogies go, this is an excellent one.

'Printer Ready'. Er… you actually want to print? What, right now?

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Not about printer problems as such, but a good read about fighting malfunctioning machinery:

http://www.ibras.dk/comedy/allen.htm#Mechs

Why a detachable cabin probably won’t save your life in a plane crash

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Looks as though it requires a high-wing aircraft configuration.

"Looks as though it requires a high-wing aircraft configuration.

How many large jets do you see like that these days?"

none that cross large distances of water, for the very reason that in the event of a ditching the doors are under water

Hmm. I wonder which route all the Lockheed Galaxies I used to see at FFM airport took? Muste have been shipped over the big pond by the Navy.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: 'Without life rafts'

Depending on the weather, if your lifebelt doesn't have a spray hood, you'll die floating, from the water you'll inhale. That is, if you don't freeze to death first. The rate of heat loss of a human body swimming in 25°C water is more or less the same as that of a body in 5°C air. Good luck finding water that warm anywhere elsethan the tropics. I'll take the raft, thank you very much.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Really?

There is a 1950ies film where the plot revolves around testing such a system, starring Humphrey Bogard(!) as the test pilot. I think it's called "Test Pilot".

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Really?

"Landing a cabin of 400+ people from x0,000 feet by unsteered parachute sounds at least as terrifying as having it connected to a set of wings and a control system and a bunch of people controlling who want to stay alive every bit as much as the cabin, and are in a position to help do so."

Exactly. Fortunately, really twisted stuff like Germanwings Flight 9525 (4U9525/GWI18G) is extremely rare.

State Department finds 22 classified emails in Hillary’s server, denies wrongdoing

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Welcome, step right up

My sources tell me that 11 of them are in fact originating from the Victoria's Secret online sales department.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: Olbigatory YM quote

International politics are tricky. A lot of what is actually good statecraft when done at the top levels (Prez, SecState, ambassador, etc.) would be a violation/illegal on the lower levels. And only time will tell if it was a good call or not. A problem, obviously. Solution: select persons whose personal integrity is held in high regard. Which of course poses the next problem...

Cloud growth? Take a number, Microsoft. Two engines have stalled

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

"Last September, Microsoft revamped the way it reports revenue. It still has three units, but now known as Productivity and Business Process, Intelligent Cloud and More Personal Computing."

Is that supposed to be "More Personal Computing" or "More Personal Computing"?

Oh, and "Productivity and Business Process" - IME that's more often a contradiction in terms than not.

allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Re: This'll be downvoted but... / download a life

Be careful - the in-app purchases it offers can really bancrupt you.