Posts by allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

"... AnalTech is a maker of chromatography plates but that its history stretches back to the 1960s. The company allegedly accepted a suggestion by a local marketing firm to name itself AnalTech back then ..."

A prank that keeps on giving for half a century... there should be some sort of award for this.

Paper ballots. Every time.

Over the last 16 years I've been in charge of a polling station¹⁾ in a dozen or so elections. Federal, state, council, mayor, citizens' referendums, you name it. The first time I was kinda drafted to volunteer - by now I honestly volunteer each time. It's actually an enjoyable way to do your bit. I'm not affiliated with any political party or movement. It's no big deal, but I know that on my watch, everything will be done correctly. I also know how the drill works and how complicated it would be to rig it on a large enough scale to have any impact. Can't say the same thing for voting machines.

¹⁾ Not always the same. Never the one I cast my own ballot in.

BTW: Mission: Impossible - Season 1, Episode 7: Wheels

History repeating, in a way. At least as far as cheating in a rigged game:

With the end of Prohibition, Dutch Schultz needed to find new sources of income. His answer came with Otto "Abbadabba" Berman and the Harlem numbers racket. The numbers racket, the forerunner of "Pick 3" lotteries, required players to choose three numbers, which were then derived from the last number before the decimal in the handle at the racetrack. Berman was a middle-aged accountant and math whiz who let Schultz fix this racket. In a matter of seconds, Berman could mentally calculate the minimum amount of money Schultz needed to bet at the track at the last minute in order to alter the odds. This strategy ensured that Schultz always controlled which numbers won, guaranteeing a larger number of losers in Harlem and a multimillion-dollar-a-month tax-free income for Schultz. Berman was reportedly paid $10,000 a week for his valued insight.

Newsflash

Machine specially designed for one highly specific task is really good at it!

Yes, it's without any doubt a remarkable achievement. Just don't call it "AI" until it can design a game like Go by itself. From scratch.

Why, Britain... from an outside perspective it starts to look like you're getting ready to give fascism a try at last, after you've missed out in the 1930ies.

Don't. Not worth it.

I have a third question: does this mean that I can use the new iPhone with 5G to warm up burritos?

As Professor Proton always says, there is no problem you can't solve if you use your noggin.

Suggestions for tech firms' hold music revisited

They Might Be Giants - "Call connected through the NSA" ringtone

Walter Wanderley - Telefone

Os Cariocas - Telefone

Lou Reed - New York Telephone Conversation

.cricket made the top ten?

"... was instead lumped into a lot of items the US Marshall's service set for auction in 2015."

Wait, what? And was Jack Carter involved in any way?

I like that they are repurposing elements from the Large Hadron Collider. But I guess the engineers at CERN are pretty sharp too, right?

"The breadth of our business model is capital intensive"

No, your "business model" was based on whishful thinking and massive self delusion.

"Two sets of judges rule for citizens and against government"

Just a minor technical point: in a democracy, aren't the citizens the government that elects an administration to run things?

Stop calling these clowns "the government"; that gives them much more scope than they are supposed to have.

"Fredo, you’re my older brother, and I love you. But don’t ever take sides with anyone against the Family again. Ever.”

"EU security think tank ENISA looks for IoT security, can't find any"

How can this be?

After all, the 'S' in 'IoT' stands for 'Security', doesn't it?