Posts by allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

Oh shit, reading the stuff in the link it's me!

But seriously, thanks for the link, interesting read.

Happy New Year!

No sweat. By the end of January the Russians can send 350 or so new spies to the US. Provided they book their accomodations at one of the Trump resorts or hotels.

"The government claims the project could save £1bn across the NHS over seven years."

I'd like to see the reasoning & maths that are supposed to back this claim.

(Currently spending (post)cristmas time with the extended family, I could do with a laugh by now.)

Re: the influence of Big Tech in education

There is more to this. The problem(s) run deeper and the long term effects are cause for concern. Because Big Tech, and in fact any other corporate "sponsor", are not interested in education. They are interested in training. What's the difference, you ask?

Education gives you knowlege, the ability to learn and, most of all, the ability to think.

Training gives you a specific set of skills to do a specific range of jobs; preferably (from the trainer's point of view) without any original or, heaven forbid, critical thoughts.

"How often can we say that an IT blunder might have changed the course of world history?"

In the foreseeable future? Every other month or so.

So, what's going to be the West Coast Techno Trend in 2017?

Digital entertainment centers for fallout shelters?

"Much agricultural machinery is connected to the internet, and a internet connected heavy vehicle that can be controlled remotely can be controlled remotely by a bad guy, too."

Which is a problem in itself, isn't it? Given the state of things, from what I read on El Reg alone, combine harvesters or tractors or any other heavy vehicle that is connected to the internet will be about as "secure" as any given CCTV or kettle.

"Gary and his mates were granted their wishes, practiced the job until they could do it in two hours and showed up on Christmas Eve confident of a fast and lucrative getaway."

"...since I’m not in the mood to make some big, dramatic, sweeping statement, I’ll just tell you this: God hates doctors, He truly does. You see all these old people in here? Well, any of ’em would give just about anything to be able to sashay off this planet, but most of ’em are gonna stay and they’re gonna live forever and ever and ever. And your Mr. Milligan, well, it turns out he’s just young enough to die. I mean, think about it: It’s the holidays, there’s a sweet little kid involved. Can’t you just feel it?"

source

Aaand - the price for Yahoo! just went down a bit, again. Intended or not, this is a nice christmas present for Verizon.

Uber, which last week began offering rides in self-driving cars in San Francisco as an experiment, said it didn't need a permit to test its self-driving cars on state roads. It asserted that its self-driving cars don't qualify as autonomous vehicles under California law because they're operated under human supervision. Because fuck yeah, we're Uber!

FTFY.

Uber doesn't have a viable business model. Just a lot of VC cash and an absurd market capitalisation based on promises and little else. Which results in a lot of pressure to come up with something that will transform theoretical value into real money. Plus a C-suite of people of the 'we-are-the-masters-of-the-universe' ilk; all ego and no skills. That's not the proper mix for building something new that actually works. So right now it's a scam using mob tactics.

IF the EM drive should actually work I'd say we* will find that it doesn't break Newton's third law of motion as such, but somehow isn't within it's jurisdiction, so to speak.

^{* Where 'we' means the boffins that actually do the work whereas I will be reading a conveniently dumbed down article in a popular science magazine. As Ronald Balfour Corbett CBE used to say in that one sketch, I know my place.}

"What do you get the girl who has everything?"

Why, making her secret whishes come true, of course.

Well, I'm already excited about the next Star Wars film, another sort-of-prequel, which is about something that I actually have been thinking about, on and off, since the first one came out almost 40 years ago. I did mention that my background is in civil engineering, didn't I?

It's "Brötli" (a small bread or breadroll) and has nothing to do with broccoli. Or Broccoli. Or the James Bond movies.

Nice! And just in time...