* Posts by onefang

1954 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Dec 2017

The future of humanity: A Bluetooth ball hitting your face – forever

onefang

Re: Remember when yo-yo's came back into fashion ?

Would that be the first time they came back into fashion, or the second time, or...

onefang

So another balls up then.

The Death of the Gods: Not scared of tech yet? You haven't been paying attention

onefang

"Well, summer’s almost over."

Only on one side of the planet, over here on this side, I'm looking forward to summer starting soon.

Facebook Messenger backdoor demand, bail in Bitcoin, and lots more

onefang

Twitch

So let me get this straight, the only messages "leaked" are "strangers' private messages", but they are all "promotional and mass-mailed messages from Twitch's marketing partners". Riiiight. Something not quite adding up here, that story is leaving my spider sense all twitchy.

"notify all users who had their messages accidentally shared, and give them a full copy of the messages at issue." Ah, the marketing partners will get a bucket load of their own adverts thrown back in their faces. So it's not all bad.

Drama as boffins claim to reach the Holy Grail of superconductivity

onefang
Coat

Re: It's dead, Jim, but not as we know it

"This makes their lengths at any instant in time indeterminate which leads to the knowledge that should one measure half of its length, the other half will have changed in all but the most unlikely points of the probability spaces."

I think you have the wrong end of the problem.

I'll get my coat, it's the one made of string.

onefang

Re: As usual, incredible claims come from far away

Since just about everything except hydrogen was made in stars, yeah most things come from very far away.

onefang
Boffin

Re: "quantum computing will never work because..."

"I don't mind opening the box as long as there isn't a cat involved."

If it's a networked quantum computer, there may be some cat6 involved. So that's six cats, one alive, one dead, one half alive, one half dead, one that doesn't give a fuck, and one that is very pissed off.

Facebook flat-out 'lies' about how many people can see its ads – lawsuit

onefang

Re: The suit is without merit, says Facebook.

You left out sperm whales and bowls of petunias.

onefang

Re: This is another easy win for Facebook

"What a bitch. Easier not to die."

Yeah, that'll be my preference to.

Lo and behold, Earth's special chemical cocktail for life seems to be pretty common

onefang

"Just why do scientists always think that elements for life on other planets has to consist of what we know about earth?"

They don't think that, it's just easier to peer at tiny dots in the sky and infer the things we know work than try to scratch our heads over things we don't know about, on these tiny bits of evidence.

Once we have studied how liquid sulfur works as the basis of life on Mercury, or whatever, then it'll be a lot easier to point telescopes at distant suns and figure out which of the planets we can't actually see could possibly support sulfur based life forms, based on flickering spectra of that sun.

Give the astroboffins their due, it's hard enough doing the science they are doing, without asking them to search for purely theoretical forms of life. The low hanging fruit is all we can reach for now.

onefang

Re: Looking for life around white dwarf stars

"I read them as saying that if the building blocks are common around white dwarves, they are probably common around other stars, and it's these other stars that might have life. They are not looking for or predicting life around white dwarves."

Yes, my impression is that they where using white dwarfs coz they are easier places to find the specific things they where looking for.

onefang

"Earth appears to be unique and inhabited by living creatures, but the building blocks required for life to bloom are actually quite common, according to new research."

My mother appears to be unique and has breasts, says the monk that has spent his entire life in a monastery. His mother is the only woman he has ever seen. The only reason Earth appears to be unique is coz we have a sample size of precisely one potential life bearing planet. So it's no surprise that we have seen only one life bearing planet. We are coming closer to figuring out if Mars and our Moon are / where potentially life bearing, so that'll triple our sample size. We may find others in our solar system, and eventually we might find others in other solar systems. The odds are looking better each time we have a look. Once we actually know more, we may find out that planets inhabited by living creatures are common. We are still in the monastery, peeking out the window, wondering if those oddly shaped people out there have breasts like our mother.

I wish I could quit you, but cookies find a way: How to sidestep browser tracking protections

onefang

El Reg writes a serious article about security, and the best we commentards can do is go an a cookie punning binge. We are all crackers, especially Graham.

onefang

Oreo serious?

Dough! That one's really bad, I should come up with a batter one.

onefang

That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Distro inferno: Debian's still rocking at 25

onefang
Coat

Re: Devuan!

'Every time I see that name, it reminds me of "Durian"...'

The Fruit that smells like your Nutcase?

GitHub goes off the Rails as Microsoft closes in

onefang

"You say to a chatbot, a Hubot, 'I want a new application,' and Moda just bootstraps a repository, puts all the Kubernetes config in there...and you can just start developing really, really quickly."

Oooor, just push the "New Application" button, and be developing really, really, really quickly.

onefang

Re: NAPT (Not Another Platform Thingy)

Maybe this platformer is a side scrolling game?

Arm debuts CPU roadmap for the first time, sort of

onefang
Flame

Re: ARM not Arm

'It's actually "arm" if you look at the most recent company logo.'

Dammit, arm and nbn and internet and ...

I went with uncapitalized "onefang" long ago as a protest against MarketDroids Influencing The World To Capitalize Every Single Fucking Word. now marketdroids are uncapitalizing everything, including acronyms, i just can't win. maybe i'm a trend setter now, and i can sue someone?

onefang
Coat

Re: ARM not Arm

"You're fighting a losing battle trying to keep acronyms capitalised."

You mean we might need to bring in the ARMy?

Kids are more likely than adults to submit to peer pressure from robots

onefang
Coat

Re: Peers

I peered at this research and think the robot peers idea went pear shaped.

onefang

Re: RTM is well on its way, but not here yet

"Not until they can cook, do the dishes and clean the house."

You left out changing nappies and driving mums taxi.

Three more data-leaking security holes found in Intel chips as designers swap security for speed

onefang

Re: Looking at the wrong holes

While that's a cool image, I don't think anyone would want to jump in.

onefang

At this rate, by the end of the year Intel CPUs will be exposed as being less secure than a wet paper bag with "free cash" printed on it in large letters.

Linux 4.18 arrives fashionably late while Zorin OS shines up its Windows

onefang

Re: Zorin OS

"So, as a crude analogy of the hierarchy, Debian equates to MS-DOS and Ubuntu equates to Windows 95?"

This might help, or not, it's somewhat out of date, there's more of 'em now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions

onefang

Re: Zorin OS

"Is it named after a Christopher Walken character?"

Sorry, Sorry that handle is already taken, but I think that characters handle was already taken.

Foreshadow and Intel SGX software attestation: 'The whole trust model collapses'

onefang
Coat

I foreshadow more doom and gloom for Intel, there may be a meltdown in profits.

Windows is coming to Chromebooks… with Google’s blessing

onefang

Re: The printer wars

SIR! Our front line scouts have discovered that the Printer Liberation Front is deploying Canons. They are bringing out the big guns. I suggest we try out those re-purposed LARTS the boffins have been working on. Hit 'em with our PARTs!

onefang

Re: Whose side is it not worth being on

We have always been at war with MicroGoogAppleSoftFace!

"You forgot someone!"

/me quickly hacks the El Reg comment database.

But that's exactly what I said the first time, we have always been at war with MicroGoogAppleSoftFace!

onefang

Re: Over 30 years of personal computing and printing is STILL and issue!

The printers heard about the paperless office concept, and have been waging an existential war with us ever since. That's why we now have lots of multifunction printers, they are trying to remain useful.

On Monday I installed one of them on someones desk, a multifunction scanner/inkjet printer. One that had been sitting unused in another office. It's ink cartridges are dried out already, and are likely to remain that way, coz the user only wanted the scanner. I think they recently threw away the fax/printer, coz they no longer need faxes.

The big photocopier/printer in a room by itself was recently hooked up to the network so they could use it as a printer as well. The printer forces won that battle at least. So that's Printer Liberation Front 1 v Humans 2. It'll be a long and costly war, but I think we can win it.

onefang

"You can guarantee this won't be reciprocal. No chance that MS will want PCs running Chrome OS."

Microsoft don't have much say in the matter. Yes, I know that for some PCs you need to have your bootloader / OS signed by Microsoft, but you can turn that off for a lot of them. Or run Chrome OS an a locked down PC under a VM.

Google keeps tracking you even when you specifically tell it not to: Maps, Search won't take no for an answer

onefang

Re: Firefox and DuckDuckGo

"I've watched Netflix in Linux many times using Waterfox."

When Netflix first came to Australia, Chrome was the only browser that it worked on under Linux. I've just tested Firefox ESR, and Netflix works fine once you turn on DRM. I guess things have changed. It still doesn't work on my locked down Palemoon, which is my main browser. So now I got choices.

onefang

Re: Google takes revenge

"Or uninstall/disable Maps and use a GDPR-compliant alternative.

=== === ====

Suggestions, please?"

I use Osmand, others have been mentioned here.

onefang

Re: Google takes revenge

"now how do i choose a subject so that every future add is for Bali, Victoria's Secret, nude beaches, Follies Atlanta, or The Cheetah"

Subject - Victoria, from Atlanta, told me about a secret nude beach in Bali, where she saw a cheetah.

onefang
Alien

Re: Stuff Like This Should Be Illegal

"you might believe that the rapture is about to happen but completely reject the idea of UFO abduction."

They might be the same thing. Unidentified Flying Angels suddenly appear, to abduct all the good worshipers of (insert favoured sky fairy here). After all, depending on your religion, they might be winged women wearing white, marinated meatballs with melted mozzarella, portly penguins parading proudly, or little green men from LGM-1 (AKA CP 1919 or PSR B1919+21).

BTW, I was one of your upvoters, you made a good point.

onefang
Coat

Re: Not really news, and How To Screw Maps

"I've not been in a plane crash, but if I were, I'm pretty sure that renting/buying a campervan would not be near the top of my priority list"

Well, if you survive, and you can't afford to stay in a hospital, you'll need somewhere to stay while you search the area around the crash site for what's left of your luggage. Parking a camper van somewhere nearby might be just what you need.

onefang

Re: Alternatively

"can't someone come up with an app to spaff false location data back to Google to make their data sets useless ?"

There are a few of those, including Androids own hidden developer settings menu. Google's own software ignores them and gets the real location, all other apps get the fake location. You need root to be able to actually lie to Google's software.

onefang

Re: Firefox and DuckDuckGo

"Only sometimes?"

Yeah, so far only Chrome works under Linux for watching Netflix. B-(

Patch Tuesday heats up with pair of exploited zero-days squashed – plus 58 other vulns fixed

onefang

"It appears to mostly impact high-load/high-density environments as an attacker could potentially blend different network streams together."

Don't cross the streams. It would be bad.

Hello darkness my old friend, what happened last week in Redmond?

onefang

Re: Good headline

Wrong song though. The first paragraph of the article was -

"In a week when NASA flung a spacecraft into space to touch the Sun, Microsoft has brought darkness to Windows 10, given Skype Classic a mission extension, and continued its efforts to send SMB1 screaming into the heart of our nearest star."

They should have used Pink Floyd's "Set the controls for the heart of the sun".

onefang

Re: Skype - what is going on

"You neglected to mention Android or iOS, one or both of which are required to use this. So it is not really a replacement for Skype after all."

I guess you are talking about Signal, which has a desktop client that runs under Linux at least. I think it runs under Mac OS and Windows to. Though it just seems to be a skin around Chrome. So no, you don't need Android or iOS to run Signal.

onefang
Holmes

Re: That's so cute

"It's so cute that they seem to think those rankings actually mean anything."

So the rankings for Chrome, which is basically forced onto a lot of Android gear; are lower than Edge for Android, where only the people that want it install it. I'm not surprised at all.

When's a backdoor not a backdoor? When the Oz government says it isn't

onefang

Re: The Holy Trinity

"it might be a good idea to plan your crimes in countries where the police/locals aren't armed"

Police in Australia are armed, the locals not so much.

onefang

Re: RE: PGP?

"I have left some things out, and don't know about others... nor do you."

One thing I keep seeing being left out of any discussion about burner phones in Australia, by law you need to provide identification to get mobile service. This makes things a bit more difficult for the burner phone consumer, and a bit more lucrative for the fake / stolen ID market.

onefang

Re: Progressive, democratic Australia

'final solution to immigration problem'

Historically, anything called 'final solution' doesn't end well.

onefang

Re: Anyone see the word "component"....

What I kept seeing is the word "company", I'm not sure if any of these new laws apply outside of a company supplying goods or services.

"whats to say under this legislation a software developer doing something like Linux kernel driver or xorg development wouldn't get a tap on the shoulder"

So perhaps open source developers doing it for free are exempt? Shhh, don't let the gruberment know about this little loophole. I'm hoping the laws don't apply to my European server that doesn't sell anything.

onefang

Re: data rate

"Something about the laws of physics."

I don't think string theory has been completely ruled out yet. Though the main problem with those sorts of strings is that both ends have to be very very close together. You might be better off just whispering in their ear.

onefang

Re: Baud rate

"Is the Oz government intent on making all Aussies into criminals?

"AGAIN!

"Remember Transportation!"

But not everyone transported to The Great Prison Oz where criminals, they also sent politicians to manage them. Oh wait ...

Cheap NAND nasty: Flooding market with chips threatens prices

onefang

Re: The sole aim of Greed is to Limit Its Own Fear - and vice versa.

Now I have two dead babelfish, you can have both.

/me cooks a pizza for dinner instead.

Australia on the cusp of showing the world how to break encryption

onefang

"Stupidity or conspiracy: it's hard to know which is worse."

I think we have both now. A conspiracy of stupids.