* Posts by ratfox

3721 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2007

Microsoft refuses to nip 'Windows 9' unzip lip slip

ratfox
Happy

Should be a good one

Since it's an odd number. Right?

Get ready: The top-bracket young coders of the 2020s will be mostly girls

ratfox

Re: No.

I assume his definition of gender equality means that about the same proportion of every gender should prefer to go into coding… Implying the reason for the current imbalance is that society at large is telling girls that women are not good at coding, and they should become nurse/housewife/stripper instead.

And yeah, it's all very fine to give everyone the same opportunity when people laugh at you if you try to take it.

EU justice chief blasts Google on 'right to be forgotten'

ratfox
Headmaster

Re: Hiding information NOT an impediment to Free Speech? Seriously?

Google is quite happy to ignore freedom of speech when it comes to dealing with China and other dictatorships.

This comment is not accurate anymore… Google has stopped censoring results in China some years ago.

Google to offer special accounts for kids: report

ratfox

Not trivial

I understand that implementing the COPA rules can be a bitch to do properly, if you did not prepare for it from the beginning. More so when your business model is based on user information, I dare say…

Take the shame: Microsofties ADMIT to playing Internet Explorer name-change game

ratfox
Angel

maybe they should call it…

Off.

Assange™: Hey world, I'M STILL HERE, ignore that Snowden guy

ratfox
Angel

Re: Logic fail

My hope is that he is eventually, after many years, caught; sent to Sweden; trialled; then sentenced to a week of community service. I think the worst punishment for him would be when he realizes that there is in fact no extradition awaiting because nobody cares about him anymore.

Google's so smart it's discovered SHARKS HAVE TEETH

ratfox
Headmaster

Toe the line. Not tow.

Premier League wants to PURGE ALL FOOTIE GIFs from social media

ratfox

Good luck

Whac-a-mole comes to mind…

It's time for PGP to die, says ... no, not the NSA – a US crypto prof

ratfox

Business cards??

Honestly, I fail to see why PGP would have to be backward-compatible with business cards. Surely there's millions of apps that are more practical for exchanging contact information than handing over little pieces of dead trees. If you must, how about printing a QR code of the key on the back of the card?

As to the gripes about email clients, that's the fault of the mail clients, not PGP. It might be that nobody has cracked the proper UI, because let's face it, so few users care…

Uber alles.. NOT: Berlin bans taxi ride app over 'safety' fears

ratfox

So the taxi business is overregulated. Regulate it less, then. I don't think it's difficult to find unnecessary rules that were added to protect incumbents.

I don't think it's about the business model in itself. Uber and taxi companies have practically the same one; it's just that Uber is less constrained by regulations. For instance, it hardly seems possible or worth it to be a part-time cabby, due to all the rules they have to satisfy.

Dead Steve Jobs sued by own shareholders in no-poach pact brouhaha

ratfox
WTF?

How does this make sense??

So you're a shareholder, and you want the company to pay you… Thus diminishing the value of the company you partly own…

Seems like at best, this is a no-op; and that's without counting lawyer's fees!

We told you jailbreaking your iThing was dangerous

ratfox

Re: Hilarious

Yeah, I don't get it either. And yet Google makes money somehow, so people must be indeed clicking. And businesses keep buying ads, so they must be convinced that the people who come to their web site because of an ad really wanted to go there, and did not do a fat finger mistake.

I have never met anybody who clicks on ads, yet they must exist. They are the dark matter of the Internet.

Amazon smacks back at Hachette in e-book pricing battle: We're doing it for the readers

ratfox

What is Hachette contributing?

Not that I like Amazon's tactics, but what is Hachette contributing to the authors it is publishing? Is this something that Amazon would be able to provide by themselves?

I'm aware that publishers review books, do some editing and choose artwork, and should be compensated for this, but the vast majority of what they used to do (advancing money to actually print thousands of books and distribute them world wide) can be done vastly more efficiently with e-books.

Is it really justified for them to get as much money as the author?

Lawsuit claims SpaceX laid off hundreds without proper notice, pay

ratfox
Boffin

Re: Why?

I would posit that way over 50% are performing below average. I would however agree that almost exactly 50% are performing below the median.

Google's 'right to be forgotten': One rule for celebs, another for plebs

ratfox

Slebs cannot have anything removed. What they do is "public interest." At least, that's what I understood.

Samsung Z Tizen OS mobe is post-phoned – this time for good?

ratfox

chicken, egg, etc.

I'm not sure if the effort should be admired or ridiculed. I guess Samsung is really not happy to be dependent on Google.

I wonder why they are going for Russia first. Maybe that is considered an easier big market where Microsoft is not already trying to grab whatever's left after Android and iOs…? I'm not sure it helps finding developers, though.

SHOCK and AWS: The fall of Amazon's deflationary cloud

ratfox

Re: Price of iron?

Unless people like Google have found out how to build thousands of powerful servers much more cheaply than experienced manufacturers like IBM. If so, they could indulge in vertical integration and make their own servers instead of buying them.

Unless I'm mistaken, Google (and Facebook, and Amazon, and Microsoft) have been doing that for years. This is not necessarly because they have more knowledge than IBM, but because they have very specific needs, and can take some very specific shortcuts.

One example is that IBM servers, even when built for racks, seem to have graphic cards. I would be extremely surprised if cloud giants bothered with such a thing for machines in their data centres.

French authorities take lead in grilling Google on 'Right to be Forgotten'

ratfox

However, the A29WP will not be producing any such guidelines for search engines.

Do they plan to contribute at all to the process of figuring out what is the so-called right to be forgotten? Or do they want Google to keep blundering in the dark until they get sued again, and a new ruling of the ECJ adds one more data point?

ICO: It's up to Google the 'POLLUTER' to tidy up 'right to be forgotten' search links

ratfox
Stop

@Donn Bly

Sorry, but no. That is incorrect.

If there is a web page mentioning John Smith and Joe Bloggs, and Joe Bloggs asks Google to remove the link from search results for his name, the web page will still show up when searching for John Smith, as it will for any other queries that are relevant, such as "bothering a goat" or such.

ratfox
FAIL

Re: The polluter pays...

The analogy is poor on multiple fronts. On one hand, this is blaming the river for being polluted. On the other hand, what they call "pollution" is what Google thinks people want to read. The reason the links appear in results is because users liked them, and have clicked on them.

By just calling it pollution and blaming it on Google, the ICO are avoiding their job, which would be to define what is pollution in the first place…

But hey, if they want Google to decide what is in the public interest, they only have to say the word. I'm sure Google will be very happy to go back to displaying everything like before the ruling happened.

ratfox

Re: Why have I vanished?

The warning shows up for practically any search result that looks like a name. This is Google's way to "be transparent" and warn users that the "pure Google results" may have been tampered with, without actually pointing the finger to the individuals who asked for results to be removed. They tend to act a bit like a Prima Donna on the subject.

But despite the warning, chances are nothing has been removed at all from results when you search for your name, and in the unlikely event that it has, it would be for articles that are about the other guy who has the same name.

Mr Almunia, how many more times can Google rewrite Euro search 'dominance' settlement?

ratfox

Isn't that the reverse?

The way it looks to me, it's not that Almunia finds Google's proposition insufficient and is giving to Google yet another chance. It's rather that every time he declares himself satisfied, and every time he faces a barrage of complaints through every channel asking him to demand more from Google, or if possible, drop the whole settlement idea.

What is happening now is not that Google gets another chance to revise its offer, it's that the competitors get another chance to complain. Almunia has not even asked Google to change anything at this moment.

And the fun part is that even though this has been four years, it is the fast process. If Almunia eventually decides to go with the flow and start an antitrust investigation of Google, we'll still be waiting for the end in ten years.

Report: Google back in Europe's crosshairs over web domination claims

ratfox

Feels like déjà vu

Seems like every few months, it is announced that Almunia, under pressure, will reexamine once more the complaints of the competitors. As if there was anything new to the debate. So far, he's always decided to go ahead, though. It's impressive he's still willing to fight for this settlement, considering the quantity of people, regulators and politicians, who dream of sticking it to the Google.

EU's top data cops to meet Google, Microsoft et al over 'right to be forgotten'

ratfox
Devil

"disrupt the process"

I think the only thing Google has to do to disrupt the process is to say: "We are looking forward to implement the rules exactly as you gentlemen will agree them to be." Chances of the countries agreeing on small details is practically nil.

Maybe we will end up with some links removed from google.de and google.fr, but not google.it and google.co.uk, because minority persons are granted an additional 3 points of forgettability, but only in countries where the minority group is officially recognized as such...

Oh girl, you jus' didn't: Level 3 slaps Verizon in Netflix throttle blowup

ratfox
Happy

Re: Verizon can STFU & FOAD, Kthxbai.

I sense much anger in you!

X marks the chop: Microsoft takes axe to Nokia's Android venture

ratfox

Ex-despot Noriega sues: How dare Call of Duty make me look like, like...

ratfox

Re: Now ? @Ratfox

Yeah, well, the law disagrees with your humble opinion there. Even criminals have rights. Their mugshots may be public, but their image is still their property to defend.

ratfox

Re: Now ?

Things like that can and have been done. One famous case is Roman Polanski suing in UK Vanity Fair (published in US), without ever leaving France. If Call Of Duty is sold in Germany or some other country with strong privacy laws, then it might well be possible for Noriega to sue them there and win.

Apple 5S still best-selling smartphone 8 months after launch

ratfox

+1 for numbers per manufacturer. Apple has very few models; in fact, it has only two new models, and the older ones serve as cheap options. Samsung has many different models, so it makes sense that none of them would be top seller.

But more importantly, it would be nice to have actual numbers, instead of just a ranking. As of now, the iPhone 5S could sell ten times more than all other phones combined, or 1% more from the second ranked… As it is, I find the report next to useless.

ratfox
Happy

Re: slagging off the competition

I don't think Samsung invented this kind of ads… I remember a series of ads from last decade, comparing a cool young guy who was buying from a trendy company, and an boring old man who was buying the "standard". I think the second guy was a "PC", and I can't quit remember what the other one was…

Microsoft not good enough for you, eh? 'Next Steve Ballmer' drives to Google

ratfox
WTF?

Huh?

Google getting involved in car making is likely as popular in Detroit as the Chocolate firm’s decision among handset makers to buy Nokia’s phone business... which is to say, not.

You mean Microsoft, right? Or Google buying Motorola, maybe?

Programming languages in economics: Cool research, bro, but what about, er, economics?

ratfox

Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

If I had to code that ping thing, I'd hack it in a scripting language like python, for minimum amount of coding time and risk. If you manage to write a ping program that crashes the machine, you have no business being a programmer anyway.

Now, trying to write a ping program in C so that it is the most efficient possible sounds to me like a waste of engineering time, make it more work to maintain, and in the end you are if anything more likely to have a memory leak.

Hamas hacks Israeli TV sat channel to broadcast pics of Gaza wounded

ratfox

"extended stay in shelters.”

The thing is, Israelis hardly need to stay in shelters. Whatever rockets the Hama's is throwing at them has a miserable effect. If you live in Israel, you have orders of magnitude more chance to die of cancer, in a car accident, or of old age than from terrorist attacks.

When they threaten Israel, Hamas really underscore how much they are powerless.

BMW i8 plug-in hybrid: It's a supercar, Jim, but not as we know it

ratfox

Re: Idiot's Solution

To top it all you can even charge the batteries using the internal combustion engine for maximum inefficiency!

As opposed to using your brakes to generate useless heat? You have to look a bit further than your nose to solve complex problems. E.g, band energy and peak energy don't have the same worth.

You think all the taxis are switching to hybrids because it looks cool? They looked at the average consumption of a Prius, and they know how much they are saving.

Microsoft takes on Chromebook with low-cost Windows laptops

ratfox

Will have to remove the bloat first

I'm afraid Microsoft has forgotten all how they managed to make us buy new computers in order to runcrawl their latest OS.

July 14, 2015. Tuesday. No more support for Windows Server 2003. Good luck

ratfox
Trollface

Perfect opportunity

…to switch to Linux!

French telco takes on US rival Netflix... with whose dongle?

ratfox
Windows

I vaguely remember a time where there was basically one way to watch a movie, or perhaps two until Betamax died and VHS reigned supreme. Now, it seems like there are a dozen different options with attached trade-offs and lock-ins.

Why did we end up in this situation? Or maybe I am wrong in regretting the good old times? Were we getting fleeced by the monopoly offer?

FCC commish: We don't need no steenkin' net neutrality rules

ratfox
Facepalm

Good thing

That I don't live in the US, I mean.

Google went behind our backs and really hurt us, squeal upset porn kingpins

ratfox
Happy

"I’m baffled as to why you’d elect to take so moral a tack, which is, in and of itself, morally suspect. As the pornographer in this conversation, I should be the one surrounded by an air of moral turpitude."

Truly, this paragraph is full of win.

Victim of Tor-hidden revenge smut site sues Tor Project developers

ratfox

There's no such thing as bad publicity. Thanks to this lawsuit, thousands of lawyers are going to know she exists. Few of them are above making a silly lawsuit for a big splash of fame.

Tech giants link arms with startups against patent trolls

ratfox

Notably missing from the "Tech Giants": Oracle, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung…

The next world war will be a patent war.

What's your game, Google? Giant collared by UK civil lib minister on 'right to be forgotten'

ratfox

Re: what's missing?

If data is not on Google, you can hope another search engine will find it. If nobody can find it, then the data might as well not exist…

Silicon Valley royalty royally slammed for 'persistent, troubling deficit' of diversity

ratfox

Mostly due to the disparity in job applicants, but can still do better.

Doctor Who season eight scripts leak online

ratfox
Thumb Up

The Reg shan't reveal any details, in line with the BBC's plea to keep the scripts under wraps.

You guys rock!

Boeing to start work on most powerful rocket ... EVER!

ratfox

Re: Just remember...

Luna 9 soft landed on the moon in 1966: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_9

Google de-listing of BBC article 'broke UK and Euro public interest laws' - So WHY do it?

ratfox

You've got to be kidding me

First, Google is told it is illegal to keep links that are irrelevant. And now, it is said to be illegal to remove links that are relevant?

This would mean that no matter what it shows, Google can be sued for showing or not showing what somebody does not like? And the right to decide what is correct belongs to the courts?

No wonder they are complaining like hell about it.

Google right to be forgotten 'looks odd and clumsy'

ratfox

Re: Asking for a court order

Given Google were specifically ordered by the ECJ to examine requests themselves first, asking every time for a court order would likely get them attacked for being deliberately obstructive, wasting taxpayer money and trying yet again to avoid following the law.

I'm not sure either why you get the idea that the courts would be able to handle the load of requests. The numbers quoted give 50'000 requests in a month. You think the ICO can handle that?

Normally, people complain that Google are ignoring regulators; but here, you are complaining Google are doing exactly as they were told.

Austrian Tor exit relay operator guilty of ferrying child porn

ratfox
Unhappy

Great

Soon, people using Tor will automatically be suspected. A bit like any bit torrent activity is supposed to be pirating.

Japan makes Prius palatable with road map to hydrogen cars

ratfox

You don't produce breakthrough technology by only relying on what's already available, I guess…?

ratfox

Re: Prius attracts ridicule?

Yes, it's especially great for taxis, which tend to get stuck in the traffic. Not sure what the spite is about? Must be an Australian thing.