* Posts by Jeffrey Nonken

1208 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2007

Spotty battery life costs Apple's MacBook Pro its gold-star rating

Jeffrey Nonken

"+screwdriver for the baseplate"

Phillips.

"the star screwdriver for the hard drive pegs"

Torx.

Really, we're all geeks here. We can handle the proper names for things.

Twas the week before Xmas ... not a creature was stirring – except Microsoft admitting its Windows 10 upgrade pop-up went 'too far'

Jeffrey Nonken

"We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective..."

Another lie, Chris. Microsoft wants it from a marketing perspective and couldn't give a rat's ass about security. Unless it brings in money, of course. You're just trying to save face.

Screw EU! Apple to fight back over €13bn tax bill

Jeffrey Nonken

No wonder they've been trying so hard to beat up Samsung for their lunch money.

Facebook's internet drone crash-landed after wing 'deformed' in flight

Jeffrey Nonken

Somebody please ship the NTSB a supply of apostrophes. They appear to have run out.

Beauty is in the AI of the beholder: Young blokes teach computer to judge women by their looks

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Deeply Flawed article

*wince* mimicking.

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Congratulations!

Thus do we teach our machines confirmation bias.

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Says more about young Chinese men than the women

My reaction was similar: they're all attractive, but the top group looks younger.

OTOH I prefer strong women and also closer to my age than my daughter's.

Don't panic, friends, but the Chinese navy just nicked one of America's underwater drones

Jeffrey Nonken

Surely they're privateers, not pirates, as they are backed by a government.

New US rules on 'vehicle-to-vehicle' communications under consultation

Jeffrey Nonken
Headmaster

"The DoT said that mandating V2V communications could add $300 to the cost of making each vehicle, but that it would save up to $71 billion as a result of lowering the number of vehicle collisions."

So is that a savings or not? How many billions per year is $300/vehicle, or how much per vehicle is $71 billion? The figures sound impressive but they're in completely different frames of reference, so can't be directly compared.

Also, dollar figures are fine, but presumably one of the costs of collisions is lives lost. How many lives saved are we talking about? How many permanent disabilities?

For that matter, there may be other costs associated with the addition of the new system, some of which have been enumerated by my fellow commenters. Who will be paying for attack mitigation? How many people will be late to important meetings because of some script kiddies?

The mind boggles!

Climate change bust up: We'll launch our own damn satellites if Trump pulls plug – Gov Brown

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Idea

So... wait until the building is burning down before installing fire suppression equipment?

Note: Not a car analogy, sorry.

Dixons warns of looming Brexit storm cloud amid bumper results

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Warranty

Extended warranties and such are a form of gambling. There's a chance the product will fail during the lifetime of the plan.

When you buy the plan, you're betting the device will fail during that period, and that it will cost at least the price of the plan to fix.

When they sell you the plan, they're betting the device will NOT fail, or will cost less than the plan's price to fix.

The house gets to set the terms and the price. You've only got Hobson's choice. In the meantime, they have your money to collect interest on, you do not, if you buy.

In the long run, the house always wins.

To win the game, take the price of each plan you're offered and put it into savings or other investment (instead of buying the plan). You get to collect interest, and you have money set aside for repairs that should, statistically, exceed the cost of the repairs. There are some assumptions baked into that but you should come out ahead in any case.

Bluetooth-enabled safe lock popped after attackers win PINs

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: @AC

Yeah, that "feature" of the vault always bothered me in Die Hard.

Remember that brightest supernova ever seen? It wasn't one

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: ASSASSiNated?

What a load of Schlock.

Russia's bid for mobile self-sufficiency may be the saviour of Sailfish

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Market size?

Did you mean "differential"? "Deferential" is a behaviour.

Busted Windows 8, 10 update blamed for breaking Brits' DHCP

Jeffrey Nonken

"I had to give my Harmony Hub a static IP address as well. This was last month so they've apparently not fixed it yet."

Oh, is that what happened? After I tried restarting a couple times I reconfigured it into the bin. Was more fiddly than doing things by hand. Lucky I got it at a discount.

That was months ago, though. You say this was last month? Hmmm. Maybe my kit just died.

Say bye-bye to net neutrality next year, gloats FCC commish Pai

Jeffrey Nonken

"Mexicans are mostly descended from the Spanish, fuckwit."

Mexicans are mostly descended from indigenes, fuckwit. http://www.banderasnews.com/0707/eded-racesofmexico.htm

Both statements are true. And your point is...?

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: AC " "give him a chance" to change to "Give him the F***ing Boot" "

The US is a republic.

Bluetooth 5.0 emerges, ready to chew on the internet of things

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Reliability?

Been streaming Netflix on my Windows laptop for a while. It has a Hell of a time; losing sync, or slipping into HSP mode even with the mic disabled.

Got a Nexus tablet, started watching on that and haven't had a single glitch. Not one.

I'd guess that many problems are implementation-dependent.

Has Samsung, er, rounded the corner with Apple court win?

Jeffrey Nonken

I always though that patent was un-obvious. To me it makes more sense to have a triangular display, and spiked corners on my phone.

Neo-Nazi man jailed for anti-Semitic Twitter campaign against MP

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Well

"Is he doing some sort of live experiment on recursion?"

Nope, he just doesn't know the First Rule of Holes.

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: El Reg reader?

"...I knew a Jewish girl who'd go completely bursar if someone mentioned Hitler, yet failed to realise that but for him, she probably wouldn't have existed..."

And I know a Jewish girl who feels survivor guilt because if her mother's first husband hadn't been murdered in the Camps, she wouldn't have existed either. But thanks for cherry picking the data.

Wannabe Cali governor gives up against beach-blocking billionaire VC

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Time to bring in the drones

...Unless, of course, vc calls the police and gives them temporary access. Just because you're not allowed in my house without invitation doesn't mean I can't invite you.

Contrariwise, if it's a public beach, as long as the beachgoers don't trespass on his private land, the police can tell him to go pound sand. Metaphorically, of course.

Sysadmin figures out dating agency worker lied in his profile

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Enter == submit

Young punks. Get off my lawn!

Soon only Ticketmaster will rip you off: Concert scalper bots face US ban

Jeffrey Nonken

"I'd also like to see venues insisting that only the original purchaser can use the ticket. If you can't go, you return the ticket to the venue for resale."

Because people never buy tickets as gifts.

Because if I can't go due to a last-minute emergency, it's better to refund the tickets and have those seats unsold.

Or, since it's more likely I won't have the leisure to return the tickets in time, it's better the seats remain empty and I pay for useless tickets than for a friend to use them instead. Or an acquaintance. Or a total stranger. I'd rather give them away than throw them away... but I'll have to throw them away anyway. That will show those dirty scalpers!

London cops' tech slammed for failing abused kids – report

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: No child is 'streetwise'

"Well "living in a house with three men", her two older brothers and Dad?"

Didn't say "living in a house with". Said "alone and unsafe with".

As for your hypothetical dad and two brothers, abusers are usually family members, so dad and two brothers doesn't automatically make one safe. Doesn't automatically make one unsafe either, but if you're going to ignore context, hey, you can twist it any way you like.

Google may just have silently snuffed the tablet computer

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: who cares

Post them here. We'll find a use. :)

Jeffrey Nonken

Guess I'm behind the curve as usual

Awww. And I just got this Nexus 7... Happens it doesn't do what I got it for, but turns out it's nicer for reading tech web sites and e-books than my phone and more portable than my laptop for Netflix. These ageing eyes appreciate the larger screen.

I can live without it but I'm glad I got it anyway.

(2nd generation, so I get updates through Marshmallow without having to root it. Which was the original point.)

Canadian cops cuff 11-year-old lad after Grand Theft Auto gets real

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: "reset button"???

Also it's called RESPAWN NOT RESET. Jeebus. You'd think they'd never played a video game in their lives!

Jeffrey Nonken

...except that he's right, here in the U.S. it probably would have gone down that way.

How-to terror manuals still being sold by Apple, Amazon, Waterstones

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: @Bloke

...Which just proves we are hypocrites. Something that is already pretty obvious. Your point?

You want SaaS? Don't bother, darling, your kind can't afford it

Jeffrey Nonken

I just tell them the truth: I write firmware for a airplane simulator company. Most think that's cool enough to stop there. If they ask what that entails, the explanation leaves them glassy-eyed enough to never want to ask me a question ever again ever.

OTOH if they know what firmware is it often means a pleasant techie conversation will follow. Win-win.

Veeam kicks Symantec's ass over unpatentable patents

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Patentable?

"If all of these patents were shot down by the USPTO, why in the hell were they issued in the first place?"

The U.S. patent system is pretty broken right now, starting with the office. They were issued due to said office having collective rectal-cranial inversion.

Reform desperately needed.

Pre-Trump FCC – get a grip on mobe data caps, racist Stingray spying, urge Dem senators

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Janus

No. Because these Congresscritters see a problem, are trying to address it, and firmly believe that the Trump administration will strongly oppose their efforts. And OBTW they happen to be Democratic senators.

User needed 40-minute lesson in turning it off and turning it on again

Jeffrey Nonken

Classic Carlin

Cookie box says "open here." I'm glad it doesn't say "open somewhere else", I'd be all day trying to find a good spot!

Post-outage King's College London orders staff to never make their own backups

Jeffrey Nonken

A critical part of doing proper backups is redundancy. One way to provide it is individual users doing their own. There are drawbacks, to be sure. But if IT are botching the job, whom else can you depend on?

And vague reassurances are useless. I like Lee D.'s soapbox speech. Be explicit, be willing to demonstrate, be transparent. Be willing to listen.

Redundancy, and layers.

Shhh! Shazam is always listening – even when it's been switched 'off'

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Overreaction?

Maybe you can't please everyone, but giving the user the option to choose whether to leave the mic on would go a long way.as would being transparent about it.

Walgreens demands $140m refund from busted bio biz Theranos

Jeffrey Nonken

I have limited sympathy for Walgreens, who should have known better than to buy snake oil, but zero sympathy for Theranos.

Russia shoves antitrust probe into Microsoft after Kaspersky gripes about Windows 10

Jeffrey Nonken

As long as you never visit the web, receive e-mail, download files or plug in an external drive... Sure, no need for malware protection. Oh, and don't connect to the internet or insert optical media.

Google Pixel pwned in 60 seconds

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: It's not really the Pixel though.

"7.1 was released as CM 14.1 this week."

But not for MY phone. Waaaahhhh!

Seriously, though, my G1 hasn't had an update for ages!

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Cheaper to pay bug bounties...

Because competent devs don't write bugs and hired testers find all bugs. It's like magic! And unicorns.

A cardboard desk? I won’t stand for it (actually I will)

Jeffrey Nonken

I had no idea who David Hemmings was, but I immediately recognized the scene you described. (the movie showed up a few times on HBO during the few years I subscribed.) Unfortunately I couldn't remember the name of the movie, either, though I did remember Omar Sharif being the captain.

I looked up "David Hemmings" on IMDB and started scanning titles backwards until I encountered one that had absolutely nothing to do with exploding boats -- I did remember THAT much about the title -- and sure enough, "Juggernaut" turned out to be the movie I remembered, and presumably the one you referenced. High fives!

You sound pretty much like I'd expect. Only when I'm reading your articles, the voice in my head insists on speaking with an American accent. But then, most of the voices in my head speak with an American accent, even when I know better. Oddly enough, it's the same accent I speak with. (I'm sure it's a coincidence.) Now I've actually heard you speak, perhaps I can convince my brain to at least read your words with something other than "bland Midwestern US with a dash of New England but grew up in semi-rural PA". As I write this we (at work) have a guy visiting from Australia, maybe I'll get confused and you'll end up with an Aussie accent in my head.

Come to think, I'm already confused, that part's a no-brainer. Speaking of which... back to work!

"I may be stupid, but I'm not BLOODY stupid!"

Angry user demands three site visits to fix email address typos

Jeffrey Nonken

People who never make mistakes are incapable of learning from them.

Trump's taxing problem: The end of 'affordable' iPhones

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: I am Mad

"I guess all I can do now is go to Canada, where is that immigration portal."

Down. It was inadvertently DDOSed by all the Americans trying to leave.

I'm thinking that Reykjavik is lovely at this time of year.

Tech Trump: Silicon Valley steps into the valley of unhappiness

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: One other thing that is a big concern...

"Expect some big problems there for the US next year. You heard it here first."

Not really, I'm a regular Techdirt reader.

US citizens crash Canadian immigration site after Trump victory

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: and we thought brexit was a bloody stupid decision

Iceland is looking better every day.

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Gimme A Break

"1) Most of America voted for Trump."

According to what I see here, at 98% reporting, Clinton has 200,000 more popular votes than Trump. But in the U.S., popular votes don't count in the presidential election.

The big day is here and it's time to decide: Patch Flash, Windows, Office or Android first?

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Time to decide?

I put Cyanogenmod on mine. A bit of bother, but worth it in the long run, for me.

Not for everybody though.

Jeffrey Nonken

Re: Why not

Drink the kool-aid; buy an iPhone.

Or just throw your smartphone away and get a flip phone.

RIP EarthLink, 1994–2016: From AOL killer to regional ISP's attic

Jeffrey Nonken

No fond memory comments, then? I guess nostalgia just isn't what it used to be.