Re: Spiders on drugs!
You forgot the icon. I'll add it on your behalf. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Posts by Mephistro
2329 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2007
Page:
Buzz kill: Crook, 73, conned investors into shoveling millions into geek-friendly caffeine-loaded chocs that didn't exist. Now he's in jail
Admins sigh as Microsoft pushes Teams changes – let everyone play!
Valuable personal info leaks from Facebook – not Zuck selling it, unencrypted hard drives of staff data stolen
US and China wave white flags, hit pause button on trade war
When is an electrical engineer not an engineer? When Arizona's state regulators decide to play word games
The Windows Phone keeps ringing but no one's home: Microsoft finally lets platform die
Tuesday 10th December 2019 15:06 GMT
There should be a way...
... to formally include customers confidence in the stock valuation of a company. It would prevent many cases like this one, where millions of customers were left out in the cold and the execs involved got their bonuses regardless of the damage they caused to the company.
We've heard of spam filters but this is ridiculous: Pig-monkey chimeras developed in a Chinese laboratory
BOFH: I'd like introduce you to a groovy little web log I call 'That's Boss'
If you want an example of how user concerns do not drive software development, check out this Google-backed API
Escobar Fold 1 snort all it's cracked up to be: Readers finger similarity to slated Chinese mobe
Newly born Firefox 71 emerges from its den – with its own VPN and some privacy tricks
Wednesday 4th December 2019 20:05 GMT
Re: I find VPNs very useful
Nowadays the installer takes care of everything, quickly and effortlessly. The biggest issue I see with the Tor browser is that non-IT-knowledgeable users might think that it's a total solution to every form or tracking and not understand how -or when- to tweak the security settings either to prevent breaking the target webpage's functionality or to prevent advanced tracking methods.
I mainly use it for preventing geoblocking and finding health issues related info, but if I were a dissident in a dictatorship, I'd be extremely careful and only visit "safe-ish pages" that can be used with the highest browser security settings.
Trump Administration fast-tracks compulsory border facial recognition scans for all US citizens
Mayday in Moscow as devs will be Russian to Putin mandatory apps on phones, laptops, TVs
Internet Society CEO: Most people don't care about the .org sell-off – and nothing short of a court order will stop it
Saturday 30th November 2019 09:49 GMT
Re: Depressing, ...
"...an increase on a fee of $10..."
Please re-read the article, specially the part about the price caps being removed.
And now let's make some numbers:
Ten million .org domains, "sold" for one beellion $$$. To save you the calculations, Ethos is valuating every one of these domains at $100.
Ethos Capital* has to recover that investment as soon as possible and, afterwards, extract as much money from the domain's owners as they can, because, you know, "yadda yadda creating value for our shareholders yadda yadda".
The obvious way to do this is to raise prices abruptly in, say, $30 or $50 per year, and they will be able to do this because, for the small ngos, it'll be far cheaper and less risky to "pay the man" than paying all the costs incurred by shifting domains.
"...will really screw Médecins Sans Frontières."
No, it won't. I specifically wrote "...very small and already struggling to pay the bills" in my comment. For MSF and other big NGOs this will be less than a rounding error in their numbers.
A few of my clients are small non-profits using the .org TLD and often I just don't charge them, or bill them only a fraction of the work done. Hint: They definitely aren't raking it in!
This is a cross between a land grab and a protection scheme and looks like something from "The Sopranos" or "The Wire".
Engage brain and think
Follow your own advice yourself.
Note*: Definitely NOT an ngo!
Friday 29th November 2019 14:09 GMT
Re: Depressing, ...
"...what will they have to do apart from some cosmetic changes..."
Reprint/remake ads, brochures, merchandising, forms and stationery, for starters. If their web presence includes a page for processing donations or one for selling merchandise or local products from the countries where they work, the modifications won't be exactly cheap either. And let's not forget changing their e-mail accounts.
Another issue is that their old domains might be acquired by scammers, which could cause the prestige of said NGOs to suffer significantly and the donations they receive to drop.
There is also the fact that if a private fund wants to pay one billion $$$ for administering these domains it is because they expect to recoup that amount in a short time, and from that point on, most of what they charge will be earnings.
Remember, we're discussing a private equity fund here. Compared with them, piranhas look nice an cuddly!
Friday 29th November 2019 12:41 GMT 
Depressing, ...
... amoral, greedy, dodgy, corrupt!
End result: several millions of non-profits -many of them very small and already struggling to pay the bills- will see their internet related costs going through the roof, so Sullivan and his rich corporate pals can get even wealthier.
I ***hope*** they get that court order, and also that Mr. Sullivan loses his job. Because of ethics and basic human decency.
Microsoft takes us to 2004 with new Windows 10 so you don't mistake it for Server 2003
Oracle finally responds to wage discrimination claims… by suing US Department of Labor
Found on Mars: Alien insects... or whatever the hell this smudge is supposed to be, anyway
Bad news: 'Unblockable' web trackers emerge. Good news: Firefox with uBlock Origin can stop it. Chrome, not so much
Friday 22nd November 2019 11:18 GMT 
I guess that...
... the Tor Browser would be useful here. No permanent cookies, no user's IP address, circuit and identity changes whenever the user wants...
It will break many sites or turn using them into a PITA, but those sites usually are the ones trying harder to buttfuck the users, so... to hell with them!
Halfords invents radio signals that don't travel at the speed of light
Friday 22nd November 2019 12:57 GMT
Re: Definition
...it's like all science teaching: "lies for children" it gets the basic concept across...
When I was ~14 I made the huge error of raising my hand when my physics teacher said something about spaceships heating on re-entry due to friction, and politely asking if it wasn't due to compression instead.
I promise I won't do it again!
8^)
UK Home Office: We will register thousands of deactivated firearms with no database
Friday 8th November 2019 20:59 GMT
Re: "no requirement of 'registration' for deactivated firearms" (@ John Robson)
"Probably because 'deactivated' is potentially reversible."
That was my first thought when I read the article, but then I remembered those cases of criminal organizations "reactivating" deactivated weapons, something that has been very common in the last few years. One of the groups was based in my region and another in a neighbouring one with several more cases from the rest of the country, and this was just in Spain. I've read a few examples more from different countries in Europe, but I guess most of these news don't make it to the "international.news" newspapers section.
The trick here is that those illegally reactivated arms also get their serial numbers erased and often their barrels re-threaded, making the weapon de facto unidentifiable.
So, IMO, this database will be quite useless. Which makes the UK law equally useless, which in turn makes the EU directive useless. Sigh...
Congress to FCC: Where’s the damn report on mobile companies selling location data?
Saturday 9th November 2019 05:06 GMT
Re: He's being enabled
The saddest (and funniest) part of this situation is the way that most (non-millionaire) republican voters ignore what is being done to them, even when it's being done openly in front of their faces.
"They are wiping their ass with my rights and helping big companies to steal my money, but they are in my party, so I'll keep on voting for them."
It's fucking ridiculous!
They say lightning never strikes twice, but boffins have built an AI to show where it'll come next
Need a special something on which to spank $3,500? HoloLens 2 is finally shipping
This news article about the full public release of OpenAI's 'dangerous' GPT-2 model was part written by GPT-2
Wednesday 6th November 2019 08:39 GMT
I tried with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".
Results:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I was with the best friends in the world, I was with the most amazing people, and the worst was that I was doing it, and that my wife and the kids were there. The worst was that my wife and the kids were there. The best was that the best of times were here, and the worst of times were here. The worst of times were here, and the best of times were here. The best of times are here, and the worst of times are here.
The best of times are here, and the worst of times are here. The best of times are here, and the worst of times are here.
The best of times are here, and the worst of times are here. The best of times are here, and the worst of times are here.
"I had one of the most amazing relationships with anyone. I had a great wife that was so much more than a mother. I had a great son, and a daughter, and a sister. They were my world. We were a family, my wife"
Still laughing! 8^)
Cyber-security super-brain Rudy Giuliani forgets password, bricks iPhone, begs Apple Store staff for help
Thursday 31st October 2019 23:15 GMT
It's incredible...
...the kind of human trash POTUS surrounds himself with in order to stand out. An obviously failed attempt also.
The Outer Worlds: Ever wished Fallout 4 was more like New Vegas? Here ya go... in spaaace
Friday 1st November 2019 23:34 GMT
Re: Lol, that sounds familiar...
AC:Odyssey is an outstanding game in many ways, and the landscapes and buildings are top work even when compared with other games in the same franchise, that have often been described as true works of art.
The game balance, playability, interface design, maps... everything is effing perfect!
And an advice: If you haven't played AC:Origins yet, do it, because if you enjoyed Odyssey you'll also enjoy Origins.
Belgian city slurps mobile data to track visitors
Thursday 31st October 2019 14:42 GMT 
"...between July and August, 799,336 people visited the town, almost 20,000 a day when students, employees and residents are excluded."
Either Mrs. Fanny Numbers has visited us or I'm massively misunderstanding this paragraph.
is it 62 (days in July + August) X 20,000 (visitors per day) = 1,240,000 (visitors after excluding residents and students)? *
or should it be (1,240,000 (total phone users) - X (residents + students)) / 62 days = 20,000 (tourists per day)?
* Which, IMHO, doesn't make any sense.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
