* Posts by Muckminded

239 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jun 2009

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HP breakthrough to hasten flash memory's demise?

Muckminded

Happy

It is rare that a product appears to have nothing but upside. Usually, it's something like "It gives you enormous strength, but your pecker falls off". So, yeah, I'll take the non-sterilizing, happy tech, that may also be capable of making a cat that I can turn off.

99% of Android phones leak secret account credentials

Muckminded

Aye, here be aggregators

The beauty of modern corporate fuck-ups is how well they scale. This wouldn't be possible in technologically inferior societies, so quit crying about every little bitty breach of 100 million or so.

Yay for progress!

This message brought to you by the Luddite Hammer Company.

Russian rumor: Microsoft to buy Nokia for $30bn

Muckminded

Microstock

First: pretty sure Eldar is the son of Beldar, the father of the Coneheads family. He may blog in Russian, but he's from a small town in France. Remulak, I believe it was.

Second: any news that gets confirmation from a SoftSailor, LimpRudder or other flaccid nautical equipage must be viewed as suspect.

Etc: if those two companies do choose to mate, I don't want to see the baby pictures.

My title has nothing to do with anything I typed in this box.

Google says Android 'club' makes phone makers 'do what we want'

Muckminded

If I hope

in the middle of cynics, am I a fool?

OK, shut up, I get it.

So, I am left to hope for corporate implosions, as some Schadenfreude firework display across a bitter mindscape.

Wait. I still hope. And not just for shitty outcomes. No!

I hope Google makes it. I hope the baby seals make it. I hope vapid sycophants get reimbursed for towing the heavy line (given the unhappy climate)!? High five!

OK, no, really, I don't give a shit about any of this.

Microsoft's iOS and Android love deepens

Muckminded

So, his name is Watson

Certainly, it is a different battleground. But, once again, a "Watson" threatens to supplant humans trying to just get by. I now fear any event that has a "Watson" in the mix. May the Harry Potter and Jeopardy franchises be dipped in tepid bathwater. Hella tepid, yo!

Whitehats break out of Google Chrome sandbox

Muckminded

Visibility = Vulnerability

To design unhackable software, also ensure it is never used. You know, like Opera.

Went there.

Intel's Tri-Gate gamble: It's now or never

Muckminded

Yeah

Companies really miss that bottom line thing.

I post dumb things too, but I'm at least polite enough to be succinct.

Sony mulls hacker bounty offer

Muckminded

Is Eastwood busy?

http://engrishfunny.failblog.org/2008/11/22/engrish-the-cool-cowboy/

Nude gardener's arse hauled into court

Muckminded

Hubble hubble

62 years old, and still just a Sprigg. If he's anything like a saguaro cactus, he's only gained one inch every ten years, so very little crime to detect.

What treasures will the US really find on bin Laden's hard disk?

Muckminded

Bin Nauseum

Anything worthwhile won't be released. Anything trivial will be chucked out to feed the next version of this article.

Skype bug gives attackers access to Mac OS X machines

Muckminded

Jumbo mumbo

I am certain they are retro-proactively moving against this threat delta to achieve ducks-in-a-row parity on their major talking points, while maintaining an aggressive anti-negativity posture informed by agile crowd-sourcing.

And it was good.

White House warns El Reg over kitten-killing content

Muckminded

The pre-cogs

...think you are making a wise choice.

Also, be warned that women and seamen don't mix.

Parents get iOS analytical toolkit to track kids' progress

Muckminded

Excel, Junior

Nothing says lovin' like tracking your child's performance via spreadsheet. Giving him or her a PowerPoint presentation as a birthday gift is the real kicker.

Sony implicates Anonymous in PlayStation Network hack

Muckminded

It's almost as if

giant companies have their own interests foremost.

If that is the case, then I will only occassionally purchase high-ticket items from them. No, really, mostly.

Muckminded

Sony implicates self in attack of stupidity

Had we noticed the net was dangerous, yes, we would have reacted more proactively. Now, please, accept one month's free subscription to a network capable of compromising a lifetime's worth of credit rating.

Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself.

Cross-dresser kills goat while high on bath salts

Muckminded

Kids can be so cruel

It may have been self-defense.

Sony calls in data Sherlocks to unpick megahack disaster

Muckminded
Thumb Up

Oh, here's your problem...

Corporate negligence.

I'm guessing it got in by the front door.

Amazon cloud fell from sky after botched network upgrade

Muckminded
FAIL

Compensation

Hard to measure, but the disfavor customers will now likely have of businesses that utilize AWS likely doesn't measure up to the coupons Amazon is handing out for the days of service lost. A simple calculation of downtime = value won't entice companies to renew their contracts.

China sets out space-station plan, asks public to name it

Muckminded
Joke

Stuff

Happy Lucky Space Station #1

Spy Shack

Semi-Autonomous Space Vehicle of Irony

The People's Future Accidental Re-entry Vehicle of Sunshine

Nintendo blames puzzled public for 3DS sales shortfall

Muckminded

Here's hoping

they can genetically engineer a target audience in time to not go all Microsoft Kin on us.

Sony shows MacBook Air-like Vaio notebook

Muckminded
Thumb Down

Now with +5 graininess

And airbrushed glow effects from the 1970s.

Not even knowing the specs, I overflow with loathing for them.

I'm like that.

Google and friends wrap open video codec in patent shield

Muckminded
Thumb Up

The twist...

is that the codec secretly logs all your keystrokes, lifts your wallet and maps your genome as you sit watching reruns on Hulu.

The "thumbs-up" icon refers to the fact that you also receive a proctology exam while surfing.

'Real' JavaScript benchmark topped by...Microsoft

Muckminded

Billy

Sometimes in life, we may want to heap all of our woes on the back of a beast, and send it forth into the wilderness, hoping neither beast nor trouble will again find us fumbling with our noodles. While the goat known as "IE" (henceforth referred to as "Billy") may have been painted by its master with every wicked stripe, it has returned cleansed, after a time, and deserves at least a salt lick, if not a pat on the head.

The wickedness ascribed to this cloven-hooved mossback (ie: rape), was never its aim. One can never fortell what a semi-domesticated scapegoat will get into, but unrequited this and that could not have been its original goal. It must have been the heat.

Oh yeah, it also has little to do with Javascript benchmarks.

Muckminded

Mixed baggage

On the one hand, I'm just glad there is now a battle for Javascript speed dominance. It was only a few years back that none of the browser manufacturers paid the least bit of attention to it.

That said, it does seem that Crockford's testing contradicts his stated aim. First, he claims that most JS test suites don't test code as you would encounter in the wild. Then, instead of gathering a sample of real-world JS apps, he chooses to only test against his own, well-written codebase. I don't believe the test skewed his results for Microsoft (using a pre-release browser did that), but he did potentially skew his results against real-world JS apps.

Now that Microsoft has relegated itself to only trying to capture a subset of a subset of the browser market, how well IE performs on speed tests has become a lot less interesting.

Apple seals $66bn in Jobsian wallet

Muckminded
Pirate

Chump change you can believe in

If they wanted to, they could be nice and lift entire nations out of poverty.

Oh, sorry, wrong forum. What I mean is, "Aye, here be a chance fer corp'rate vengeance. Run 'em through and slick the planks with their maggoty guts."

Yar.

Google Linux servers hit with $5m patent infringement verdict

Muckminded

If had been

a frivolous patent involving guns, the defendent might have prevailed.

Is it too late to request a Yosemite Sam icon?

Amazon cloud sinks, smothers Web 2.0 darlings

Muckminded

Etc

Sounds like they need a little more redundancy. Sounds like they need a little more redundancy.

Cops refuse to say if they secretly snarf cellphone data

Muckminded
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Are You Being obServed?

Anyone who still carries a cell phone after it's been proven to snaggle your dingleberries deserves what he gets. I suggest you also remove all fillings from your teeth with pliers, ride-share to work in a wheel barrow, and only eat food grown from your own dung pile.

The troof is out there.

Modern-day ninja in epic battle with riot police, robot

Muckminded

Go west

He was obviously on the wrong side of the US for this kind of behavior:

http://www.theonion.com/video/ninja-parade-slips-through-town-unnoticed-once-aga,14181/

Hunting of incredibly rare two-horned 'unicorns' forbidden

Muckminded

Next up, South American centaurs

Don't look in his bathroom, it's all hay and road apples.

Samsung threatens Apple in response to patent lawsuit

Muckminded

Regurge

I expect this to go as well as Apple's claims against Microsoft in the early 1990s pertaining to the Mac OS look-and-feel versus Windows'. The net result of which was that MS had to rename their waste basket icon from "Trash" to "Recycle Bin". There must be a better way of funneling money to needy lawyers than this.

Apple is proving as adept at generating ill will as Dubya was.

Whitehats pierce giant hole in Microsoft security shield

Muckminded
FAIL

Take my wife, please

Maybe the interest comes from examining the complacency of the homeowner, who was warned several months in advance that his house would be broken into by a specific door that he insisted on not locking.

XXX domain names go live

Muckminded
Pirate

Rim shot, please

I wrote a few weak jokes about "sunrise periods", "morning wood" and iPads, but my real comment is that this domain may as well have been ".xss". Not that it will improve the security of the remainder of the web, but spotting what is certain to be a festering malware fest just by looking at the trailing ".xxx" will be a great time saver.

Avast alert finds WHOLE WEB malign

Muckminded

Step 1...

of Avast's new functional testing: connect internet tube to computational doohicky.

Microsoft promises not-quite-as-much Street View

Muckminded

Google Earth vs Microsoft Islands

Anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.

MythBusters: Savage and Hyneman detonate truthiness

Muckminded

Fish food

They haven't tackled God yet. I expect ratings to further surge if they do. God may not respond well to a "Busted" sign being chucked out after His (or Her) segment, but advertisers are not so fickle.

P.S. - They did the CD-ROM rpm test here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2003_season)#CD-ROM_Shattering

Wanted: Nude female web coders

Muckminded

Microsoft office

Would take on a new, and self deprecating, meaning if I worked there.

OK, just one more:

I can confirm that having an 11th digit available does NOT improve my typing skills.

Muckminded

Sweatshop

With this kind of work environment, I would only need internet access in order to do my work. Pure genius.

Wish their website looked as good as their offices.

RSA explains how attackers breached its systems

Muckminded
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Deliberately Stupid

My favorite part: "The email was crafted well enough to trick one of the employees to retrieve it from their Junk mail folder".

In other words: "We suspected the package might contain a bomb, but Phil thought the bow on it looked really nice so he unwrapped it".

Email compromised at Epsilon

Muckminded
IT Angle

And Robert Half Technologies

Yay.

US gov 'transparency' websites targeted for big, fat budget cuts

Muckminded
Thumb Up

Really?

So, regardless of complexity, number of staff, donut bills, etc., no website costs 18 million dollars to run?

Good to know.

Muckminded

Agendas gone wild

Ah yes, remove all accounting safeguards just after a financial meltdown in order to save money. The kind of logic that appeals to those who know budget shortfalls aren't the real target. Most of what gets chucked during a reform is whatever would benefit those not in power, not the most wasteful bits. Political Math 101.

Stock-trading teen hacker jailed again over 2nd scam

Muckminded

Repost this article

in now + 3 years.

Microsoft files monopoly complaint against Google

Muckminded
FAIL

Bang and blame

MS will blame Apple and Google for making them rush to market with a handset-bricking mobile operating system.

MS appears to be completely incapable of detecting or developing any new trends in computing. They waited years to get into music players, smart phones, and web search, to name a few. Which is why they feel the need to purchase their way into markets, or now, suing their way into them. Sometimes the barrier to entry is your own ineptitude.

It would be interesting to hear their take on how this "monopoly" should be resolved. I'm guessing it would involve a redirect to Bing.

FBI asks for help to crack mystery code in 12-year-old murder case

Muckminded
Joke

Let's ask Follywood

Theory 1: If his head was shaved, the notes were jotted on toilet paper, and he had a Violet Carson in one hand, then clearly he came to disfavor with a mutant from Larkhill.

Theory 2: Dr. Eleanor Arroway, or one of her alien consorts, bumped him off for stealing portions of her notes on how to build "the machine".

Theory 3: He was just on the verge of determining how to move faster than bullets. Unfortunately, there was no matrix.

McAfee site crawling with scripting bugs say researchers

Muckminded
Thumb Up

It was all a test...

and we passed. They are glad we finally noticed so that they may put up the real site. A drumroll if you please.

Radioactive Tokyo tapwater HARMS BABIES ... if drunk for a year

Muckminded

Worse things could happen...

Like a sudden influx of water into a highly populated area sitting in a flood plain.

Still, no one likes creepy old radioactivity and the way it sits around for years, leering at you and making fun of your lead underwear.

RIM boss: 'Our PlayBook shames the You Know What'

Muckminded

Whatever gets things flowing

Whenever I get severely "disintermediated", I eat more fiber. Tech companies eat more crow.

Wikileaks outs 400,000 classified Iraq War docs

Muckminded
Grenade

Me So Ornery

I understand the disgust and glee that people have in pointing at us (Americans) as egotistical gluttons of empire. We deserve it as much as any nation who has ever made pretense of control over other sovereign nations. Oh, hello UK. Hello Russia.

A cheap shot, I know. And not one that defends our foreign policy or aberrations of military conduct. Unfortunately, I am too tired and uninterested now to defend policies that run opposite my own way of thinking simply because they happen to be promulgated by my government.

If only we could be more austere.

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