Been there, OMG WOT'S THAT NOISE!!!

My wife and I have stumbled into periodic cicada emergences about five times since 2003 (American South) usually while mountain biking. A large group can indeed be deafening. Half the people we show our pix to insist they're locusts, argh! The only actual damage they do is when laying eggs. The females slice into twigs to insert their eggs, weakening the twig which may break and fall off.

If you don't live where the noisy buggers emerge, the excellent Planet Earth series takes a great look at them in one episode (I forget which). If you have a chance to see then in the wild, DO IT! Wear a hat, they will blunder into anything.

I've always dreamed of this ONE use

Point finger at TV with thumb raised, drop thumb as ye say "PEW!". The TV overlays your choice (or random) of graphic sequence. Explosions! Water balloons! Instant clown head overlay! Rabid weasel attack! THAT I would love to have.

Otherwise, no frackin' thanks. Such things assume that ANY movement is a possible command, with weird results. Or is the goal to make sure we sit motionless and attentive while absorbing advertisements?

Forget anticompetition, Commission Sales warp the service

Let's look at one (somewhat relevant) analogy. Retail shops.

I used to work for an outdoor store. When asked for product recommendations, I gave the ones that seemed best suited to what the customer asked for. They could reasonably trust that I was guiding them to products that would meet their wants. That's sort of an "Honest Search Result".

Commission-sales shops instead will recommend higher priced items to increase the sale and payoff. The customer's interests are being eroded here, and we begin to see "Dishonest Search Results". The customer is not being given the information they specifically asked for, nor what will best serve their needs.

Let's add another layer of self-interest. The commission retailer also selectively pushes its own store brands, even where a competitor's product might better meet the customer's wants. Now we have "Totally Dishonest Search Results" that ignore the customer's desires to support the retailer's business model.

And that's Google. The promise of Better Search has been eroded by paid placement and self-promotion while pushing the competition down in the ranks.

I won't comment on whether antitrust action is appropriate, but their business plan is screwing their famous Search pretty heavily. I use Duckduckgo for my primary search. It seemed like sparse results at first, until I realize the "missing links" that Google had were mostly BS. Your mileage may vary...

Nobody. Can. Be. Trusted. With. ANYTHING.

The FBI, Facebook, Google, Apple, your local council... They all are grabbing everything they can. They all offer greasy reassurances that they won't misuse the data. Lots of protections in place, you know! Trust us!

And then this comes out, three YEARS after the fact. It's only one example, but they're all guilty.

Our privacy MUST be defended, folks. The human tendency to overstep boundaries is too strong. Checks and balances in government exist because the framers knew this would happen and tried to prevent it. We have to stop these jerks from bypassing our rights.

Crap SW design keeps me employed!

I'm an all-purpose IT geek for a 40-person non-profit. I always tell my users, "It's not your fault, you're NOT stupid. It's a confusing interface designed to make money, not to make your life better." Word 95 did everything 97% of the world needed. Bolting on unwanted features to justify an "upgrade" is a standard M$ business model. They really don't CARE if it's easy to use use or if anyone likes it.

Therein lies the root of the problem. Nobody builds better mousetraps and waits for the stampede of sales to a good product. Instead they try to "position the company" for various marketing notions, and expect everyone to buy the resulting shite because... well, they need us to. It's a crap business plan that gave us Vista and Windows 8, among other abominations. M$ is hardly alone in this.

My continued employment depends to a large degree on software and hardware designers failing to do a good job. My future employment seems pretty secure.

Great idea, with caveats for human nature

Online dating is a great way to extend one's dating pool. Unfortunately, the same caveats apply as in real life.

I found profiles often reflected not who the person is, but who they WISH they are like. Desired traits often didn't match the reality, such as the "tired of bad boys, want respect" woman who lost interest over my lack of tattoos, beard, or fast car. Also common was the profile with answers that went from paragraphs to a few words, then blanks as the profilee lost interest. I won't go into obvious LIARS, of which there were plenty.

Finally, any new female profile was deluged with messages as soon as they signed up. If I got a mail in before her mailbox filled up, not much chance of standing out in 100 messages.

Nevertheless, I had several dates with women I would otherwise have never met. It was a great addition to my bag of dating tricks. I was still at it when I met my wife on a paddle-camping trip for a local singles outdoor club.

Charging by person = FAIL

Why do they assume persons present when a show is on are WATCHING IT? That's often not the case.

Show of hands: who has sat beside a TV watcher while reading, knitting, or other activity and totally ignoring the TV? Or had a companion nearby ignoring your TV broadcast? Doing a puzzle on the floor? PLAYING WITH THE DOG?

"Human present" does not equal "Viewer", and is a FAIL model to charge by.

Hate site? So you drank the Kool-Aid?

Never heard of it until today. Quick visit and some reading done, and it's not a hate site. Certainly less offensive than the strident, angry spewing I've seen from "feminist" writers who get a free pass to say anything.

UNLESS you subscribe to the "criticize a popular political trend and you're a HATER" mindset. It's funny to me that the ones most ready to scream "racist, hate" etc. shriek for the suppression of any opposing view. If you can't win a debate, close it down, eh?

Easy to pass, impossible to repeal

It only takes a 50% majority to pass crap laws, and 2/3 (or more? kinda apathetic these days) to repeal them. You can always count on party-line votes to prevent the repeal. Everyone knows this, so if ya has a bill that the public would revolt over, PASS IT QUICK!

This one's a repeat. They're hoping to get 'er done before the resistance builds again, and that the public will be worn down by repetitive (even if true!) cries of WOLF!

It's traditional for newly-elected presidents to ram through their party's favored schemes immediately after inauguration. It prevents the opposition from having time to rally against the raping away of American's rights.

NICE PEOPLE?!?!?!

APPLE are NICE PEOPLE? Those anti-competitive, micromanaging bastards? Apple bases all its moves on solid self-interest, and screw what the users want or need. If that's who Google compares themselves to, it only reinforces how little Google can be trusted!

Keep on pushing the Big Lie, folks, some people might even believe it.

Dogs et. al under control, why not CATS?

No other pet animals are allowed to roam about killing whatever strikes their fancy. People are rightfully horrified when dogs do it. Time to call cats the remorseless little monsters they are.

Books aren't the Window to the World anymore

Younger folks don't read much. They didn't grow up being entertained by books.

When I was a teen, we had three TV channels and no internet. Reading was a great escape and adventure source for me. Jump back to Now, and there's the Internet, cable TV, thousands of offerings pouring out at you.

Never again (in the West) will kids grow up with books being their window to the world. Reading is the also-ran these days, merely one function on the multi-use widget young folks want.

To older folks who love reading an e-reader is best, since it does that one thing perfectly. To younger folks whose primary interest is shiny video and Faceborg, tablets meet their wants better.

Patience, lads! The wall is crumbling!

Yerright! The USA has been in the grip of religious prudes for decades. Thankfully, their odious grip is slipping daily. It's pretty easy to generate a transient storm of strident parents if a nipple shows on TV, but they lack the power to legislate their oppression anymore.

Here in my home state we've recently managed to pass Sunday alcohol sales in spite of their pious bleating, and even managed to overturn an ancient anti-sodomy law. It's pretty sad we ever had those laws, but it's PROGRESS to beat them back!

Apple is simply being a wimp. It's going to take Apple a while to shake off the many stupid policies imposed by Jobs, this is one of them. Gee, wonder if having the dead Steve Jobs deciding what you can do with an I-phone is holding back international sales?

Nobody mention the elephant in the room OK?

The elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about is how the "gun violence" is almost exclusively the province of gang-banger "disadvantaged youths". They don't PLAY video games. Computer exposure might actually improve their job prospects. They don't obey laws, least of all the ones that prohibit them owning guns. DUH.

Political hacks don't want to solve problems, including so-called "gun violence". They only exploit them to further their political objectives. The facts don't matter, like how "gun violence" is highest where guns are banned. Opening up private concealed carry always results in a DECREASE in violent crime. So inconvenient for the anti-gun lobby...

Bad news for pickpockets, good for lost kids

Harder to snatch a wristband than lift a wallet, and the band can probably be deauthorized with a mouse click or two. Should make it easier to reunite parents and kids too.

Of course, my wife and I would immediately swap bands. Make them wonder what I was doing so often in the ladies' room lol.

Tracking? I'm less annoyed than usual. The park has a legitimate interest in knowing what makes us happy, to hopefully improve the place (and encourage us to spend more, yes). Not the same as the mall. However, I can't imagine they won't try to sell on the data, so at the end of the day I don't trust it.

Absolute school sports corrupt absolutely

As with everything here in the USA, it's all about money. Jocks are a protected species, know it, and act like it. Can't have any of those college moneymakers languish in jail now, might hurt Screw U's chances at a bowl game next year. And Senator Stasi is a huge fan!

Ditto on the cops not giving a damn. Their political masters want them generating "revenue" on the roads, not wasting money failing to solve crimes. In forty years, not one crime perpetrated against my family or friends has had a culprit brought to justice. Been hassled on the highway plenty of times though.

Hangin's too good for them. BURNING'S too good for them. They ought to tear them into little bitty pieces and bury them AAALIIIVE!

(with thanks to Hanover Fiste)

Fundamental conflict, Facebook is not the final answer

Users want to share with those they want to share with. They want to limit who sees what, control what can be done with Their Stuff.

Social networks want to share everyone's stuff with everyone. They make more money whoring your data to all and sundry. It's a fundamental conflict for which the best we can hope is a compromise. Unfortunately, Faceborg goes way overboard, with blatant disregard for users.

Social networking is here to stay, but it does NOT have to be the creepy, F-ck You style that Facebook is becoming reviled for. Every unstoppable giant eventually falls hard, their turn will come. Not soon enough though...

Static nav GOOD, updated nav maybe bad...

My 2003 4Runner has a built-in nav unit. It always works, always the same way. I know it's not spying on me, and it never will. I don't risk a crash because a button moved in a flashy new UI update. It works in craggy mountains where internet service is lost. If I want services in the area, I have a Droid for that.

Most people buy cars for the long term, years. In contrast, Google et. al are constantly fiddling their services. Endless revamps of web pages and portals for most large businesses. What makes anyone think they won't do it to the car units? At best, you'll have to relearn the UI. At worst, they'll push out new invasions of our privacy. Google, Faceborg and others are constantly pushing self-serving 'features' that victimize their users

While updates can provide 'better service', they also provide a way to screw with a very captive audience. You can change your web browser easily, your phone for a couple hundred... buying a new car not so cheap.

Rotten business can't hide anymore? YESSS!

Let's face it, there are plenty of crap businesses who are content to be that way. As long as they make a buck, all is well. Furious customers previously could only warn friends and family about them. Thanks to the Internet, exploited customers have a voice.

I've found great doctors and other providers thanks to good reviews, and managed to avoid plenty of idiots. This is GREAT for us, but definitely bad for the crap businesses. I'm sure they'd rather nobody heard of their stupidity like the good old days.

With that said, not all reviews are equal. I appreciate sites that let the business respond. Some nice responses to poor reviews have kept me interested in a company or product.

High-pressure sales tactics, obvious intent!

It's high-pressure sales, nothing more. "This deal won't last! Quantities are limited! ACT NOW BEFORE IT'S TOOOOO LAAAAAATE!"

So, do YOU trust people who scaremonger on a deadline? Maybe if the so-called science was more precise or trusted, but climate science is still in its infancy. Nobody can currently predict that future, nor the effects of dodgy schemes to change the climate. Racing to implement politically-driven schemes sounds like a great way to hasten the decline. Show me a politician who knows the least bit about science...

Don't forget a basic Male-Female difference...

Remember that men are turned on by visual sexuality much more than women. In the real world, Nude Women are simply looked at more than Nude Men. Note the lopsided balance of nude men (some) vs women (BEEELIONS) in porn.

Keeping that in mind, one would expect males to always be more dressed, since the Average Audience is less interested in looking at them. Hot studly male avatars are simply going to get less attention than hot women, so why play as the also-ran?

FYI, I have a female alt in Second Life. Sometimes she's a hot babe in a slinky dress, sometimes a scary-looking cyborg. I'm happily straight but it's fun to explore strangers' reactions when they think I'm a female. See things from the other gender's perspective, yanno.

System not broken, but IS being abused!

The patent system, like most other laws, is FINE. The problem is the misuse of patents encouraged by greedy lawyers and allowed by stupid judges. They all make money on litigation, so they encourage this crap.

One can compare to the failure of civil law such as when idiots burn themselves on hot coffee and win damage awards. These are judgements for cases that should have been laughed out of court in the first place! When Apple vs. Humanity is filed to sue for unlicensed use of rectangles, the judicial reply should be crushing fines for wasting the court's time.

Another critical FAIL was allowing "business methods" and software to be patented. These are clearly not within the scope of the patent system's intent. Get rid of them and sanity returns, competition happens and the Little Guy/Gal inventor has a chance again.

Fat chance, yah...

Can't buy votes with space missions!

It's very simple. Space missions don't buy votes. Entitlement programs do. Social program budgets go UP, space budgets go DOWN.

Once we beat the Rooskies to the Moon in 1969, public interest and budgets shrank immediately. The Apollo program wasn't even completed. The interest and patronage of the military has kept NASA funded somewhat since then, but the science missions have never had any political support.

Lack of focus? Not surprising. No money, no support, no public interest in proposed projects... how can anyone make ambitious plans in that state?

VOGONS!!!

I looked and there's no planetoid out there. Instead there's a nasty-looking yellow spaceship parked at the L5 point.. Better grab yer towels, mates!

IT Angle? RAISING GEEK MORALE!

Just a thought for those who demand wiring with all Reg articles. IT can be a pretty tough gig, and these articles provide amusement and a minute of diversion. They also tend to find the Good Stuff, sparing me trolling dozens of web pages looking for weird news. The presentation usually is pretty funny itself, with puns and double-entendres both highbrow and low.

If you're too happy and well-adjusted to need a morale boost now and then, just close the tab and bask in your ideological purity while my friends and I are joking about Bulgarian Airbags.

UPVOTE if you partly read the Reg for weird news and humor!

DOWNVOTE if you're an ideologically pure nerd with no time for anything but coding!

Why we don't fly anymore, Chapter 56

My wife and I have stopped flying anywhere we can reach by car, in large part due to the TSA and other post-9/11 programs. This has actually improved our travel experience in many ways!

How motivated are we to avoid airlines? We have made round trips from Atlanta to Dallas in a weekend, plus similar trips to New England states. Drove to the Midwest states several times. Sharing quiet time in a car for hours is more pleasurable than the shorter trip on an airline. No security hassles, no luggage searches, limits on how much shampoo we can have. No checking bags which fail to arrive. No screaming babies or flu-carriers behind us. LEG ROOM!

Air travel in the US is abominable, and the useless knee-jerk programs thrown up by political hacks eager to be seen "DOING SOMETHING" only make it worse. I pity frequent business travelers, I really do.

DON'T give 'em an inch, they'll take it ALL!

Business has always wanted the kind of data they get now by tracking, but there was no way to get it. Imagine you're shopping a store and find something to buy. The store insists you first create an "account" before you make your purchase, demanding personal information to spend a fiver on a book. No Way, right?

Now they have the tools to vacuum up our data without having to ask. They've made a business model of it. They're crying that their business model will collapse if they are now prevented from grabbing information without consent. AWWW, POOR BABY, my heart bleeds. We heard the same whines from telemarketers, another business model hated by the public.

Technology: Just because it can be done, does not mean it should. That includes any form of tracking, to specifically include those that blithely decide to ignore DNT.

WOT benefits for me?

I have yet to be told any useful benefit for ME. For the companies, obviously they want to whore my data for money. In return my searches are twiddled based on what a MACHINE thinks I want, usually getting it wrong. I'm progressively locked in a Bubble based on the past, limiting my search results. Personalized offers? They're still merely advertisements, not of any benefit to me. In short, the rationale of mutual benefit is totally bogus.

Therefore, Default OPT-OUT is what I want. Convince me I have something useful to gain, I'll give it up. If they can't offer me real benefits in trade, I might accept CASH!

Voight-Kampff time for Mr. Bong?

Has anyone confirmed Mr. Bong is human? Has he taken a Voight-Kampff test? At least been seen to solve a CAPTCHA or two? This article reads like a computer-generated SPAM message. At a glance it looks like sense but the semi-random pieces don't fit together into a coherent narrative.

And did you ever see a machine try SO hard to be hip and cool? OMG, his phone has an undecipherable symbol for a name, is it trying to get it's real name back like Prince?

Going for me coat now...

From the sanctity of your little worlds ye proclaim...

Amazing how many smug comments from those with clearly limited perspective. Just because you don't know about or have to deal with it does not mean it's not a real, valid problem for others. I expected more imagination from Reg readers!

"I can't see any need for java / I never use java and don't miss it" - you obviously don't have to support a business that is forced to use sites or services that require java. It's not so easy to simply banish a mission-critical process.

"Java is disabled by default on Apples" - okay, Apples are crippled by default, woo. A car that won't move is inherently safe from accidents, but a pretty poor transport. Saint Jobs didn't banish Flash to protect you, but to make MO' MONEY. Don't confuse his intent..

On the glum side, anything that reaches popular use is going to become a hack target. Given the complexity of software, everything will probably be somehow hackable. Every massive hacker opening began as a Wonderful Feature. Installing software from a web page, running programs from an e-mail, these and others were signposts to a glowing future of friendly computers. When someone invented doors, his neighbor invented burglary...

Another bubble to escape from!

This is called putting users in a content bubble, and it's just as stupid as when Google does it.

Furthermore, it's not for the viewer's benefit! It's totally self-serving on Apple's part, since it introduces a mechanism to steer the viewer where Apple wants them to go. Does anyone believe the "suggestions" won't be weighted in favor of results beneficial to Apple? (or Google or whomever?)

"Personalized search" in all forms ultimately limits user choice, whether from deliberate result-twiddling or excessive focus on past usage. It's great if you have no imagination, terrible if you seek out New Things.

Essay Question vs. Multiple Choice

Big data gives you answers like multiple-choice exams test knowledge. It's a terribly constrained way to evaluate single points of interest. They tell you nothing that is not specifically asked for in the exam. They're easy to feed into databases, easy to run comparative queries, and give an illusion of being simple and effective.

Essay questions generate non-standard answers, and are difficult to shove into databases. Much harder to evaluate and sort/compare/etc. However, they give a TRUE picture, since the respondent can include anything in their answers the tester might not have asked about.

Big Data: easy to work with, terrible picture of reality.

Anecdotes aren't always bad, folks. "Goat weed cured my cancer!" is bad anecdotal evidence for goat weed. "Big Box Electronics fixed my computer in an hour after Nerd Squad failed! Happy customer!" is a good datum point for customer service. Much better than a stupid survey saying "rate your satisfaction from 1 to 5".

Oversimplified system = invalid conclusion

There are other population-control mechanisms that the researchers left out, rendering their sweeping conclusions overstated. Diseases, other predators, competition from other parasitic bugs, the list goes on. Any of these in the Real World could take advantage of the sudden boom in one bug (read: food source or host).

Science (rightly) tries to control for variables, but simply pretending other variables won't matter is bad science.

The blindness of cat lovers...

Good gravy! Cat lovers think their little moggies can do NO wrong! To listen to the cat lovers, it's perfectly fine to replace wildlife with hordes of stray cats. What's going to keep your trees and gardens pest-free when all the songbirds are dead? Those birds eat lots of bugs you know.

There's good (non-greenie-whacko) research documenting the correlation between stray cats and loss of wildlife in urban-suburban areas. There's also good documentation of how trees without birds are less healthy and grow less (as much as 60% less in a year).

Dogs aren't allowed to roam about killing at will, there's no good reason to let cats do it. As far as "following instinct to kill things", apply that argument to dogs and see how bogus it is. We routinely stop pets and livestock from acting on their instincts, for their good and ours.

Hey cat lovers, do you make excuses for your delinquent children too?

Did a 10-year old think of this FAIL?

I'm ambivalent about Lulzsec and Anonymous most days. They're illegal hackers yes. However, so many of their targets are LEGALLY doing stupid things against which we common folk have no recourse. Popular story plot to have The Evil Man taken down by the plucky little guys.

But hacking a DATING site for the uniformed??? That's just asinine. Kick Congressmen in their virtual balls if you like. Lulzsec isn't going to right any wrongs by harassing servicemen/women.

EPIC FAIL.

"Wasted Talent" had a good comic about this

"Lost in Conversion" http://www.wastedtalent.ca/comic/lost-conversion

VERY old news, see "Maiasaura"...

You might at least mention Jack Horner's discovery of Maiasaura in the 70's. Arranged nests, embryonic dinos, etc. They established long ago that dinos stayed in the nest and were cared for by the adults. I saw Horner himself talk about that dig in 1986.

This new find adds more to the story and relates to earlier animals, but it's decades-old news that dinos cared for their young. And were probably not cold-blooded, by the way.

Headsmack for not doing basic research first...

Down with the Big Boob Nazis!

Small is beautiful, doesn't give my Asian wife back pain or bounce painfully when we mountain bike, and doesn't sag to the kneecaps.

Seriously, Australia and Britain seem to be racing China for most oppressive developed nation status. Unfortunately the US is only a few years behind at most.

Someone needs to have a revolution quick. A few more years and their universal monitoring will bring the cops to your door for badmouthing the government in an e-mail.

American?? WHICH ONE?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/alien_32.png Survey FAIL! Lumping the harsh tones of New York City with the courtly drawl of the deep South is an insult as well as a travesty. As a Southerner, I've been complimented on my accent numerous times, usually by dewy-eyed women. True, the ignorant assume I have a low IQ, but that's the least of their problems.

"America"! I can list a dozen distinctive accents without much effort. Ah, well, what do we expect from survey monkeys.

Alien head because they would have about as much trouble as the survey folks had.