* Posts by Loyal Commenter

5761 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jul 2010

Twitter engineer calls out Elon Musk for technical BS in unusual career move

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Remember, though, it's only safe to carry it inside a bucket of steam.

Go ahead, be rude. You don't know it now, but it will cost you $350,000

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Joke

Re: You get what you order

Or make sure that when they "accidentally" trip on your rug, they don't get back up...

I'm assuming that this in the US, so you could probably shoot them and claim a home invasion.

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Re: You get what you order

As a corollary to this, the purchase of hire car excess insurance (usually at a very small premium if you buy it via a comparison site) will save you that awkward moment, when you go to pick up the hire car at the airport, and they try the "either buy our insurance or pay a large deposit for the excess up front" trick (usually a several hundred quid pre-authorised block on the credit/debit card).

"No thanks, I've already got this insurance to cover it for the whole week for less than you are trying to charge me per day."

That really pissed off the chancer at the budget car hire place in Marseilles, but there was nothing he could do about it...

The thing here, is that the insurance they are trying to flog you, on the off chance that someone drives into you, is a price-gouging scam, and, to be honest, the cheaper insurance you buy to avoid it is essentially protection money too.

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Re: You get what you order

I couldn't even tell you the make of my washing machine if I went and had a look at it, as I've had it so long the branding has worn off the front of it. (The model number hasn't, and googling it indicates it's a Siemens). It must be getting on for 20 years old...

Just follow the instructions … no wait, not that instruction to lock everyone out of everything

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Re: Poor flake

Yeah, well Stob has been gone for a fair while now, and SFTW for long enough for most to notice the absence.

BOfH has been running for quite a while, and sooner or later, Simon is going to retire...

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The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

I'm happy paying Twitter eight bucks a month because price isn't the same as value

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Like all social media, it's as good as YOU make it

Like all social media, it's as bad as EVERYBODY ELSE makes it.

And if you don't moderate some of those "everybodys" it's a cesspool, because often those who shout the loudest are the ones with the least to say, and the most repellent opinions can be loudly voiced if there is nobody physically there to stop them. The moderating factor in real life is "could I say that to a stranger in the street without risking a punch to the face".

Look! Up in the sky! Proof of concept for satellites beaming energy to Earth!

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Re: Ouch

Well, if the wavelength is in the tens of centimetres, then small birds are going to be fine getting through the mesh. I think various aviation authorities might like a word with you if you try to fly a plane at, or just above, ground level.

Because that quote is referring to the antenna.

As has been amply stated, the increase in incident radiation on anything flying through the beam itself would be about 25% of sunlight. Unless those birds and planes are vampires, they'll not be bursting into flames when exposed to the sun.

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Re: Um

The heat is not the problem, the problem is the heat equilibrium.

Hotter things radiate heat away faster. The way that solar radiation is trapped by the atmosphere is that the wavelengths of light mostly pass straight through on the way in (because it is mostly visible light), heat the ground up, and are then radiated away, through black-body radiation at infrared wavelengths. There are components of the atmosphere that absorb infrared and are heated by them (such as CO2 and methane), thus causing further heating of the atmosphere. This is eventually re-radiated (at a longer wavelength, because most of the atmosphere is typically colder than the ground), but it puts a brake on the energy that comprises that heat* from leaving the planet, thus shifting the equilibrium and causing a temperature rise. This is called the "greenhouse effect".

With that in mind, the amounts of energy involved here are miniscule, compared to solar heating, so direct heating of the planet by human activity can be disregarded compared to the greenhouse effect.

*There is a distinction between heat and temperature that those who are not educated in the physical sciences may miss here. Heat is the energy used to make something hot, and temperature is how hot it is. In lay use, the terms are largely interchangeable, so this can cause some confusion. Different materials take different amounts of heat to raise their temperature. Water, for example, takes 4.2 KJ to raise 1 kg by 1 °C.

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Re: Solar sail

Even with that magic the waste heat would be huge and the heat sink to stop the satellite melting would add another layer of mass.

Depending on the materials it's made of, wouldn't you just work out where the thermal equilibrium from black-body radiation is, and engineer it to operate in that temperature range? There are plenty of alloys that are fine at hundreds of degrees centigrade, and AFAIK PV cells tend to be made from ceramic materials, which mostly don't care until you're in the high hundreds of degrees.

In any case, why are you expecting any more heat than any other satellite that is in the glare of the sun has to deal with? It's not like the ISS is covered in a mass of 1950s style space-fins to radiate away waste heat, for example.

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Did you miss the bit in the article that said that the microwave receivers are essentially transparent?

In practice, I'd expect them to be a wire mesh with a mesh size tuned to the microwave wavelength (tens of centimetres probably) or something like that. I am, of course, not an RF engineer, so this is a possibly naïve assumption.

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Re: Mad dogs and Englishmen

I think they're likely to be avoiding those wavelengths that are absorbed by water, because there's quite a lot of it in the atmosphere...

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Re: You also get the problem ....

It's going to have to be in GEO isn't it? Otherwise it's going to have three problems: tracking the ground station, being on the wrong side of the planet to do so half the time, and being in the Earth's shadow for a significant amount of time as well.

GEO is "high" enough that, for the most part, the Earth won't get between it and the sun, and for maximum efficiency, you really want it directly above the receiving station, because every degree you're off by is going to decrease the receiving efficiency (and make the ground target non-circular)

Unlucky for some: Meta chops 13% of global workforce

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"Nooooo! Put the head-set on her instead!"

A little reference there for those who have actually read the book, rather than just pretending they have...

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Re: Meta's metaverse division has lost $9.4 billion this year already

"But if you imagined what mobile internet would be like in 1991, you might think of a 16char LCD display with stock tickers"

Do you remember what mobile phones looked like in 1991? They were approximately the size and shape of a house brick, and the networks weren't even digital yet (that happened in 1992), so if anyone was thinking of "mobile internet" it would have been to use their house-brick as a (very expensive) modem.

The thing is, there were a number of incremental increases and developments that led to the mobile internet as we enjoy it now; digital networks, WAP, MMS (remember those?), feature phones, incremental developments in network technology (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G...), battery technology, screen technology, the first "smart phones", so on, and so forth.

The important bit is that each of these developments was led by the fact that they provided a clear advantage in some way - cost, efficiency, weight, size, usability, and so on. The "Metaverse" as pushed so hard by Zuckerberg doesn't do this, at least not in any way that is obviously apparent. Currently, it simulates, badly, things that you can already do, and it has no "killer app". The "use cases" I have seen promoted heavily on FB are that you can "sit" in a "virtual office," at a time when people are quite happily not working in offices, and using Teams or Zoom to communicate perfectly effectively, and that you can have some sort of virtual "drag queen" bollocks, which might be of interest to people who like to watch Ru Paul, but sure sounds like a gimmick to me, and I'm willing to bet is of limited interest to even those who are really into that scene.

The problem is, that VR doesn't make anything easier or smoother; it's an expensive encumbrance. My smart-phone in my pocket is a successful device because I can take it out of my pocket, look at it, and then put it away again. I can carry it around with me, and use it to access information, and to communicate with others quickly. Nobody is going to carry a VR headset around with them. Nobody is going to sit on a bus playing VR games, nobody is going to use one walking down the street, or whilst taking a shit. Nobody is going to pop on the headset and enjoy a bit of VR porn while their wife is in the other room. It's not just that there is no "killer app" for it, it's that there are no obvious apps for it at all.

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Sacking them en masse isn't exactly respectful, whether they can walk into another job easily or not.

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Re: Meta's metaverse division has lost $9.4 billion this year already

The internet, such as it was, in 1991, had a purpose. It provided a genuine benefit to universities and research establishments, even then. If it hadn't it would have crashed and burned at some point in the 1980s.

If you were actually referring to the "Web," well, nobody had pumped billions of dollars into it in 1991 (maybe give it a few years after that for the .COM bust), but at least it had a clear purpose, to distribute and share information.

Remind me again, what is the point of "the metaverse" other than to do things you can do in real life, in a more clunky and disorienting way, and whilst wearing a sweaty shoebox on your head?

As for your example, "gopher". Are you still using gopher? Would you be using gopher if Zuckerberg had spent billions promoting the "gopherverse" which was essentially just gopher but with a subscription model, and requiring custom hardware to use? Because that did die a death, because it was shit, and HTTP was better (hence why we have the web). I'm puzzled by why you chose to disprove your own point there.

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Re: Zuck and metaverse

I totally agree. I've tried an e-bike on a hire scheme, and they're pretty good (the ones that were on trial here were really heavy though, I've ridden motorbikes that were lighter).

The problem with the electric scooters is one of lack of regulation. Or, more accurately, lack of enforcement of regulations. We have a "trial" e-scooter hire scheme here in Bristol and the results are, let's say, "mixed". If they're properly used, they're great, however, the operator clearly doesn't care about making sure they are used legally, and the police are far too under resourced to police them. The result is a free-for-all, where you see them misused in pretty much every way you can think of, and their existence has encouraged a lot of people to illegally ride privately owned ones with no insurance (because you can't insure them on the roads).

It's a real shame, because the shambolic way they have been introduced has led to most people hating them, as you have to dodge out of the way of morons riding them on pavements, and they're a real hazard to other traffic due to frequent multiple riders, drunk riders, children, people going the wrong way down one-way-streets, sailing through red lights, you name it. I'm genuinely surprised that nobody has been killed yet. Properly managed, they'd be a boon for commuters, but as it is, they don't get people out of their cars, they just stop people walking between pubs.

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Re: Meta's metaverse division has lost $9.4 billion this year already

Without metaverse Facebook is just the next AOL

And with it, it's the next Theranos. Have you seen any of this "Metaverse" stuff? It's shit.

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"We're planning to act legally [this time]"

Wow, way to attain the bare minimum there Zuck.

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Re: Zuck and metaverse

The C5 was a bad idea for the exact same reasons non-motorised recumbent bicycles are a bad idea: Being below the level of the window sills and wing mirrors of most vehicles is a recipe for being taken out by someone turning left. If you're using one to the right of traffic that might turn that way, you're as good as dead already, because most drivers won't even expect something to be on that side in their blind spot.

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Re: Zuck and metaverse

Yeah, "lay-offs because $pandemic" is just shorthand for "spaffed all the money betting that people would actually want the Metaverse".

There seems to be a definite trend amongst billionaires towards thinking that because they have been successful in the past, then anything they turn their hand to must therefore be successful in the future, if only they pump enough money into it.

If only we had an adage to describe this sort of hubris. "The bigger they are, the harder they fall," springs to mind. Or "don't put all your eggs in one basket". Or indeed the fables of King Midas, or the Emperor's new Clothes...

If only there was precedent, eh? But of course there isn't, there's no such thing as a "cautionary tale," so nobody could possibly have known that trying to flog something that nobody wants wouldn't work...

Europe wants Airbnb and pals to cough up rental property logs

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Re: It had to happen

The frozen rent would be *less* than she pays for the mortgage.

Cry me a river, she can't get someone else to buy property for her.

UK government set to extract hospital data to Palantir system without patient consent

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Re: And after

Presumably, those swears were so diluted as to be completely ineffective, and therefore extremely offensive to everyone in the world?

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Re: And after

Did they refer you to an orthopaedist? Did you turn that down in favour of a back-cracking-quack?

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Re: pseudonymization

Don't forget to ROT13 it (twice for extra security) and also XOR it (twice for extra secrecy) with "secretsecretsecretsecret..."

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Re: We serfs do not have a voice

I do like Alexei Sayle, but his political views can sometimes make Karl Marx look like a centrist...

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Creeping Privatisation

"...has instructed NHS Digital to gather the data for the purpose of understanding and reducing the crisis in treatment waiting times resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic."

The "crisis in treatment waiting times" may have been caused by COVID during the peak of the pandemic, but the current multiple crises in the NHS are caused by the government, and anyone can see that this is a deliberate strategy to cause failures and use this as an excuse for carving off anything that looks profitable and selling it to party donors.

Parody Elon Musk Twitter accounts will be suspended immediately, says Elon Musk

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Re: Losing $4 million a day!

Except in this case, it's someone else who has collected that VC money, and he's the rube the company been sold off to. Which demonstrates that previously he has been lucky rather than skilful.

Oh, and minor point, when he was involved with Zip2 and Paypal, he was already rich from having parents who owned an emerald mine.

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Re: Losing $4 million a day!

At this rate, it'll only take 30 years to double his losses from buying it...

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He has fallen into the classic trap of thinking that being lucky is the same as being talented.

He was lucky enough to be born with rich parents, and lucky enough to start, and in most cases, buy some businesses that went on to be successful. I seriously doubt he could even correctly name all the parts that go into his high-speed milk-floats, let alone be able to design and assemble one. All the actual work is done by someone else. Like those poor saps down the emerald mines in South Africa. He's just the capital holding the whip.

He now has such an inflated opinion of himself, by making some lucky gambles, that he thinks he can't fail. It's going to be ugly when he does, because he clearly doesn't know how to do so gracefully. That's what happens when you never tell your kids, "no".

Mozilla Foundation launches ethical venture capital fund

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That "browser thingy" that is actively being worked on, gets regular updates, and which I am using to type this message?

The one whose market share is only a little behind MS Edge, the default browser in the world's most uses general purpose operating system?

It's not my fault (or theirs) that most people are too short-sighted to question whether they should be using Chrome everywhere and letting Google slurp up all that metadata. Or indeed, that people let themselves into Apple's walled garden and can't get out again.

Big brands urged to pause Twitter ads until Elon's learned how this all works

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You spelt "boss" wrong...

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...which just goes to show that if you take enough coke, you can convince yourself that your extreme lack of self-awareness is normal and right, and nobody else matters.

Meanwhile, the advertising industry is staring to look more and more like a ponzi scheme, where if you just throw enough money at more and more advertising in more and more forms, the economy will grow as a result, without there having to be any cause and effect.

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Re: Because…

Well at least there's a silver lining that the Saudi Royal Family are set to lose some money from Musk being a twat as well.

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Re: Respected?!?!

Yeah, Facebook does this as well, in favour of "sponsored posts". It used to be that ads were distinct and you could easily ignore them, now they make them look like legitimate posts. They know exactly how deceptive they can be before people walk away. I doubt Musk does though, and that will cost him.

Royal Mail customer data leak shutters online Click and Drop

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Re: "The root cause is now under investigation."

This ignores the fact that most of the RM's work is sorting and routing that post. Fewer items being sent means fewer lorries (and trains and planes) to transport it between sorting offices, less work to sort it to routes in the delivery offices, and less to carry for the posties. I'm not convinced that it's as much work to deliver 100 items to a street, as it is to deliver 200.

The number of letters have fallen over time since the '90s because people now use email instead of writing letters, and a lot of things like bank statements are electronic (although I still make mine send me paper ones). A lot of post is the same as it was twenty years ago, though; bills, begging letters from charities, birthday cards, more bills...

As for parcels? Well, except for the small light "packages", those aren't generally carried by the postie on his or her rounds. They get delivered by van, like every other courier. In most cases, though, RM are more expensive, which is why their volumes are dropping. They have relied on being the "default supplier" because people got into the habit of taking a parcel to the post office to get it sent. In today's world, the number of post offices has fallen drastically, and people are comfortable taking something to their local "parcel shop" to get it collected by HermesEvri or UPS, or whoever, or paying 20p more (or however much) to have it picked up.

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Re: "The root cause is now under investigation."

I'd suggest that RM is not a well run private organisation, though. Since privatisation the cost of their services has gone up; look at the current price of a first class stamp. In 2012, before privatisation it was 60p (and that was a big leap from 43p). Currently it's 95p. That's a 63% increase in ten years; total inflation in that time has been a little over 30% - that's pure profit-taking, because wages and conditions for RM staff in that time have worsened considerably (hence why they are striking). They have also changed the way they categorise items of mail, so something you could previously send as a latter now goes as "large letter" or "small parcel" at much greater cost, and their prices for parcels (via Parcelfarce) are comparatively higher than their competitors, for a worse service.

The result? They lose business, because nobody in their right mind is going to use the most expensive service, especially when it has become so unreliable.

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Re: "The root cause is now under investigation."

It's the "outsourcing" that is privatisation.

Yes, sometimes, it is more effective to get someone else to do something for you, for instance where an organisation is an expert in providing a particular service for a lot of clients, and you need that service in a small number of cases, and it would be more costly to implement yourself.

However, if it is something that can entirely be done in-house, and no economy of scale applies, there is no reason to put every bloody thing out to tender, other than to create a "market" where private entities can bid low and cut corners to make profit. It doesn't end up with better results for anyone except their shareholders.

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Re: "The root cause is now under investigation."

Point me at one that wasn't due to "contracting out" to a private tender, please. All the usual suspects apply, Capita, Fujitsu-Siemens, et al.

I'm not saying these things can't happen in the public sector, but when the imperative in delivering a service is to focus on delivering profit to shareholders, security is where corners get cut.

Straight-up balls-ups where someone uses a spreadsheet for something they shouldn't be are also the other root cause here...

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"The root cause is now under investigation."

Privatisation.

Hot, sweaty builders hosed a server – literally – leaving support with an all-night RAID repair job

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Facepalm

Re: Botched Aircon

Show me which part of the air conditioning circuit is the humidifier?

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Re: Botched Aircon

If that's an old HP laser printer, there's still a market for those second-hand, because they were built to survive anything short of a direct nuclear strike.

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Re: Botched Aircon

You just described what is still probably about 20% of working spaces in the UK. Victorian buildings aren't uncommon, and although you'll probably find most of them have been retrofitted with air conditioning, it’s still not nearly as common in the UK as in many other countries.

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Re: Botched Aircon

I'm not a mechanical engineer either, but my immediate solution to that would be, rather than having one massive over-specced unit, to have several smaller units (maybe 5-10 of them) which can cut in individually as required, and maybe act as fail-over for each other as well. Sure, the control systems might be a bit more complex, but that's just microcontrollers and wiring, and cheap compared to the infrastructure.

Microsoft mulls cheap PCs supported by ads, subs

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Re: PiHole

One wonders how easily that could be defeated by having the proxy on the Pi-Hole "watch" those ads for you, and forward on the tokens. To M$, the Pi-Hole pretends to be the machine, and to the machine, it pretends to be M$. Some trusting of certificates may be required on the machine...

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Re: Subs?

For most people, they would read it as "subscriptions". YMMV, though and if YKINMK, it might mean the opposite of doms to you.

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The fact that YT is forcing more and more ads into videos, and most people's response is "FUCK OFF ADS" might kind-of indicate that this model isn't as successful as they would like you to think. Those buying the ad space might start to ask whether pissing people off too much might tarnish their brand, rather than promote it.

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I wonder

How well would one of these work behind a pi-hole?

UK comms regulator rings death knell for fax machines

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Re: Much loved???

It's called a hanko, and to be fair, is probably no more or less suitable as a means of authentication than signing your name on something, as if your signature is somehow magical and inviolable.