* Posts by Gob Smacked

171 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Feb 2012

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GitHub courts controversy by suspending Tornado Cash developers and reneging on cookie commitments

Gob Smacked

Re: Remember?

Decentralizing low bandwidth stuff hosted on Internet is most always a good idea and Open Source just plainly needs that. Sounds nice this yes... :)

Gob Smacked
Facepalm

Remember?

No one seems to remember it was a bad thing MS taking over Github anymore. Think again then... lol

It will harm incidental accounts first, then progress into full restrictive use over time.

It's just nice to know there are a lot of alternatives to host open source projects: these will just starting to move over from now on...

Gob Smacked

Re: DNT

A auto delete cookies plugins solves that - it's just that people are lazy about their privacy

US car industry leads the world in production cuts over chip shortages

Gob Smacked
FAIL

Re: Here's an idea -

How about just pressing 1 button instead without thinking... take's just miiliseconds and you keep the attention where it needs to be

Really, voice controls in a car are only taking away road attendance - in all cases as far as I can see (does it work this time...?). Worst decision ever...

My Big Coin founder is – you guessed it – a $6m crypto-fraudster

Gob Smacked

Re: "crypto is all worthless numbers"

To sell or buy is one's own decision. Never understand people that buy trusting it will deliver profits, then complain *and* sell at a loss: that's just the best way to burn through your money.

If you want to ride the waves, buy with care, no more than you're willing to lose. Does not matter if it's crypto, stocks, whisky, real estate or any other hype of the day. Don't sell at a loss or only when you want to use the money otherwise and take gains to at least cover the costs, so you only play with free money. It's that simple.

Any other way to do it is just gambling or plain stupid.

SpaceX crewed flight to ISS delayed by damaged rocket

Gob Smacked

Re: Unfortunately

Nope. You just have to test till it breaks. And again. And again... Until you really understand.

Develop, break things, improve. Simple.

India's central bank calls for cryptocurrency ban

Gob Smacked

It can completely be anonymous now yes, development did not stop since the birth in 2009. You lose anonimity if you want to sell into fiat again, where the BTC address is tied to a named recipient. But most BTC holders don't sell if they *really* looked into the protocol and only sell if there's a need for it. And even then, you can use the Lightning network to anonimize the necessary amount to a new wallet, then sell. Never to use that "tainted" wallet again then. No ties to the original wallet, makes it pretty anonymous.

Yes, the blockchain layer is completely public and traceable, but the Lightning layer on top can completely hide all transactions (and has no scaling limitations either, does millions per second if necessary).

Gob Smacked

"Crypto is not fine. Exchanges are regularly folding and "clients" lose everything, while somebody makes off with the money."

That's just dumb asses sending their good money to some unregulated party hoping to get rich quick.

Can't have sympathy for that.

It's about regulation trailing far behind the new fangled money and needs to get itself up to date. There are always fools that just have dollar signs in their eyes and need some protection.

French court pulls SpaceX's Starlink license

Gob Smacked

My former Japanese, NHK newsroom wife...

Hey, FTFY.

Wish you well, by the way

Nvidia releases $1,999, 8K-capable GeForce RTX 3090 Ti GPU

Gob Smacked

Re: 2 minutes on sale

Nvidia won't cripple their new top notch card for greenwashing purposes. But it's basically not that good for mining as it comes with little performance gain on top of the regular 3090, a hefty additional price hike and way more PSU power needs to make it work for mining. Mining is a strict cost/benefit game, this card won't do.

Only users that don't have any issues with money and need the performance boost are ready to step in.

This data center will be Europe’s first with hydrogen backup power

Gob Smacked

Lots of bashing...

So easy to be negative. Of course it's new, inefficient and not set up yet to be compared to all existing tech. As was the car in its early days, not handling the horse tracks very well with all the not existing infrastructure.

You have to start somewhere. All I have to say...

Scam, pyramid scheme, environmental disaster: Vivaldi boss shares his thoughts on crypto-coins

Gob Smacked

Re: Wall Street?

Yeah, that's it. And goes down with its government also. All fiat goes to zero in the end. Just depends on the government's abuse how quickly.

JavaScript dev deliberately screws up own popular npm packages to make a point of some sort

Gob Smacked
Devil

Re: I fully support this viewpoint...

Guess the boss paying (Microsoft) got cold feet expecting to be held accountable for the author's actions now...

Dramatic $$$ outrage towards humble GitHub sysadmin probably worked out

Bitcoin 'inventor' will face forgery claims over his Satoshi Nakamoto proof, rules High Court

Gob Smacked
Linux

Re: The guy's a fraud - and a douche

LOL, yeah, something like that... :) Seriously, that amount is quite an incentive for everyone with a bit of knowledge to hunt for the person(s) m/f behind that Nakamoto hoard and find out who touched it.

It might be some teenager from Cameroon who finds out first, who knows... \_o_/

Gob Smacked

Re: The guy's a fraud - and a douche

Well, you could not even sell it in little portions. The wallet addresses are exactly known to the world and every tiny movement of that full 1.1 million Bitcoin would trigger an immediate deep Internet investigation and you would be found out.

That big pot of 1.1 million Bitcoin gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, never to be touched and lost forever probably.

Gob Smacked
Headmaster

Re: Surely, it's simple

.. one does not "login" to work with Bitcoin.. just sayin'

James Webb Telescope launch delayed again, this time by weather

Gob Smacked
Facepalm

So what... :)

Many more mouths have been fed in the process as a result. Economy uses cost as a driver. Now that the economy had its share, it's time for the science

Russia's orbital insanity is almost beyond redemption – but there's space for improvement

Gob Smacked
Facepalm

Arms race...?

Would become a bit wild if SpaceX just sends 60 new sats up every few days and Russia shooting their own sats to compete...

Ubuntu desktop team teases 'proof of concept' systemd on Windows Subsystem for Linux

Gob Smacked

Re: Might As Well Use Windows

"> And get this ... POSIX isn't even tied to UNIX. It is a series of standards designed to allow software portability between operating systems. Including Windows. Ever use Cygwin?"

You're right. I remember Digital Equipment boosting their POSIX compliancy for VAX/VMS... They had Ultrix besides of course, so they knew what had to be done... :)

Elon Musk hits the brakes on taking Bitcoin for Tesla purchases

Gob Smacked

Re: What is the point

1) The ledger being shared is to keep the system honest. These nodes are simple, e.g. Raspberry PIs take care of that

2) Mining is to incentivise spread of the system. Miners take huge real economy risks to try and solve the sums first that leads to their single instance reward and then need to restart solving. Their cost in turn makes sure they use the cheapest energy available, so most mining is done near to alternative sources where there's an abundance that cannot be dialed down, like solar energy, earth warmth, wind and water. Coal is too expensive in most cases today, unless a government interested in bitcoin subsidizes it. Not many governments do... :)

Bitcoin was meant to take the place of the banking system. How much watts does the global banking system use, buildings, computer systems, security systems and infrastructure?

I believe at the moment bitcoin mining uses about as much energy as Las Vegas. What is the use of Las Vegas (in a global sense...)?

It's just a matter of looking at the picture with some distance, check facts and not hype and then to make your mind up. Bitcoin may not live up to all its early promises, but as a financial system that takes a crack at solving some big current financial uncertainty issues (indefinate inflation, excluding most of the worlds population to banking), it's a good start in my mind.

Bank of England ponders minting 'Britcoin' to sit alongside the Pound

Gob Smacked
Facepalm

Stakeholders?

Should that not be "all citizens"? Have you been contacted?

SpaceX's Starlink: Overhyped and underpowered to meet broadband needs of Rural America, say analysts

Gob Smacked

Re: It doesn't add up

Every new tech feat done frequently ends up with lower cost and you can trust Musk to drive cost down wherever possible. The project is its own best push to drive cost down. I myself am very curious to see what happens the upcoming years as the project gets established.

Shedding the 'bleeding edge' label: If Fedora is only going to be for personal use, that doesn't work for Red Hat

Gob Smacked
Thumb Down

Losing incentives

Lots of businesses moving out of CentOS now.... That will harm the user base helping out with Fedora too. RedHat slowly spiraling down into oblivion. Shame...

Self-supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server virty users see stealth inflation

Gob Smacked

Re: Why tie yourself to a single distro?

Best to look for better 3rd parties then...

Boffins store text message inside E coli bacteria using electromagnetic signal – and you'll never guess what it says

Gob Smacked
Thumb Up

New meaning to versioning

Nice to see V1.0.2 now finally being available on the mRNA string of the Pfizer vaccine...

Leaked draft EU law reveals tech giants could face huge 6% turnover fines if they don't play by Europe's rules

Gob Smacked

Re: I disagree

"...they have to explain to shareholders why results are down by 6%"

It's more than that. Results are only part of the total turnover. If the accused happens to get a good margin of 25% of the turnover as result, this would mean 24% of a hit on the results (not exact, but hey, it's the principle (TM) )

CentOS project changes focus, no more rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux – you'll have to flow with the Stream

Gob Smacked

Re: Embrace, extend, and extinguish…

Actually, this is just IBM being IBM. Microsoft learned from the best in days past...

Take Note: Samsung said to be thinking about killing off Galaxy phablet series

Gob Smacked
Holmes

Re: Too expensive

Can't up nor downvote this... I'm a long time Note user and have used several generations. It used to be worth the added price for the Note experience the long time Note users will understand. It's hard to get that point across to users of other phones.

But the Note 20 seems to be designed by another group within Samsung, it's design management was replaced or heavily leaned upon to sway another way round.

The Note 20 does not really add to its predecessor. It's just more expensive or even less functional when looked to the cheaper variants. It's a design failure in the Note line IMHO.

But I will happily switch to a Galaxy S series version if it has the stylus, screen + added Note software we came to love over the years as Note users. It's not really necessary to have a special model range if its added functionality can be packed in a version of another model.

ICANN begs Europe: Please fill in the blanks on this half-assed GDPR-compliant Whois we came up with

Gob Smacked
Pint

A traditional tar pit would bury this ancient beast just as well, without additional cost.

Samsung reveals new folding stuff for people who like flaunting wads of folding stuff

Gob Smacked

Re: Er, no

> I'll bet this sees fewer sales than their first folding phone. The hype for folding phones in the popular press is over...

I just got more excited.. Guess it depends on your preconceptions and what you seek in personal tech.

Wish I got the money, but I could try and have the boss buy it for me instead :)

Gob Smacked
WTF?

Re: I will buy one when it can also

"I played with one in the Samsung store, .... bla bla"

Don't lie, you AC. It's just announced. You "might" have fondled with its predecessor, but I doubt even that now.

Worried about the Andromeda galaxy crashing into our Milky Way in four billion years? Too bad, it's quite possibly already happening

Gob Smacked

An honest question should not be downvoted... You're correct: on the large scale of the universe, everythings seems to drift apart, like a helium weather balloon floating up in the sky pushing individual heliums atoms further apart as the balloon grows in size. These helium atoms still bounce against eachother though, but that frequency drops as the balloon gets higher up: the internal pressure drops. It's just that individual helium atoms have speeds greater than the speed with which the balloon extends.

It's the same for stars and star systems: if their individual movement is with higher speed than the speed with which the universe is expanding, that individual movement will prevail.

Single-line software bug causes fledgling YAM cryptocurrency to implode just two days after launch

Gob Smacked
Boffin

Re: Investment?

You probably don't want to understand it, but I can try to explain. Many big bitcoin miners are built right next to new and still unprofitable power stations as this is a win-win: bitcoin needs the cheap power to secure the network (has not been hacked ever) and the power station gets an efficiency boost until it becomes profitable (after which the prices go up and bitcoin miners seek there luck elsewhere).

As a financial system, cryptocurrencies use way less power than all banks, their infrastucture and support structures (armored vehicles moving money or gold, all kind of advisers, bank personnel, etc.) together. It never amazes me how big and shiny bank buildings are, the security efforts concerning their large computer systems and buildings in general and how much energy these all waste. And in essence, most banks now move bits too, but with way more overhead than cryptocurrencies...

Microsoft decrees that all high-school IT teachers were wrong: Double spaces now flagged as typos in Word

Gob Smacked
Paris Hilton

LOL - only space <x> remarks

There was an entire article, multiple issues.. and the only thing we all dive into: how to type space correctly [yeah, I was hyped too initially :) ]

Seems we're all pretty much the same kind of people - who would have thought that...?

Europe calls for single app to track coronavirus. Meanwhile America pretends it isn’t trying to build one at all

Gob Smacked

Re: If you wish to let people move freely across borders, you need a single app too

Never heard of best effort? If it works and helps to trace most people... every method would have its shortcomings. It's not so much as "don't put the resources into this, but into that", but take the resources, do this and cover the first 80%, some more resources for that which covers an independent 50+ % of the polulation and maybe some other solution to look into the gaps that you may still have. A concerted effort, thought out well and making smart use of "the resources" - instead of a) does not work fully, b) does not work fully, c) does not work fully, so we can't use a, b or c at all...

Think big. Not small.

Bose customers beg for firmware ceasefire after headphones fall victim to another crap update

Gob Smacked
WTF?

Just bought a set of QC 35 II's ...

and received this morning. Followed the instructions on my phone and installed latest firmware.

I can't see anything wrong with noise cancelling. It definitely works. What should be the issue?

Bad news: 'Unblockable' web trackers emerge. Good news: Firefox with uBlock Origin can stop it. Chrome, not so much

Gob Smacked

Re: Two days ago, [...] Raymond Hill deployed a fix for Firefox users in uBlock Origin v1.24.1b0

Remove, then install the beta version. FTFY.

Gob Smacked
Thumb Up

Next to UBO, this...

Nice addition to UBO: Cookie AutoDelete plugin.

YW

Gob Smacked
Coat

Re: I quit using Chrome and Chromium months ago...

uGet for Android ==> Play Store... Did not test it, but seems legit

Bug-hunter reveals another 'make me admin' Windows 10 zero-day – and vows: 'There's more where that came from'

Gob Smacked

Re: She should look in the mirror

Guess she has Aspergers syndrome and this has not been pickup up by the environment earlier. Asperger people can be great contributors to society, but they often can't deal with people around them and need much personal space. Often being bullied in early life gets these kind of results, but under all the hard talk, most aspergers just want to be good people...

Oldest white dwarf star catches amateur's eye – and its dusty ring leaves boffins baffled

Gob Smacked

@89724102172...:

>

> You don't want a white dwarf squeezing anything past dusty rings around Uranus

Cheap... did smile though... :)

Post-Brexit plan for .EU tweaked: No dot-EU web domains for Europeans in UK, no appeals, etc

Gob Smacked
Facepalm

The EU moved on...

The UK can't figure out what to do, so EU wide all kind of preparations to prepare for no deal are being implemented.

The EU welcomes all UK businesses that want to do the mainland move, now and later. No worries, there's enough countries to share the load...

Samsung's sleek 'n' sporty X5 SSD pledges blazing transfer speeds

Gob Smacked
Devil

Re: What a nice bike lamp

Like your own child, you'll forgive its ugliness and love it anyway...

I predict a riot: Amazon UK chief foresees 'civil unrest' for no-deal Brexit

Gob Smacked
WTF?

Re: I was pro-remain, but this really is "Project Fear" at work.

@Chris 3: @Y2K bug: "That wasn't Project Fear then, and it isn't Project Fear now"

I was very much involved in the Y2K circus and believe me, a *lot* of potential issues were re-coded, peer reviewed, tested and implemented. Every sensible software maker did their due diligence at the time and most, if not all, critical systems were overhauled in time for Y2K. As it happens, this massive task worked out fine. If we only would take climate change as seriously worldwide too...

Bitcoin price soars amid technical troubles for exchanges

Gob Smacked
Thumb Up

Sorry Syntax. It's no joke... :)

Gob Smacked

Re: Can I buy Tulips with Bitcoin?

Just to name 1: https://www.duivenvoorden.nl/

There's a growing list with Bitcoin-friendly retailers in our country (in Dutch): http://www.bitcoinspot.nl/waar-kan-je-in-nederland-met-bitcoins-betalen/zoo-frontpage.html

Gob Smacked
Alert

@sjsmoto: I am already into Bitcoin since 2009, but only invested in 2013. As I already pulled my investment out 4-fold 2 months ago (halving my wallets), I now see the remains climbing another 15-fold after 2 months and strongly consider to give notice on my invoices that these may be discounted 20% if paid in Bitcoin. Most customers probably won't choose to do so, but doubling the money in a few weeks on the rest may well be worth it...

Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 is hot, but not much more than the S8+

Gob Smacked

@ Anne-Lise Pasch

If you can try it for yourself or have a Note 8 owner at hand, you'll find that the battery life is very good and it charges very, very quickly. Don't mind the figures, listen to the experience.

Gob Smacked

Re: The single failure with all "Flagship" these phones..

@Ledswinger: I guess you forget the Note *users*. I can easily do 3 years with a Note and then put my savings on the table for the next big thing. I find it's mostly appreciated by business users and they can easily spare 3 dollars a day to upgrade yearly.

The Note series is mostly about the fan base. If you really use the stylus and the additional software with it, you'll miss that dearly on a "regular" phone.

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