* Posts by TheOtherHobbes

1331 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Feb 2012

Page:

Microsoft sued by staff traumatized by child sex abuse vids stashed on OneDrive accounts

TheOtherHobbes

Re: So many problems on so many levels

>First MS should have asked for volunteers.

There might be a leetle bit of a problem with that.

"WANTED: volunteers to look at child porn, extreme fetish videos, and gore-filled snuff movies. Must have a strong work ethic and be a good team player with excellent communication skills. Psychotic serial killers and/or 4chan regulars preferred."

It's a fair bet normal people won't be queuing up for the job. Conversely, anyone who does queue up for the job will be very far from normal, and very unlikely indeed to be someone you want to gift with god-like OneDrive access powers.

Airbus flies new plane for the first time

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Wake me up when Concorde returns.

>Fairford was a good few miles away

There's a Heathrow approach corridor about five miles south of the M4. You could always hear Concorde inbound at least five miles either side of it.

Mac administrators brace for big changes to Apple-powered fleets

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Whats this GUI thingy?

>I honestly don't think Apple has the internal smarts anymore to write enterprise software

Sadly, I agree. This move has epic disaster written all over it. Apple not only can't write good software, it can't imagine good software. It's trajectory is entirely in the wrong direction.

OS X Server used to be okay - not great, but solid enough for its target market. Then they gutted it, replaced its features with some colouring-book control panels, and failed to make its internals actually work consistently and reliably.

The end result is that if you want a web server on your Mac, you have to install and configure a stack manually from the command line - which is far beyond the skills of a typical Server user - or patch together a collection of third-party apps like MAMP.

Server shouldn't be a difficult product to get right. In fact Apple from 2006 more or less managed it.

But the Apple of 2016 can't. So the odds of getting an enterprise upgrade right are literally zero.

Kotkin: Why Trump won

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Missed it......again.

>soft-left luvvies want to know what's being protested against, they really need to look in the mirror.

No, that's bullshit. I don't know a single "soft-left luvvie" who is a fan of crony capitalism or the banks or billionaires or Wall St.

Not one.

This conflation of the Wall St money machine with people who have a degree and work in the media or the arts is one of the most dangerous things happening at the moment. It's classic divide and conquer.

The reality is that the aims of the "soft-left" and the working classes have more in common than not. But the Wall St and Washington machinery - the billionaires, the real elites, and their political collaborators on both nominal sides - are desperate to prevent that becoming obvious, because then they'd have a real revolution on their hands.

So instead we get pretendy populists like Farage and Trump who misdirect the justified rage away from where it belongs, guaranteeing that no matter what happens, the money, like spice, continues to flow.

Refactoring Brexit: The Great Digital Repeal

TheOtherHobbes

Re: That's not Steve Bong!

>And where's "Garland of Flowers" [in Thai]

Brussels. So I'm told.

LASER RAT FENCE wins €1.7m European Commission funds

TheOtherHobbes

> it'll be an arms race that ultimately results in davros styled rats with mirrors on their head unable to climb stairs.

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

Spoiler alert: We'll bet boffins still haven't spotted aliens

TheOtherHobbes

Re: 234

What if every star has these lasers, and the 234 in the study are the only ones pointing our way out of the millions of others?

I know it's not very plausible, but - what can I say?

I just like the idea of discovering that we've been in the middle of a galactic civilisation all along.

Vodafone rapped with RECORD £4.6m fine for failing customers

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Total Bollocks

The brilliant thing about AI will that PR will become completely automated. PR droids will become literal PR droids, and the standard formulaic responses will go out to the usual suspects without human intervention.

What will happen when I'm too old to push? (buttons, that is)

TheOtherHobbes

Re: RE; LEDs

Or get an Echo and do everything by voice.

I've just bought an Echo and a Wemo switch so I can turn the bedside light on and off without moving.

Bliss.

Forget Khan and Klingons, Star Trek's greatest trick was simply surviving

TheOtherHobbes

Re: So how do you rate this 'success'?

Did you work all that out by hand? :)

It just shows how expensive CGI is - and how relatively worthless compared to a brilliant script and outstanding directing and cinematography.

FT journo roasts channel leaders for spouting bullshit

TheOtherHobbes

Re: I remember Lucy Kellaway.

Gillian Tett?

Agree about the FT. Some very smart, sharp people. Kellaway can be hilarious.

Early indications show UK favouring 'hard Brexit', says expert

TheOtherHobbes

Re: "Great Repeal Bill"

>I wake every day hoping I'll wake up in hospital with a kindly psychiatrist saying "Well, that was one hell of a delusion you had there wasn't it?", but sadly so far the nightmare continues...

Unfortunately, you're not the mad one.

Police raid India call centre, detain 500 in fraud probe

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Silly buggers

Have you checked the canal?

Good God, we've found a Google thing we like – the Pixel iPhone killer

TheOtherHobbes

Google have already lost this one.

To win, they had to get everyone saying "Wow, did you see what that incredible AI could do!"

Instead, everyone is talking about whether the phone really is good as an iPhone. This is not a very interesting place for Google to be.

User couldn't open documents or turn on PC, still asked for reference as IT expert

TheOtherHobbes

"Have you tried...? Oh. Never mind."

Samsung: And for my next trick – exploding WASHING MACHINES

TheOtherHobbes

Re: But..

Painting restoration isn't usually considered a high risk occupation, so that's doubly impressive.

Re: Samsung - I bought one of their combi microwaves last year. It's crap. Hasn't exploded yet, but has overheated and cut out a few times. And the oven struggles to get anywhere near the maximum temperature, when it's not overheating.

Would not buy again.

To be fair I haven't tried running a wash through it, so I don't know if it would be any better at that.

Our Windows windows will be resizable, soooon, vows Microsoft

TheOtherHobbes

Meanwhile Elon Musk is wondering how to put people on Mars.

Sinclair fans rejoice: ZX Spectrum Vega+ to launch October 20

TheOtherHobbes

Is that 2016 or 2017?

Lean in and pivot: Even Steve Jobs didn't work alone, startup boy

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Exactly

>Yes, but I'm still baffled it's always the marketing guy who becomes very rich and famous.

Because tech on its own is worthless if no one uses it.

Jobs was more of a project manager than a marketing guy. He didn't just sell stuff, he pushed hard for beautiful products, and he gave everyone reasons to buy them - which is not the same thing.

Desktop/visual computing wouldn't have happened without Jobs. Nor would DTP and the whole design thing. Nor would mobile music distribution. Nor would apps on phones which tie data and commerce services to touchscreen pocket terminals that can be used almost anywhere.

He didn't invent any of the above. But he gave the punters good reasons to buy them, when no one else realised the possibilities.

Uni student cuffed for 'hacking professor's PC to change his grades'

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Really??

The really smart ones don't get caught.

Pull the plug! PowerPoint may kill my conference audience

TheOtherHobbes

Whiteboards are genius.

Two markers. One wipes off instantly. The other is permanent and can only be removed with dangerous chemicals, sandblasting equipment, and/or replacement under warranty after an insurance claim.

The markers look identical.

What could possibly go wrong?

The next Bond – Basildon or Bass-Ass? YOU decide

TheOtherHobbes

It'll probably be Simon Pegg - a fitting end to an improbably and inexplicably successful career.

I think the next Bond should be virtual - maybe Siri, with Alexa as the villain.

Just imagine the sexual tension.

UK nuke warhead builders shift IT gear into public cloud

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Atomic Weapons Establishment moves to public mushroom cloud

>Theresa May: "It's reduced my spam count marvellously!"

Was I the only person to read that as "sperm count"?

SETI Institute damps down 'wow!' signal report from Russia

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Have they thoroughly analyzed it?

Or maybe plans for a quieter mower.

'Second Earth' exoplanet found right under our noses – just four light years away

TheOtherHobbes

Re: I wish they would can "Operation Starshot"

>they also mention that asteroids that deposit 1 kT TNT equivalent or more enter Earth's atmosphere about once a month.

Hmmm. And how many of those are alien starshot probes?

Windows Update borks PowerShell – Microsoft won't fix it for a week

TheOtherHobbes

"It looks like you're trying to run a software corporation. Would you like some help with that?"

Little ARMs pump 2,048-bit muscles in training for Fujitsu's Post-K exascale mega-brain

TheOtherHobbes

"Would you like to play a game?"

Brit cops cuff Sage employee at Heathrow airport

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Call centers

They're probably running it.

New UK trade deals would not compensate for loss of single market membership

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Really ....

>They lost. get over it

No, you lost. Because you're just so easy to con with a bit of flag waving, some obvious lies, and a few slogans that sound good but don't mean anything

You were lied to, and now you're going to be ripped off. You fell for the political equivalent of the crooks who "sell" new driveways to pensioners, then disappear with the money and never do any work.

Pure emotion. No planning. No strategy. No facts.

No contact with reality.

'I found the intern curled up on the data centre floor moaning'

TheOtherHobbes

Re: What are the odds

The Transdimensional Personnel Locator was a BT skunkworks project that was never rolled out to the main network because of... well, I can't be too specific. But GCHQ and Area 51 may have been involved.

All that's left of it now are a few stories like yours from the limited beta, a bricked up room in Martlesham, and an article that was supposed to be printed in the Fortean Times but was pulled for national security reasons.

Brexit Britain: HP Sauce vs BBC.co.uk – choices that defined voters

TheOtherHobbes

>People interested in the world around them

More like:

1. People who read a lot

2. People who eat a lot

BBC detector vans are back to spy on your home Wi-Fi – if you can believe it

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Hounded

>the letters are really very intimidating.

They are, but they if you get enough of them you see they repeat after a while.

I haven't had a TV since 1992. I stopped getting letters when I told the license people that I lived in a very pretty part of the world, and a visit would be a nice day out for them.

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Once upon a time detector vans existed

>The vans detected the leaked local oscillator (not the IF) from the first stage of the radio receivers that picked up the TV signal.

Which totally worked in a block of flats full of TVs. Or even a typical terraced street full of TVs when the van wasn't parked right on the doorstep of the house.

And these days many terraces are split into top/bottom flats.

Bottom line - this is all bullshit. The usual Capita approach is to bully people until they sign a confession and incriminate themselves. Then the court can rubber-stamp a fine.

I'm not aware of any cases where TV detector van "evidence" was used to secure a conviction. I don't expect this to change.

Why, you ask? Because if it were technically possible, the BBC would have made a big news story out of a successful prosecution. It would have been totally worth the money spent on lawyers.

Because there was no there there, they didn't - and won't. A case that relies on a real criminal trial with real forensic digital evidence would cost tens of thousands at a minimum, and there's always a chance it would go the wrong way.

Is it worth it for £150? If you don't have rock-solid evidence - no, it's not.

But PR is as cheap as lawyers are expensive, so it's much more cost-effective to put out these nonsense stories and hope the public is gullible enough to buy them.

300 million pelicans? Pah. What 6 billion plastic bags really weigh

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Enviromentalists are extrapolating

And here's everything you need to know about the credibility of "wattsupwiththat"

Sourcewatch on Anthony Watts

If you're going to try to link to sources, at least make some effort to find sources that aren't obvious crap.

What's losing steam at Apple? Pretty much everything

TheOtherHobbes

Re: A few folks I know that run Apple gear...

Replacing Cook and Ive won't make any difference, because there is no one like Jobs in the entire industry.

Jobs was an asshole, but he was a talented asshole. He was the only person with his particular blend of obsessive insight into aesthetics, design, culture, technology, marketing, and opportunity.

Cook is a talented politician. But he's a mediocre marketer who is trying to turn Apple into the Louis Vuitton of tech. Ives knows how to do pretty, but he's not nearly as good or nearly as original as he's made out to be. He was a good idea mine for Jobs, but Cook doesn't know how to manage him.

No one at Apple is championing the users any more.

This won't end well.

IT boss 'set up fake companies to charge his employers $2.4m'

TheOtherHobbes

>I've always had to do regular money laundering training as well as bribery and corruption training.

Financial institutions, you say? Was that avoiding, or doing?

Star Trek Beyond: An unwatchable steaming pile of tribble dung

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Shame

>It's a shame as the first two films were enjoyable,

The first two films were mostly yelling and running and exploding, with a bit of drinking, shagging, and punching - all of which seem to be JJA's definition of drama.

Khan as Cumberbatch (did I get that the right way round?) was more ridiculous than sinister, which surely deserves an Oscar as a cinematic achievement in its own right.

The only thing missing was Daniel Craig in a cameo as a Tribble.

An anniversary to remember: The world's only air-to-air nuke was fired on 19 July, 1957

TheOtherHobbes

Some of the UK designs were safetied with ball bearings inside a rubber sheath. Arming meant removing the sheath and allowing the ball bearings to roll out.

Dying! Yahoo! writes! off! half! of! the! $1bn! it! paid! for! Tumblr!

TheOtherHobbes

Re: What's wrong with this statement?

You should see their undistinguished analysts.

McCain: Come to my encryption hearing. Tim Cook: No, I'm good. McCain: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Banning encryption won't stop an attack like the one in NIce @AC

>Education, fighting poverty, better (mental) healthcare would be the first steps for mass movements like ISIS.

On Capitol Hill, that's crazy talk. Authoritarians gonna authoritarianise. It's what they do.

Fixing problems? Making the world a better place? Avoiding future tragedies that are obvious to anyone with a working braincell?

Ain't no campaign dollars in that, boy.

Windows 10 a failure by Microsoft's own metric – it won't hit one billion devices by mid-2018

TheOtherHobbes

Re: @Ilsa Loving - Amazing

>Did it ever crossed your mind the thought that maybe Microsoft knows very well what they're doing and they're doing it according to a plan ?

I'm sure there's a plan. I'm also sure it's a really, really stupid and annoying one.

If we can't find a working SCSI cable, the company will close tomorrow

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Pournelle's law, well one of them anyway...

>A capacitor stores energy

An inductor stores the other kind of energy.

UK gov says new Home Sec will have powers to ban end-to-end encryption

TheOtherHobbes

I think we need a purge of clueless fuckwits from high office.

Some kind of basic test would do - something equivalent to the 11-plus, but for STEM.

Can't pass? Don't get the job. Do not pass go. Do not get a pension. Do not collect a knighthood and a stupid hat from the Queen.

Brit Science Minister to probe Brexit bias against UK-based scientists

TheOtherHobbes

Re: "EU rules still apply until we've actually left."

>The EU spent around £860million of public money on the schemes between 2007-13 from its multi-billion pound budget, to which the UK is the second biggest contributor after Germany.

And how does that compare with the >£25bn wasted by the British governments on failed IT projects within the last decade or so?

Or the very generous terms available during privatisation sell-offs, which deprive the UK's tax payers of further billions from the sale of infrastructure we already own.

Or the billions "outsourced" in dodgy private contracts for everything from benefits management to school academies to PFI for the NHS?

Or the billions in uncollected tax from some of our highest earning companies.

Compared to the UK, the EU is a model of efficiency and honesty.

They spend money. We burn it alive.

Wannabe Prime Minister Andrea Leadsom thinks all websites should be rated – just like movies

TheOtherHobbes

>So every website worldwide will be required to submit themselves to an independent British organisation, likely charging extortionate fees al la the film board for each rating.

Possibly, but probably not.

Leadsom is an idiot who makes Dunning and Kruger look like unrealistic optimists. She has already gained a reputation in Whitehall for being a self-regarding simpleton of the first water.

IMO there is no chance at all that this insane scheme will ever become reality. Sir Humphrey will surely distract her with detail, and before you know it she'll have moved on to forcing all women to give birth in the nearest Work House while embroidering Union Jacks onto their skivvy caps, or something.

Blighty will have a whopping 24 F-35B jets by 2023 – MoD minister

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Future history telling speak.

If we're lucky, that'll only be around ten times the price of a bar of chocolate.

Prominent Brit law firm instructed to block Brexit Article 50 trigger

TheOtherHobbes

Re: What a horrible waste of time and money

>"I commit today to guaranteeing the rights of our EU friends who have come here to live and work," she said.

Fine. But considering the less than outstanding record of Team Leave when it comes to terminological exactitude, how do we know she's telling the truth?

TheOtherHobbes

Re: What a horrible waste of time and money

>The English are in a hard spot as well

All we have to do is give the True Beleavers brown shirts and we've got ourselves a real problem.

At this point not even Godwin is going too far. Considering the five-fold increase in racist attacks, this is hardly exaggeration. Considering the funder of UKIP is starting a new party, you can bet it's not going to be all about handing kittens and hugs to foreigners.

More reasonable people vastly outnumber the Beleavers, and at this point there is no chance at all that a majority of the population supports leaving the EU.

But apparently democracy happened exactly once two weeks ago, and further democracy is no longer allowed.

It's a bit like winning an election and then claiming you can never have an election again, because - what - you want to change your mind about who's in charge?

Blighty's EU science funding will remain unchanged until new PM triggers Article 50

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Not good for UK science

>I agree, but UK gov can allow the academic institutions to set higher tuition fees.

That's going to work well - especially when the UK seems to have decided to be less than welcoming to foreign students.

Michael Gove says Britain needs to create its own DARPA

TheOtherHobbes

Re: Terrifying

How much better would the task force have fared if the Falklands problem had been solved diplomatically - not least by granting the islanders full UK citizenship in 1981, when they asked for it, and by not withdrawing the token Navy presence - before it needed to become a shooting war?

Page: