Re: Hillarious
An excellent example. If I said "Ok black boy" I'd find my post blocked. Yet yours is fine.
Posts by mego
171 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Oct 2007
IBM quits facial recognition because Black Lives Matter
Wednesday 10th June 2020 00:08 GMT
Hillarious
Look, here's the problem with BLM. Statistically, white males are more likely to be killed in an encounter with the police. This is based on data published by left, right, and center wing publications (who again use police reports to analyze), to an average of over 50% MORE than black, Hispanic, and "other" (refer to statista 2020 for the best graphical detail). The statista graph covers 2017 (457 white vs 223 black), 2018 (399 white vs 209 black), 2019 ( 370 white vs 158 black), and 2020 (172 white vs 88 black); though this fact has been true for much longer based on FBI, police, and journalistic evidence. So, bullsh-t on the black society being targeted.
Moreover, while anybody with half a brain is shocked and appalled at a life being lost, lets talk a bit about George Floyd and his supposed hero status. This is a man that's been jailed more than 5 times for aggravated robbery (***), drug dealing, among the many great things he's done include POINTING A LOADED WEAPON at a pregnant woman's belly while robbing her. This is NOT a hero people. This is NOT the kind of person you want to mourn.
*** Aggravated robbery is court-talk for violent robbery including the use of a weapon AND/OR taking the firearm from a policeman by force to use in a criminal endeavor. Think on this one for a moment. This is a guy with aggravated assault charges, who is known to be armed and dangerous. What is your response to someone resisting arrest who is known for these crimes? Yes, smart alec, we know that's not murdering the guy, but you do use more force. And again, that is exactly who we are talking about here.
Laws on police facial recognition aren't tough enough, UK data watchdog barrister tells Court of Appeal
Wednesday 24th June 2020 23:13 GMT
There's several issues with sitting judges today
The biggest being that they tend to be "tenured" or more impolitely, old and not current with technology. If a judge cannot understand the basic premise of how technology functions, or indeed how it has come to be, there's a problem with them making any judgement whatsoever on the technology. Most of these people claim to have an "iPhone Galaxy Lumia", or that their laptop is an "iPod Latitude Pro". Most don't understand the difference between Samsung and Apple even when devices have the names on the face of the device.
The legal language of the law does not capture how technology works either, especially when it comes to risks inherent in any sort of big brotherly system
Frontier: Yes, yes, we've filed for bankruptcy protection, but that's not stopping us giving key staff $38m in bonuses
Wednesday 27th May 2020 07:28 GMT
Re: The Golden Rule
Not really anything to do with plutocracy, but more to do with contract law. If proposals were made in good faith, and those proposals were accepted and therefore lead to certain behaviors, then the offers need to be honored within the structure granted to the company.
Now, the C*O's having golden parachutes, I'm sure they do. It's very likely in their contracts, which any greenhorn C*O will tell you is critical due to the runtime of same.
As to employees getting paid at all, that's Chapter 11 standard format. Chapter 7, on the other hand, will leave employees at the same level as creditors along with companies owed for services/goods - and guess who wins that argument, not the employee. There is a big difference - Ch11 allows the company some relief while restructuring to correct the problem; Ch7 shuts them down. Think of Ch7 as liquidation, where it's operations cease and bits get sold off to pay debt; vs Ch11 where it gets given some form of relief legally while fixing the problem and hopefully coming out of the hole as a company, albeit streamlined.
Why would we want Chapter11 to be available to companies? Well, lets name a few companies that have been through Chapter11 and come out the other side stronger and more capable. Apple, Marvel Comics AND Studios, Six Flags, Texaco/Chevron, Bloomingdales....
The list isn't huge over the last 40 years, but includes some of the most fiscally stable companies in the world today; which hire thousands of people directly and indirectly. Apple itself is responsible for over 2 million jobs in the US alone (people hired because Apple is a brand), with a direct staff count of just over 120,000. So, I am a firm believer that Chapter 11 is important, and there's not a lot of evidence that it gets abused.
If you're going to spend $3tn, what's another billion? Congress urged to inject taxpayer dollars into open anti-Huawei 5G radio tech
Wednesday 13th May 2020 22:11 GMT
Huawei presents two big problems
First, they are a chinese company. There are laws on the books that require all Chinese people and businesses to assist in spying on the west. So there's that.
Second, they are IP thieves. I worked for a large semiconductor some time back and we had a number of our designs not just copied but outright stolen by Huawei.
In the case of the second issue, it's easy to see why it's so cheap: low R&D costs. In the case of the first, well there's always a cost for something, and clearly spying is a great opportunity to sponsor.
Driveway karaoke singer who wanted to lift lockdown spirits cops council noise complaint
Wednesday 13th May 2020 18:57 GMT
Me, Me, Me
Every single positive spin he puts on it is it's to help him feel better. Good on him for thinking of sharing, but not your neighbors fault if your singing is more akin to two cats going at it in an alleyway. Rather, look to youtube for the exposition so at least people can choose to be inflicted upon, and keep it in your own four walls please.
Zoom bomb: Vid conf biz to snap up Keybase as not-a-PR-move move gets out of hand
Thursday 7th May 2020 20:20 GMT
Zoombombing...
Love the name. Ironically the same issue exists on other platforms, not just zoom... but it's not sexy to call it what it is: using a random number generator get the meeting numbers.
Zoom has had features to block this in the admin portal for a long time. If you want to use a name for it call it "stupid user bombing".
NSA in new SHOCK 'can see public data' SCANDAL!
WHY didn't Microsoft buy RIM? Us business blokes would have queued for THAT phone
Monday 30th September 2013 20:12 GMT
No thanks
RIM hasn't even tried to keep current with demands of business. Why should we go backwards to the "smart"phone equivalent of the old candybar phones (and I quote smart because, lets face it, RIM devices are anything but)?
Blackberry had an opportunity to be the only one in the market but decided it didn't want it. So imho, it's a foregone conclusion, good riddance.
Peter Capaldi named as 12th Doctor Who
Review: HTC One
Top Gear isn't TV, not when it's on YouTube
Friday 18th January 2013 22:42 GMT
"But both cases are symptomatic of the difficulties in controlling media in an internet age. We (almost) all agree that some level of regulation is required to control content, ensuring the protection of children and editorial independence, but the practicalities of doing that are still a work in progress"
The responsibility for controlling what our children do on the internet is solely that of the parent. Government and regulators interfering with how these systems work is simply a means of grabbing money.
Parents that complain about internet porn, or easy availability of guns, or weapons.. sicken me. They're your f-ing kids. Take responsibility for a change.
Microsoft to biz: Just so you get off XP, we don't mind if you go Win 7
Saturday 10th November 2012 13:06 GMT
We've run Win8 through our test user environment
Not gonna happen. Windows Vista was more liked than this mess; and that was including the users who threatened to barf all over their computers before calling tech support to remove said vomit-inducing software.
Nope, Windows8 - and it's offspring Office 2013 - are not going to be invited to our network anytime soon.
Saturday 10th November 2012 13:05 GMT
Re: Yeah right...
"Even my Linux-phobic friends keep a USB stick with Linux on hand for emergencies"
So, in conclusion, businesses must be as carefree as your mates with their home computers? Whoa. I wonder if I can get the CTO right now, if I mention that your mates use USB boot on their home machines I'm bound to get this passed through!
Thanks mate!!!
Police mistake reveals plan for Assange's Embassy capture
Saudi royals seek ban on .virgin, .sex, .catholic, .wtf and 159 MORE
Second win for Apple as Galaxy Nexus sales banned in US
Sunday 1st July 2012 18:53 GMT
Bloody Merkins
So Apple can fail to license the 3G technology they conveniently stole - and it's FRAND so cheap as chips if done before a complaint has to be raised. But whoa these Android boys are up to sh*z because they use a touchscreen (invented in the 70's),
Never mind the fact that both devices are clearly different: shiz, one even says Samsung right up on the grill. Not only that, but one is clearly a rectangle while the other is almost a square.
Lastly, asking a lawyer to tell you the difference between two devices when clearly they have some bias (even if it's bias in their favour) is so stupid it beggars belief that she even pulled that rubbish.
As for the Apple Fanboi's crowing that "oh you thought she was great when Android won"... not so fast. There is no "winner" here. No matter what happens, one product will die and the other will survive. Back in "the day", stopping a product for six months might hurt a little. Might cause some ruffled feathers. Today, that's how long the device is likely to be sold over.
I vote Samsung and other Android manufacturers stop selling in the US: the network is a shambles and in typical Merkin attitude is out of spec for the rest of the world. It's more expensive to support them especially when stupidity seems to win over sensibility in this case. Take Android away from them. See how the public copes with just Apple there to "look after them". I give it a year tops before Apple unveils Master Plan One.
Spawn of Steve indeed.
Predatory IP threatening the progress of open innovation
Saturday 28th April 2012 23:11 GMT
I blame
the bloody americans. The whole problem started with them, it should end with them (getting blown out of existence would be nice but I'll make do with them sorting their own mess out). Christ, the "famous" americans all stole their stuff anyhow.
Just for kicks and giggles look up why the movie industry went to hollywood...
So what's the worst movie NEVER made?
Sunday 15th April 2012 21:56 GMT 
More than half of the films listed..
Made profit in the $100m PLUS mark. Consider my personal bugbear: Twilight, dear god please make it stop: $392,616,625 - that's compared to a production budget of under $70m, making about 500% profit just from box office take alone (never mind merchandising, DVD sales, etc).
I agree that to the layperson making profit isn't exactly a marker for how GOOD a film is, but I wouldn't be calling them "worst" anything if people are obviously willing to part with cash for it. Interesting fact: domestically Twilight made just under $200m. A movie ticket in the US for 2008 cost an average $7. That's approximately 29m people that saw the movie, based on average cost. There are ~400m people in the US. Around 1 in 12 people saw it. Yeah I didn't bother. Yeah I'm sick of the K Stew and Rob Pats crap. But that's some scary statistics for something we call worst movie no?
RIM shot at Android: Free PlayBooks for devs
Barnes & Noble hires Microsoft’s legal nemesis
BOFH: Licence to grill ... stupid users
Saturday 12th November 2011 17:23 GMT
"Mostly, I bet, that's because users are generally lazy and ignorant, and fear any change - even for the better."
Absolutely. We had the situation about eight months back where an upgrade to an inhouse database application required users to perform about 6 pages of instructions. I say six, but in reality it was about half a page of numbered steps with screenshots of everything making up the bulk of each page.
We get a support call on day one. "Uh, yeah I read step one and I'm just lost. Can someone come help?", or to translate into user-speak "I can't be arsed to try doing this, you come do it for me". Scarily enough, some of these people asking for this kind of help are senior engineers and high level accountants: people who should be at least intelligent enough to read instructions and follow them.
We have 1500 employees and 12 IT staff members. We had less than two weeks to complete the changeover or be charged exhorbitant fees by the consultants for "supporting legacy systems".
Steps 1 through 10 (yeah it was one of those apps) has things like "Open the application", "Click File -> Settings and write the informaiton in the field that says User Name", followed with gratuitous screen shots of what the user will see, circuling what information to copy, etc. Seriously, I don't know what it is about some users that once they see a keyboard and a mouse it's all baffling as hell but they can figure out just fine how to tie their shoelaces and drive a big, dangerous car around.
iOS upgrade swells iPhone battery-suckage grief
Steve Jobs: the Exclusive Biography
Saturday 29th October 2011 11:23 GMT 
It still amazes me to no end
How every "historian" or "Apple Fan" wants to attribute Steve with inventing everything under the Apple brand.
Hot tip: he invented nothing. Not one single concept that Apple has ever or will ever sell was invented by Jobs, not was it significantly changed from it's original concepts.
The Computer? Already there.
The GUI? Already created and shown to him during a visit to PARC.
The tablet? Already created and developed into prototypes by Alan Kay.. shown to Jobs during a visit to PARC
The mouse? The desktop concept? Shown to Jobs on a visit to (you guessed it) PARC, on a working machine that was production-ready but not sold.
The iPod? Nope. MP3 players were already rusting by the time iPods came out.
What he did was envision ways to bring products to the market, and to convince people to buy them. In other words: a sales guy, or a marketing guy; hell I'll go so far as visionary. To put him in any category other than the thieving scumbag he was is an insult to those that created what he stole.
I have more respect for Bill Gates than this guy, and that's unfortunately not very much.
Euro commissioner tells Facebook it has nowhere to hide
EA angers fans over Battlefield 3 pre-order exclusives
Monday 13th June 2011 21:00 GMT
Erm
I don't think you get the difference between extra content vs actual edge in gameplay. It's like all the early comers get a gun and unlimited bullets, all you schmucks that come late get a blunt dagger - and you're comparing that with everyone who gets it elsewhere getting a brown gun, blah boring with a super duper colorful gun of the same type that has racing stripes.
I mean seriously dude. I get your "sarcasm" but it only really works when you make sense.
Motorola Xoom
Monday 9th May 2011 12:31 GMT
but are plainly impossible to buy
Huh? I had no issues buying my 10.1" Galaxy Tab. Nor did I have any issues getting my 7" variant some time before that was released.
As for battery complaints, I don't see any issues on my Tab. When run next to an iPad doing similar functions, the iPad runs out of juice long before the tab does in standby, and the 10.1" version lasts longer in movie play mode than the iPad too.
Lenovo flaunts ThinkPad with 30 hour battery life
Flickr thinks again about 4,000 pix loss
Passenger cleared after TSA checkpoint stare-down
Apple tightens screws on hardware hackers
Friday 21st January 2011 13:48 GMT
@So...
"Should Ford, Mercedes and BMW (to just name three) stop using proprietary fittings because people might what to fix THEIR cars that THEY own? Prat."
Um, actually; none of these have proprietary tools to get into anywhere. BMW is actually well known for needing just three commonly available tools to dismantle more than 95% of the car.
Microsoft Kinect goes gangbusters
Ion readies book scanner for e-book buffs
Friday 7th January 2011 11:51 GMT
Ban the Title Requirement for Replies NOW!
Actually, there are some cheap scanners out there that will do a duplex scan; and I believe the bigger ones (if you have one of the office MFD's at work) will do the work in short time. I've scanned a 300pg book in short order, duplexed properly in a couple hours. Something you can do overnight easily for sure.
Whose data is it anyway?
Friday 7th January 2011 10:43 GMT
You'd think
it would be simple enough. If you sign a contract, understand EXACTLY what you're getting yourself into, what happens when the other party liquidates, what penalty clauses you and the other are applicable to, etc..
Just because it's got a funky name like SaaS doesn't make it any less crucial to understand the legalities of what you've agreed to.
Samsung Galaxy Player 50 Android PMP
Garmin tells iPhone users where to go
Tuesday 4th January 2011 15:09 GMT
But..
Garmin still don't get the whole "navigation as an app" thing. GMaps is free. It has turn-by-turn navigation. It is UPDATED for FREE.
Yeah, ok, so the Garmin app IS likely better than GMaps. But the thing is, I don't have to pay for updates on the GMaps. 40 bucks is fine if it were updated freely for perpetuity; no way is it worth 40 bucks - and then upgrades on top..
Chinese official gets suspended death sentence over anti-virus scam
Why is Google's new Nexus S like no other smartphone?
WTF is... up with e-book pricing?
Friday 26th November 2010 10:14 GMT
Overdrive has this feature, but you have to buy each book
There is a library in the UK I believe that offers the service. There's one here in Ireland but they're crap - they haven't bothered updating since they launched, and they have mostly junk that's free or near free anyway (5 copies of Great Expectations, WTF!).
Personally? I would gladly pay a subscription for an all-I-can-eat service like netflicks in the US. Charge me a tenner a month and let me access up to three books at a time (and expire the book each month if I don't pay). Libraries use this expire feature already to great effect.
Any VC companies out there willing to fund a new venture??
Friday 26th November 2010 10:13 GMT
@Nigel
>>I'd love to see more innovative ideas, like the jacket for hardbacks having a unique code that entitles you to download the eBook version too, so you have both for the same price.<<
Nigel - I don't know why nobody has thought of this yet. Absolutely would go in for this idea. And if the publishing crew feel that it makes piracy too easy, one could even use that same code to activate the copy on a device, requiring you to "check it back in" if you want to move it elsewhere - I'm sure Adobe DRM could be adapted to this process. Adobe DRM allows you to activate several devices anyway as it is.
Buffy to slay her way back into cinemas
Tuesday 23rd November 2010 14:30 GMT
James Bond..
Yes I was disappointed too but then when you sit down and gnash your way through it; the new concept actually makes sense in a new post-cold-war scenario.
As for Batman.. the Box Office would disagree with you. Even the 1989 movie was a re imagining of the series; which pulled incredible revenue in. The 2005 re-imagining has almost made as much in 5 years as the 1989 product made over it's entire life. Opening weekend of the 1989 movie saw only a 16% gross while the 2005 re-imagining saw over 23%. Not bad for a failure..
Calls for US nudie perv scanner 'opt-out day'
Wednesday 17th November 2010 10:07 GMT
My title is dumb
>>others who have not read the posts.. the 'radiation ' is actually less than you would get, traveling in the airplane, going for a doc's checkup, or standing next to the microwave.... so its just paranoia, you are mostly safe...<<
Right, but remember that this is highly focused radiation that is INTENDED to go through YOUR body. Those other radiation elements (except when x-rays are used) are not. Now to deal with the "except when..", how many times did you get x-rayed when seeing a doctor? Even though my wife has had several fractures and outright breaks from her career (she works in high-velocity sports), she's only ever been x-rayed four times, including dental x-rays. How many times have you flown in the last year? Me, about 12. If you don't fly often at all you have no clue how dangerous this really can be.
>>people can moan all the like, until the next big terrorism happens... and then the SAME websites/papers will be saying..<<
The problem is that if planes are targeted it WILL happen, and in the meantime all they're doing is barking around like a dog in heat
>>Oh, and refusing to go through security checks is your right, while it is their right to refuse you admission! they are NOT public places, it is their duty to protect customers and their business..<<
Obviously you did not RTFA. A person got FINED for refusing, as well as jailtime on the table.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
