Hmmm... martial arts using marital aids...
Sounds interesting.
Tomorrow morning I'll register the names "ButtPlugchaku" and "Vibra-jitsu", just in case. 8^)
Posts by Mephistro
2329 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Oct 2007
Page:
'WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON?' Linus Torvalds explodes at Intel spinning Spectre fix as a security feature
Home Office admits it sent asylum seeker’s personal info to the state he was fleeing
Friday 19th January 2018 02:58 GMT
Re: AC Cognitive Dissonance (@ Dan 55)
"...and Jonathan Schwatrz's "Ah, the reflexive bleat of a Leftie do-gooder" reply... you couldn't make it up!"
I thought nobody else had noticed.
If this is the way J. Schwatrz treats someone who thinks like him, I don't wan't to know what he does with those who disagree!
;^D
UK's Just Eat faces probe after woman tweets chat-up texts from 'delivery guy'
Tuesday 16th January 2018 16:06 GMT
A way to protect customer's data would be to use a chat/voice app and create a temporary "chat usr ID" for the customer for each and every order, so if the delivery person has trouble finding the address or there's any other issue, customers can be contacted through said app and user ID without jeopardizing their privacy, as the temporary chat user would be erased after a fixed amount of time or when the order is fulfilled.
This would fix the issue with phone numbers and FB accounts but, sadly, it would do zilch regarding the customer's street address. :-(
Brace yourselves for the 'terabyte (sic) of death', warns US army IT boss
You. Apple. Get in here and explain these iOS slowdowns and batteries – US, French govt reps
Wednesday 10th January 2018 20:21 GMT 
Point 5· ...
... is the real smoking gun here:
"Has Apple tracked consumer complaints about processing performance that are likely to be attributable to this software update throttling feature? If so, how many such complaints has Apple received and how has Apple addressed such complaints?"
How many millions of man-hours did Apple's customers lose wile following the "standard advice" -i.e backup, format & install everything from scratch- from Apple's customer support? What costs did said customers incur (e.g. by hiring professional help to help them to carry out the instructions) in order to follow Apple's advice?
This was no error. It was A SCAM. I hope they get the book thrown at them.
Judge rm -rf Grsecurity's defamation sue-ball against Bruce Perens
Astroboffins say our Solar System could have – wait, stop, what... the US govt found UFOs?
Nest's slick IoT burglar alarm catches crooks... while it eyes your wallet
How's this for a stocking filler next year? El Reg catches up with Gemini
Friday 22nd December 2017 23:28 GMT
Re: Dvorak keyboard (@ Handleoclast)
Back in the seventies or eighties, there was an "AI"* program that was able to carry out orders and make descriptions and predictions, in the limited context of a universe populated with basic geometric shapes, and it's name was SHRDLU.
*I was able to code a passable clone in my Commodore 128, hence the comedic quotes around AI. 8^)
Edit: There is a reference in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHRDLU .
This week in 'Bungles in the AWS S3 Privacy Jungles', we present Alteryx – and 123 million households exposed
Yes, your old iPhone is slowing down: iOS hits brakes on CPUs as batteries wear out
Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the data centre temp's delightful
Wednesday 20th December 2017 11:30 GMT
( @ John Riddoch)
One or two minutes? Lucky guy!
I once had to troubleshoot and fix an industrial PC located in a ***working*** production line in a fish canning factory. The thermometer marked 38ºC and the humidity was >95%. To make things worse, the device was placed into a massive stainless steel box that held lots of other electronics stuff.
Cue an hour or so of contortions in hellish conditions including also very high noise levels, stopping every few minutes to wipe the sweat from my eyes or going out to cool myself down.
In those conditions you feel as if your IQ has been lowered 30 points!
Afterwards, I told the management that I'd never work in those conditions again. They pointed out that the workers in the line worked in those conditions in 4 hours turns and I pointed out that said workers were walking over a metal grid that provided them with a steady flow of dry, cool air; otherwise, they'd be suffering half a dozen cardiac arrests per day!.
They didn't call me again, and good riddance! 8^)
Italy leans on Amazon to retrieve €100m in unpaid tax
Monday 18th December 2017 21:09 GMT
Re: Still cheap for Amazon
I'd say that those €800,000,000 that Amazon invested in Italy (if true*) and the 3000 jobs created** could explain at least partly the low taxes requested.
*Note: This caveat is always mandatory when quoting data provided by big companies. ;^)
**Note: See the first note, plus "as long as they aren't those shitty jobs that pay below minimum wage and that Amazon doesn't even recognize as employees".
Irony's lost on old Pope Francis: Pontiff decrees fake news a 'serious sin'
Monday 18th December 2017 19:26 GMT
Pope Francis has his definitions wrong
"... defamation, looking for things that are old news and have been dealt with and bringing them to light today."
I think that's not "defamation", and "been dealt with" does not equal "been swept under the rug and hidden by any means available for hundreds of years".
Consider all those secret children cemeteries under orphanages and convents. Should the press stop informing we, the public, when one of these secret cemeteries is discovered?
A little bit too transparent, Your Holiness.
Merry Xmas, fellow code nerds: Avast open-sources decompiler
Erase 2017 from your brain. Face ID never happened. The Notch is an illusion
Friday 15th December 2017 20:00 GMT
Re: Old fashioned?
The way I see it, the main issue with fingerprint sensors is that it can be used by police and other LEOs to force you physically to open your phone, even in countries where doing so is blatantly illegal. It's happening everywhere.
The most common rebuke against this argument of mine is that police or TLAs can apply "physical violence" (i.e. "torture") to force you to give them the pin. My answer is that if you live in a country where police can torture you -without fear of the consequences- the fingerprint scanner in your phone is the lesser of your problems, and you should either find a way for you and your family to leave the country ASAP or stockpile fertilizers, aluminium powder and similar things, just in case. :-(
Another big issue is that fingerprinting sensors are easy to fool using common, easily available materials, like gummy bears and PCB etching materials.
5 reasons why America's Ctrl-Z on net neutrality rules is a GOOD thing
How fast is a piece of string? Boffin shoots ADSL signal down twine
Wednesday 13th December 2017 17:33 GMT
Re: I may have unbelievable news, but salt water is actually a very good conductor
Related:
When I was a young lad, a neighbourhood kid took a pee on a light pole, with the hatch open. Cue backflip, instant unconsciousness and lots of cries and swearing afterwards. Apparently no lasting effects for my neighbour, except for his new nickname: "Electroman".
Yeah, children are cruel.
Canuck privacy commissioner to dig into Uber data breach
Oregon will let engineer refer to himself as an 'engineer'
Friday 8th December 2017 22:54 GMT 
So...
...no railways in Oregon, eh?
Seriously now: I think the issue here is that the state has appropriated the word "engineer" and given it the meaning of "chartered engineer" instead of its more common meaning, i.e. someone who has completed an education in engineering. Now, imagine a professional engineer -certified or not- from another state who sends a mail to someone in OR giving professional advice as an engineer and identifying himself as such. Could he be fined or even charged with some sort of interstate fraud? Ridiculous, isn't it?
Easy solution: swap the "engineer" term in Oregon legal system for "State Certified Engineer" or similar, and make the title compulsory for professional engineers working and residing in Oregon. Fixed!
Tech giants at war: Google pulls plug on YouTube in Amazon kit
Viagra's Irish plant STILL giving local men and dogs stiffies (not really)
Dentist-turned bug-biter given a taste of freedom
Android Wear hardware boss bails
Drone collisions with airliners may not be fatal, US study suggests
Monday 4th December 2017 17:50 GMT
1.2 Kg only?
There are professional models far heavier and sturdier than this; think 30Kg, including lots of aluminium, carbon fibre and batteries. I ***hope*** that any drone bigger than the ones from the study will be automatically banned from airports.
Also airliner_windshield != Light_aircraft_windshield, and airliner_jet_engine != Light_aircraft_propeller.
If one of the drones in the American study hits a light plane's propeller, there is a good chance that said propeller will get bent or even broken, as the impact with the blade would happen at higher speeds, due to the fast rotation of the blades.
And re:terrorism: You don't need explosives to cause serious trouble during take off or landing. You only need a plastic bag or a party balloon filled with paint.
Ex-cop who 'kept private copies of data' fingers Cabinet Office minister in pr0nz at work claims
Friday 1st December 2017 18:01 GMT
"The issue of thumbnails is also strange."
Not so strange if the MP tried to cover his tracks by deleting the full size pictures and clearing his browsing history, but forgot to clean the browser's cache, where the thumbnails would be stored.
"I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy"
8^)
BT lab domain grab – 17 years after cheeky chap swiped 'em
Google Chrome vows to carpet bomb meddling Windows antivirus tools
Sci-Hub domains inactive following court order
Friday 24th November 2017 02:32 GMT
Re: I am leet hacker (@ Frank Ly)
"They are now on scihub.org"
No, that's different stuff. scihub.org contains only a few publications with titles in the format "American Journal of This and That". Inside the page, the last letter in the site name is not a 'b' but a 'ß', as the German 'long s' or whatever it's called. Even with the 'American' monikers, all the content seems to have originated in the Middle East.
In my opinion, that site is dodgy as Hell!
What seems to be the real stuff is in sci-hub.bz.*
Edit:
* As Mr. Yank Lurker wrote ten hours ago a few comments below this one. :-)
Sorry 'strange physics' fans, IceCube finds the Standard Model stands
Phone fatigue takes hold: SIM-onlys now top UK market
Wednesday 22nd November 2017 17:48 GMT
Re: @ Mephistro (@ Technical Ben)
I'm in Spain, and we have a few sim-free telcos with nice offers as well, although their market share is not too big yet. Regarding the costs of renting the big telcos' networks, there is a legal cap on what said networks can charge, based -if I remember it correctly- in a percentage of what big telcos charge to customers -for the use of the network alone, without including other products or services.
IMHO the SIM-free telcos can earn some serious €€€ with the remainder of that percentage, due to their lack of overheads.
On a side note, I was under the impression that most Western countries had similar laws regarding landline and mobile telephony, so if any fellow commentards can confirm or deny this assumption of mine, I'll be grateful.
Wednesday 22nd November 2017 14:10 GMT
@ BigAndos
'I read that as "Make SIM only contracts a shed load more expensive".'
True, that's what will happen, knowing the telcos managerial ethos. But it'll be a huge error, as it will open the doors for small, inexpensive, SIM only telcos. Nowadays, the phone "renting" model is a huge barrier for small new telcos to enter the market, as it forces on them a ton of personnel, bureaucracy, service centres, CSR facilities and 'shops' where the punters can "purchase" the phones.
I expect this to evolve into another situation where big companies greed -big telcos greed in this case- cause them to repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot.
You, Google. Get in here and explain all this personal data slurping – Missouri AG subpoena
Tuesday 14th November 2017 01:52 GMT
Re: "Investigative subpoena"?
Perhaps the article has been edited after your comment, but now it reads "Hawley claims there may be evidence that Google manipulates its search results to favour Google-affiliated websites over competitors' websites. " and gives a few examples, regarding "Lyrics" sites and "Restaurant Reviews" sites.
Thousand-dollar iPhone X's Face ID wrecked by '$150 3D-printed mask'
Tuesday 14th November 2017 02:17 GMT
Re: When will they learn (@ AC)
"...means that someone is going to spend hundreds of dollars making a fake face of someone whose head they somehow got a 3d scan of, ..."
If they can sell the iPhone online as a 2nd hand unit for $500 or more, that's a very good margin. This would be a typical task for some "specialist" who takes a nice cut for every phone unprotected. The 3d head scanning thing can be done nowadays with a software that uses several pictures or a video as input.
"...a phone that's probably going to be remote-wiped before they get that far..."
Unless the thief has a "Faraday Envelope" to take the phone to the Specialist's "Faraday Room".
Not all criminals are dumb, and some of them are clever and adapt quickly. You usually don't hear about this kind of crims in the news. And because of this -In my opinion, at least- Apple is at fault here.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
