* Posts by Ian Michael Gumby

4454 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Apr 2006

OpenAI's GPT-2 secret life as a pawn star: Boffins discover talkative machine-learning model can play chess

Ian Michael Gumby
Coat

Meh...

He hacked the system w an IMSAI 8080. ( yes I am old enough to know my pc s )

One would have thought ‘Mike’ aka Adam Selene would have been a better sci-fi reference.

‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’

But I’m just being grumpy....

From Soviet to science fiction icon, the weird life of Isaac Asimov 100 years on

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: Asimov was a letcher

Asimov?

Try Heinlein.

Care to compare story and plot lines within their various universes?

Ian Michael Gumby
Headmaster

Meh! Re: From Asimov to Zelazny

"After multiple rejections he eventually earned his Master of Arts degree in chemistry in 1941 and earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in chemistry in 1948, serving as a civilian in the US Army in the Second World War."

Ok, so I know that the author wanted to cover his academic career, but if you read what was written, it makes it sound like after he earned his PhD in '48 he served in the US Army during WW II making him the first man to have a time machine. ;-)

But seriously... Asimov is one of the greats and yes like many here, I bet we could earn a masters or a PhD in English Lit specializing in Science Fiction. I think my paperback science fiction collection weights about 300 lbs. Unfortunately some of them are starting to fall apart w the glue separating. The collection goes back 50 years, including some books I got from my older brother. (Not including HG Wells)

Sorry for the Grammar N thing... but seriously... :-(

Reusing software 'interfaces' is fine, Google tells Supreme Court, pleads: Think of the devs

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@jilocasin Re: There is *no* IP to take advantage of.

I suggest you actually learn some of the facts from the case and from the judgements.

This has been going on for over a decade and you really need to understand the underlying issues and case law

Both Google and Oracle are tossers for sure. That said, the law is actually on Oracle's side.

There is IP to take advantage of and in some of the earlier testimony from a decade ago damns Google.

Down voting myself or others doesn't change that fact. Its not just an issue of copying the published APIs for interoperability w Java but the intent was to replace Java and its JVM so that Google wouldn't have to pay royalties. Google's 'clean room' version wasn't clean and that's what damns them.

Amazon slams media for not saying nice things about AWS, denies it strip-mines open-source code for huge profits

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@LDS Re: "The journalist largely ignores the many positive comments he got from partners"

I think the point you and everyone else misses is that AWS does nothing wrong.

Has anyone actually bothered to read the Apache license?

It says that you can use and take the code and do whatever you want with it. (With some very liberal requirements.) If you donate code... you have to indemnify Apache if they get sued. So if you work for ... lets say IBM and even if you wrote some code on your own time on a non work project... IBM could still sue Apache if the code had any IP value to IBM. (Even though they donate code/projects to open source. (Cloudscapes Silver Cloud which became JavaDB ... or Eclipse which was based on Rational code)

It seems the rest of the world is waking up to what is happening in the open source world. and why its not the panacea everyone thinks it is...

Sorry, not that I'm defending AWS, Google or half a dozen other major companies who exploit the system... just that this isn't really news. AWS mimics the tools people use on their infrastructure so that you can ditch those companies and use their internal source controlled copies.

Google, Amazon need to be broken up but the argument is a complicated one.

The IoT wars are over, maybe? Amazon, Apple, Google give up on smart-home domination dreams, agree to develop common standards

Ian Michael Gumby
Pirate

Re: they kinda missed a trick here?

Why not team up with other like minded hacks and build open sourced protocols based on using a Raspberry PI or network of devices for home security tying back to your own in home network where you could then keep everything in house, or use another app to take the backups to your own cloud storage, using your own encryption scheme?

When is an electrical engineer not an engineer? When Arizona's state regulators decide to play word games

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@ Prst.V.Jeltz Re: Re:software engineer

Because when you go through a proper engineering program, you are an engineer who specializes in Software or Computer engineering.

How many here have gone through Language Theory, OS Theory, and courses like Strength and Materials, Analog Circuits, Digital Circuits... etc ...

Its been over 30 years, but I can still remember some of my classes that non software engineers didn't have to take.

Ian Michael Gumby

Re: AKA Libertarians

When you do embedded work, you had better be an engineer and be able to prove it.

From a risk perspective... if you do embedded systems work on an RTOS based application where people could be harmed... if not an engineer, that company faces a potential major lawsuit if an accident happens and the developer was not an engineer.

From a technical perspective... very few who do not have an engineer degree can actually do the work properly.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Martinusher Re: Re:software engineer

The issue is that companies debased it by creating job titles around Software Engineer that didn't require you to be an actual engineer.

When I had to interview people who called themselves software engineers, I give them a bit more of a hard time in the interview when they do not have an engineering degree. Most don't pass the technical round.

Ian Michael Gumby
Coat

@Mike Re: "Systems engineer"

Its worse. How many people who call themselves Software Engineers are not actually software engineers. Here in the states, to be a software engineer meant that you went thru an accredited 4 yr Engineering program at an accredited university.

But many companies used it as a job title which debased the value and the meaning.

Here in this case... he uses the term 'Engineering' in his company's name. Nothing wrong with that. However if he presents himself as an engineer, he could run afoul of the law.

Requiring a PE is also necessary for the work he does. It really is a matter of safety.

As a software engineer who's moved in to a management role, its very difficult to have conversations these days because you can tell a person to do X, but because they lack the training and basic concepts, they don't do X but something close. Or you sometimes have to spend an hour teaching some basic theory that they should have learned in school.

Apple sues iPhone CPU design ace after he quits to run data-center chip upstart Nuvia

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Anon Re: @Alexmcm It would be nice

To answer your question, its a matter of who owns the phone. Your phone, like your laptop if provided by the company, then they own the right to your texts and emails. There is no expectation of privacy. I believe this to also be true for Europe.

Many companies offer BYOD to work. The issue though it that it now opens you up to being forced to surrender your phone to your employer. Where I work... I now have to carry 2 phones. My personal one and my company one. When I travel outside the country, I don't take my personal phone or laptop. Why? Because I don't need it and I don't have to worry about losing it or surrendering to border patrol. Not that I have anything to hide, its one less thing I have to carry.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Alexmcm Re: It would be nice

Its a shame that so many here ignore the law and have wild fantasies of what they think they want to be right is right.

You’ve at least read your contract but didn’t understand the ramifications.

If you work in Tech, you usually end up signing an employee agreement that says if you invent something while working here, it belongs to the company. Regardless if you did it on your own systems and on your own time.

You would argue that because you did it on your own and outside of work, they should pound sand. They would argue that you designed the tech because of the work you did for company X. And the courts agree with the company and you lose.

To your point, if you did something outside of tech, then the company had no rights to it. So write your best selling novel or like most IBM techies... go out and do something outside of tech where IBM would have no claim.

There’s more, but you get the idea.

WIth respect to the phones. If the company provides the laptop, or the phone, they have rights to the data on those devices. So if you’re going to have a personal life or want to do something outside of the company, you need to have your own phone. I and many of my peers carry two phones. You never want to share your calendars or emails on your personal gear.

If you have any ideas that are really good, you may flesh them out, but the minute you take action, you need to be outside of your current employer. Or if you’re working on something that has nothing to do with your current employer or about to start a new job, you need to identify it and get their approval.

Had this guy said... hey I have an idea for a new chip, and Apple says that they are not going to pursue it... and you ask if you can do it on your own outside of Apple, and if they approve... then they would have no leg to stand on... until you solicit your fellow coworkers to also join in.

Bottom line. If this bozo, and yes he’s a bozo , had talked w an attorney before doing this... he wouldn’t have been sued.

And yes, I’ve walked away from a couple of things because I didn’t want to face a frivolous lawsuit.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: It would be nice

First, you are jumping the gun...

Who said it inadmissible?

That was rhetorical but the point is that the text messages can be admissible.

Who’s phone? Employee or Apple’s?

Even if it was a BYOD phone, Apple has rights to texts...

Non compete is tricky. Legal language aside, the guy worked on his startup while at apple.

That can also be an issue.

Not open an shut or an overreach by Apple by any means.

Boffins find proof that yes, Carl Sagan and Joni Mitchell were right, we really are all made up of star stuff

Ian Michael Gumby
Coat

I claim the right to the name starchild

Ok, so Marvel beat me to it

HPE planning to turn balancing on-premises and cloud environments into point-and-click adventures

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: How long before ..

You missed the point of what this means...

Did you not see other El Reg articles on how the cool kids are leaving the cloud?

What you are mocking is a potential disrupter.

Xerox: Prepare to say cyan-ara, HP Inc. We're no paper tiger. We're really very serious about that hostile takeover

Ian Michael Gumby

Smaller company attempting a hostile takeover?

Xerox is not in a really good position unless Icahn wants to really spend more money on HP shares.

I seriously doubt anyone outside of Icahn wants this.

Copy that? We'll never join you on the Xerox side if you don't answer simple questions – HP

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Chris G Re: Due diligence

Sorry mate, had to down vote. HP and HPE are two different companies and yes IIRC that purchase you referenced happened between the split.

The truth is that there is only one person who would benefit from this merger.

Can you spell his name? Carl? Now what was it? icon?

Take a Big Blue cheque and go: IBM settles 281 UK age discrim cases

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: bright graduates picking other employers instead of bringing their smarts under Big Blue's roof

The bright college grad will realize that in the IT world, you end up spending somwhere between 24-36 months at a job before moving to the next big thing. Unless you're on the fast track, you are not destined for great things at the company. So you move out to move on.

IBM... slowly sinking and its doubtful that RedHat can save it.

Can't you hear me knocking? But I installed a smart knocker

Ian Michael Gumby
Coat

@ David Nash ... Re: Well that was a waste...

I do get satire.

However, I would have taken a different twist.

Like his wife turned off the electricity so that her lover would have time to escape out the back.

Ian Michael Gumby

Well that was a waste...

First, if the wife was home, why didn’t she just open the door?

Second... if the power went out, why didn’t the door lock have a battery backup?

Third... if this was a house or a flat, why is there only one entrance? Most homes have 2 or more entrances. Apartments are a different story.

Fourth... how is it that the wife didn’t know that the power was out?

I realize that AD is being a bit sarcastic and not to be taken literal, but really?

And no, I don’t have an electronic door lock ... yet.

Before I do that, i’’ll purchase either a natural gas powered generator... or a solar backup system....

but that’s just me...

Apple's credit card caper probed over sexism claims – after women screwed over on limits

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Blocked Chain Commentard

If that were the case if you were named Trump, you'd have a credit limit high enough to cover the cost of Warren's Healthcare for all plan. (measured in the tens of trillions). Sorry to go political but I am bashing both sides of the aisle so its fair game. ;-)

But on a serious note: Its her income that is what did her in.

Even though they have a shared banking account. Its her annual (self reported) income that did her in.

It sucks but my wife also has a higher credit rating than I do. I don't have as many lines of credit and I also maintain higher balances since I use a corporate card in my name which I use for travel can have really high balances, even though I pay it off at the end of every month. The banks and cc card companies don't care.

Now that I switched jobs, added 2 or 3 lines of credit with small limits and $0.00 balances, my credit score has gone back up. (Not that it was bad, but just lower than where it should be.

SpaceX flings another 60 Starlink satellites into orbit in firm's heaviest payload to date

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@MalcomWeir Re: 59 out of 60

I think you fail to grasp the different types of weapons and options of how to have 'target practice'.

I get your point about not wanting to create FOD but you lose points due to a lack of imagination.

There are other things you could do beside point something at it to blow it up that would still constitute target practice.

Boffins hand in their homework on Voyager 2's first readings from beyond Solar System

Ian Michael Gumby
Alien

Re: Gravity... are you sure about that?

If you look at the diagram... it looks like you have a higher band of pressure in front of the solar system and less behind it. Like that’s. The direction the Galaxy is moving towards so you would expect some sort of compression.

But what do I know?

IT contractor has £240k bill torn up after IR35 win against UK taxman

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Matjaggard Re: I cannot understand why HMRC pursues contractors so much.

Nope.

A true contractor will incorporate. (I’m in the states and I’m going to explain how we do it here. )

The contractor then has an MSA signed between his company and the client company. Then SOWs are issued based on the work to be performed for the period of the contract. At the end of the contract, either a new contract is signed or the contractor finds more work.

A captured employee is one who isn’t incorporated, and is issued a 1099. That person is required to pay their taxes and benefits.

By not incorporating the issue of employee status is not as clean. Here in the states, Microsoft used to have two levels of employees. Those who were W2 and those who were 1099 ‘independent contractors’. Both performed the same work, and the 1099 contractors were not eligible for stock options or bonuses. The employees sued and won. What this did was cause companies to stop using independent contractors or setting up rules that even if they are incorporated, the contractor could only work on site for 2 years before they had to take a 6 month ‘gardening period’.

I used to contract and I had multiple NDAs, MSA’s and contracts with different clients. I could work w clients for more than 2 years because of the track record so that I wasn’t a ‘captured’ employee.

A guy I used to work with who was also an ‘independent’ never incorporated, and had buried himself in to a company such that only he could support the systems he wrote and wouldn’t allow anyone who could challenge his ‘expertise’ near his work. He charges an outrageous rate, and if the IRS or local state were to investigate, he would fail the sniff test and it would be ruled he was a captured employee. This is bad because he would be sued by client because the client would be on the hook for the entire payroll plus penalties while he worked there.

While not the same as in the UK, you can see the parallel.

The legislation isn’t difficult,. Its just not generating the revenues they thought it would because most contractors are like me and follow the law. The tax dodgers like my friend are in the minority.

Google lashes out at DoJ, Oracle as it asks US Supremes to sniff Java suit one last time

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@AC Re: @Blackjack The problem is...

There were a lot of accusations and depositions throughout the multiple trials.

This is not a clean issue.

Keep in mind that some of the depositions by Google damn Google.

My point was that Google didn't start from scratch and independently created a language that would check every box that Java does and that could be easy for developers to pick up.

They started by basing their efforts on Java.

It looks to be that they may be forced to enter into a FRAND agreement w Oracle.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Blackjack Re: The problem is...

If you are old enough to remember when Java was introduced. The mobile platform (ME) was never free. There was a reason for this. The trouble began when Moore's law made it possible for Java's standard JVMs could run on mobile devices.

From the lawsuit(s) between the two titans, it became apparent that Google muffed their clean room version, thus opening the door to this mess. So if anyone at Google wants to blame the need to continue to pay FRAND to Oracle... its on them.

As to the consumer... not much would change. Less than $1.00 per device at the time of purchase.

(Rough math YMMV but you get the idea. )

TANSTAAFL.

Reaction Engines' precooler tech demo chills 1,000°C air in less than 1/20th of a second

Ian Michael Gumby

@AC Re: Piggy back rocket?

Spot on.

That's exactly the point.

Imagine an SR-71 type aircraft that can go from ground to Mach 5 and to space and back.

Good news – America's nuke arsenal to swap eight-inch floppy disks for solid-state drives

Ian Michael Gumby

@Jake Re: Is it really obsolete ...

Obsolete meaning that there's better technology that is cheaper and will last longer.

Your 8" drives are DS DD (Double sided , Double Density) drives w 128K per side.

[Yes, I used to have 8" drives from back in '78]

Oracle demands $12K from network biz that doesn't use its software

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Does Oracle have a case?

IANAL just have done enough w contracts over the past 20+ years...

Oracle could sue. (Anyone can sue in the US if you find a dirty enough lawyer and pay enough...)

But they would have a hard time winning their case.

Sure the IP address lines back to his company.

Oracle will probably want him to point to the company / guy using the IP address at the time. (While DHCP, the leases are long and will auto renew to the same IP address unless its already in use....)

The ISP could comply, or tell Oracle to pound sand.

Oracle could then sue and get a judge to subpoena the ISP's customer record for the offending customers.

The ISP could fight it and could win.

The ISP could also fight the whole case because they never signed a contract with Oracle.

And even with a shrink wrap license... most activation strategies require a user to send an email verification to get a product key.

But bottom line... Oracle doesn't have a lot of room on this... of course since this is in the UK, YMMV.

Watch out! Andromeda, the giant spiral galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way, has devoured several galaxies before

Ian Michael Gumby
Facepalm

@Roger Greenwood Re: Let me get this straight ....

If you subscribe to a religion... then its God who is driving this ship.

And of course this confirms the theory that God must be a woman. An elderly Asian Woman to be precise... ;-P

(Note: This is an old joke that anyone who's driven down the 101 in SFO or on an LA freeway knows. )

Don't be a hater, it was said in jest. :-)

Ian Michael Gumby
Thumb Down

Re: Things change slowly

So there is HP and HPE.

HP is printer and PCs, no?

Most of the fun stuff is in HPE.

Careful now, UK court ruling says email signature blocks can sign binding contracts

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Andy Non Re: So folks will be adding

I think this should be appealed and it would be overturned on appeal. At least here in the States.

First its the lawyers talking and that while they are hammering out the agreement, there has to be consent by the owner not just their lawyer.

The other thing is that if the jetty is land locked, Then an easement should have been granted. I believe its an easement apprutenant ?sp? where the land locked owner has the right to cross your land to get access to their land.

In terms of the contract via email... this is why you have docusign or an equivalent signing system.

Black holes are like buses: You wait for one – and three turn up at once in galaxy merger

Ian Michael Gumby
Devil

@Jake Re: That's going to make one hell of a racket.

Actually no.

It will be very quiet.

You know what they say... its the bullet you don't hear that will kill you.

In this case... by the time you hear it, you'll be already dead.

Just saying...

(Assuming you'll find some way to beat time and still be around in 1 Billion Years)

You've got (Ginni's) mail! Judge orders IBM to cough up CEO, execs' internal memos in age-discrim legal battle

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

Re: It's not over till we say it's over

No, they will comply.

Failure to do so will open them up to further legal troubles.

Chef roasted for tech contract with family-separating US immigration, forks up attempt to quash protest

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Bronek Re: Flaming idiot, social justice warrior and political hack

What he's saying is that it was foolish for him to bow to the Social Justice Warrior Crowd

To that group, the facts don't matter. Nor does common sense.

Free clue... if your parent or parents break the law, you will be separated from them because they go off to jail and you go to social services. In some situations the courts will stagger jail sentences so that one parent can be with the children.

With respect to the border... the separation of children from parent was happening before Trump took office as well as the use of 'cages'. There is a famous picture that the MSM used of children in 'cages' to attack Trump, that was from the Obama Administration.

But I digress. If you want to get angry with someone... its the members of Congress. More specifically the Democrats who will not pass anything to help fix the illegal immigration problem.

Scott McNealy gets touchy feely with Trump: Sun cofounder hosts hush-hush reelection fundraiser for President

Ian Michael Gumby
WTF?

@JohnFen Re: What a scumbag

Was that Scott McNealy or Eric Schmidt?

IIRC that was Eric Schmidt who said it while head of Google.

But I could be wrong.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Bombasitic Bob Re: Seriously WTF! ???

Absolutely.

I'm going to guess that you're in the over 45 crowd.

Today's younger population doesn't understand the freedoms they have extend to others with whom they may disagree.

When I was a kid, we had a neo-nazi march down Skokie Ave in Chicago. More people showed up to protest than supporters. Which is their right. But I support the right for the idiot to plan the march even though I don't believe in what he was preaching.

Its respecting the 1st Amendment.

Ian Michael Gumby
Flame

@ST Re: Seriously WTF! ???

Sorry mate, calling Silicon Valley ... Silicone Valley ... been going on for a long time.

And in context you should know the difference.

Of course there are a couple of sex shops and venues in SFO that would make you blush.

Ian Michael Gumby
Terminator

@ST Re: Seriously WTF! ???

Naw, I call it silicone valley because most people who live there have the liquid gooey mush implanted in their heads to fill in their cranium.

There's this disease called SVS (Silicon Valley Syndrome) where a person instantly feels smarter based on their proximity to Silicon Valley. I've seen this in friends who moved from the Midwest who suddenly felt superior based on the fact that they worked in the Valley and we didn't. Of course I have other friends who actually are smart and they moved there because they had to for work.

If you run the numbers, you have a higher salary but your cost of living goes way up.

Not to mention you have to deal a lot of things you don't have to deal with in other cities. The real trick is to take a job where you can get the Silicon Valley salary but have a much lower cost of living.

But to go back on topic...

My post which got seriously down voted by commentards who forget a simple idea.

Respect.

We live in a free society where one should feel free to voice their opinion. You don't have to agree with the opinion but just accept that a person has the right to hold that opinion.

I don't know McNealy's political views. I really don't care. Its his right to have a fund raiser for whatever candidate he wants.

By down voting me, you're actually saying that you don't believe that McNealy has the right to hold an opinion or freedom to host a fund raiser for a candidate of his choosing. What you're saying is that you don't respect the freedoms you have and use.

You are free to down vote me, however, think about what I am saying and why the down vote.

Of course if you are a fan of Sillycone valley... my condolences.

Ian Michael Gumby
WTF?

Seriously WTF! ???

Wow.

So a guy backs a political party in a country that is proud that it has free and open elections along with strong support of freedoms and you waste it by attacking someone who is in support of this?

Long ago I had the chance to move to Silicone Valley.

I'm glad I turned it down. I'm an independent but in California, common sense has left along with Elvis.

Nice work if you can grift it: Two blokes accused of swindling $10m from the elderly with bogus virus infection alerts

Ian Michael Gumby
Mushroom

@David Shaw ... My Mother in-law Just got it last night.

My mother in-law is in her 80's.

Last night she tells my wife that she had this happen and she actually was dumb enough to call the number. (Yes, I've repeatedly over the years have reminded her not to fall for this scam and to call me ASAP if she gets a bogus alert. )

[FD she's using my old Macbook Air circa 2011 - 2013 model. I forget when I actually bought it]

Just to be safe, primarily because she's not been that honest about what she does online... I told her to take the mac to Apple and have them help her wipe it and reset to factory install.

The sad thing... when these guys get out of prison, they'll go back to being a scam artist.

The explosion is for what I want to do to these types of A holes.

IBM looks to boost sales the same way it has for 65 years – yes, it's a new mainframe: The z15

Ian Michael Gumby
WTF?

@AC ... Huh?

Sorry mate, but you do realize that while you're in the cloud, your VMs are really containers on very large machines. So the cloud provider scales up so they can then deliver you containers which you can then scale out.

But at the same time, for on prem, there's a concept of server consolidation. So that as you scale out your clusters, you start to realize that you can replace a rack of older servers with smaller more energy efficient new servers so that you're scaling up individual nodes in your cluster, reducing your footprint in the data center (reducing costs).

So yes, looking at building a Linux cluster on the Z makes a lot of sense if done right.

Only you'd never know because its all magically abstracted from you.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Jellied Eel Re: @James 51 ... Put down that pipe...

AS/400s and Sun Servers doing virtual hosting is not the same thing.

Mainframes are in a different class of computing and require a bit more to standup and maintain.

But the performance is fairly good when you want to consider low latencies at scale. So you end up paying a premium.

The irony... are there anyone around old enough to remember Timenet? As a kid, I and a couple of friends would dial in and see who/what we could connect with. ;-)

Now we are repeating ourselves with the 'cloud'.

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@James 51 ... Put down that pipe...

I know your post was supposed to be in jest...

But if you follow the link, the disk latency is 18 microseconds. That's twice as fast as the nearest competing technology.

Mainframes have been capable of running linux for years. So imagine putting a bunch of linux lpars each able to run docker containers. Now you have a cloud in your data center that is going to be faster than anything you can get from AWS , Google, or Microsoft.

Just something to think about.

Would love to run the numbers and to see how the costs breakdown and to see if it could be competitive in terms of price.

Not to over-hype this storage chip tech, but if I could get away with calling my first-born '3D NAND', I totally would

Ian Michael Gumby
Alert

Re: Low Fluorine Tungsten?

Ok, and I have to ask... just how toxic are the byproducts from manufacturing these chips?

(Granted we're not talking about Uranium Hexaflouride...)

I mean should these companies worry about having to notify customers of the potential toxic nature of these materials? (Under California law, everything is toxic these days)

First they came for 'face' and I did not speak out because I... have no face? Then they came for 'book'

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

The funny thing about OSU...

Ohio State University tried to trademark 'Ohio State University' because of enterprising students were making t-shirts that used that phrase and were not paying royalties.

OSU lost that trademark battle and then had to trademark 'the Ohio State University'.

Then the students got wise... they started printing shirts that said 'The'. and the 'Ohio State University' was implied. Any Buckeye who saw that knew what was meant.

So of course they tried to trademark 'The'.

The sad thing... they paid $$$ to lawyers to argue their case.

Not sure how FB got to trademark 'Face'. Just as stupid IMHO.

Astroboffins baffled as black hole at center of Milky Way suddenly a lot hungrier than before

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Sean Re: I have to ask...

Larry Niven did a Beowulf Schaefer story about a journey to a Neutron Star.

Interesting read about what happened to his ship and then his assertion that the Puppeteers home world didn't have a moon.

(A short story that was the title of that anthology.)

My question was a bit different. Of course as gravity increases the tidal effect on your spaceship would increase.

The question was more about the effects of time dilation on your perception of the process.

Ian Michael Gumby
Pirate

@Rich11 Re: @Chris G Black hole crisis

Congressional Records speak for themselves.

The house has done nothing but to go after Trump. Very little has come out of congress because of this.

As an American, its a bit of an embarrassment that our government is incompetent to rule. Its not Trump, mind you but the fact that the Democrats are willing to cause harm to this nation just to spite Trump.

I guess we're not alone. Boris was elected with the sole purpose of Brexit. Now his own government is trying to stop it. Honestly, why did you have a referendum vote in the first place?

I think we need to have a revolution and put both the lawyers and the politicians up against the wall. (In many cases the politicians are lawyers. ...

Ian Michael Gumby
Facepalm

@Chris G Re: Black hole crisis

Well played.

I first thought about Pierson (?sp?) Puppeteers from Larry Niven's universe, but of course you're poking fun of Brexit.

But then I realized that your government leaders are just as bad as our congressional leaders. One Democrat once quipped that the House passes a bill only to see it go to the Senate and die. Meaning that nothing gets done.

Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google told: If you could cough up a decade of your internal emails, that'd be great

Ian Michael Gumby
Boffin

@Dinanziame Re: Ten years?

"Wanna bet that they all only store emails for one year, precisely to avoid getting caught red-handed?"

Want to bet that they don't?

The 10 year request wasn't by accident. IIRC that's the retention period that they are required to store those records.

And because these companies store and track everything, you can bet that they will also keep their email around for that long too.