* Posts by mosw

186 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jan 2010

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National Enquirer's big Pecker tried to shaft me – and I wouldn't give him an inch, says Jeff Bezos after dick pic leak threat

mosw

Re: Trump wrapped in an Amazon Logo.

Or a pic with the Amazon logo tattooed on his upper back?

mosw

Re: Scripted Journalism

They are real journalist in the same way that reality TV is about real life. Essentially "scripted" journalism.

Crypto exchange in court: It owes $190m to netizens after founder 'dies without telling anyone vault passwords'

mosw

Re: Bullshit

I don't know if Prime Minsters are a particularly good long-term investment but I am pretty sure they are for sale.

Techies tinker with toilet-topper to turn it into ticker-tracker

mosw

Re: Sounds like....

Sounds like the Smart Pipe(TM)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ

Fake fuse: Bloke admits selling counterfeit chips for use in B-1 bomber, other US military gear

mosw

move fast and break things

Rather like the current attitude towards software and services. Get it out the door and wait for the crashes and security fails to figure out how to make it work.

They were just ahead of their time.

Sad relics of UK launch capability returned to Blighty while NASA fiddles with Boeing crew

mosw

Re: Galileo

How many more Galileo’s do you want?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fO1qj9TNpo

I can hear the light! Boffins beam audio into ears with freakin' lasers

mosw

Re: Freeze!

Why would you have to stay still? I would think that having ceiling mount lasers tracking your movement would be well within the capability of current technology.

In some dystopian future I could see Google/Amazon installing such a system in your local mall so it can whisper personalized purchase suggestion in your ears as you walk around.

Straight outta Blighty: Readers, if you were a tech billionaire, what would you do?

mosw

Re: "What's love got to do with it"

"it is the love of money that is the root of all evil"

I think it is more like friends with benefits.

mosw

Re: What's Brexit?

"A new brand of high fiber wheat-based breakfast biscuits. Keeps you regular."

Well that's what it says on the box, but my experience is that it seems to bung up the entry and exits leaving you with a decidedly constipated feeling. But it is officially recommended by the government food guide.

Three quarters of US Facebook users unaware their online behavior gets tracked

mosw

"George Carlin's observation was the half the people were below average"

Well that's just mean.

Man drives 6,000 miles to prove Uncle Sam's cellphone coverage maps are wrong – and, boy, did he manage it

mosw

The radio reception in a drone would be much better than the reception on the ground. So the drone data would not be very useful since most users are ground dwellers.

Slack to fend off the collaboration competition with... a new logo

mosw

Re: smoking

Yes, it's a real cock-up. Actually 4 of them.

Peak Apple: This time it's SERIOUS, Tim

mosw

Re: iMessage on Andriod

I think Apple could learn something from Blackberry's failures. Blackberry would be in a better place today if they had made BBM widely available while they still had the market influence.

Apple should make iMessage available on Android phones. This would not be without risk but it would allow Apple to quickly expand their customer base in services and developing countries. They could still market their "superior" hardware to the faithful.

I don't have or want an iPhone but both my wife and daughter have them and I would be willing to pay a modest yearly fee for an iMessage app. And with that hook they could try and drag me into using other iCloud services.

Full frontal vulnerability: Photos can still trick, unlock Android mobes via facial recognition

mosw

Use someone else's picture?

Maybe I will just carry around the picture of a stranger and use that to unlock my phone. Like using a fake name when they want your mother's maiden name for a security question. I will probably get some dirty looks when using it for Google Pay.

mosw

Re: Just add some more detail

But now I will forever have to carry around that clown nose and googly eye googles.

Oxford startup magics up metamaterials for next-gen charging

mosw

Re: I have another theory

> 3. for the environmentally concious they take up more resources than a cable and are less energy efficient

We don't need to worry about efficiency as standardized ubiquitous wireless charging should become available around the same time as nuclear fusion starts feeding the power grid. So, 50 years or so?

mosw

Re: Well--

> Using the wonders of "t'web" I see 23 Park End St, down by the station. Definitely unassuming.

Well not any more. Now you've spoiled it.

Phew, galactic accident helps boffins explain dark matter riddle

mosw

Re: Surely it's easy?

> Basically it's depressed galaxies. I like this theory.

Or a paranoid android with a brain the size of a galaxy.

Marvin

Hole-y ship: ISS 'nauts take a wander to crack Soyuz driller whodunnit

mosw

Re: Bits of foil

>how can you vacuum when space is a vacuum ?

First you build a Dyson's sphere ...

GOPwned: Republicans fall victim to email hack

mosw

Re: All we can do is wait

>"there is no there there, unlike with the DNC who were revealed to be colluding with Hillary Clinton"

Unless the DNC or Clinton are a foreign entity then there is no crime there. It is normal politics for either the Democrat or Republican parties to discretely help whichever candidate they consider more electable.

With respect to the stolen Republican emails, the thief may be more interested in blackmailing elected officials, in which case they are only valuable so long as they are kept secret.

It's all a matter of time: Super-chill atomic clock could sniff gravitational waves, dark matter

mosw

Re: Complications

>Except the second is defined for clocks sitting at the Earth's surface

>Which is defined as g=9.81m/s^2

>Which depends on the definition of a second

As I understand it, gravity distorts both space and time, but the relationship between time, length and the speed-of-light remains constant. So a metre measured with the standard at sea level will be the same as a metre measured out in space using local clock references.

Canuck couple returns home after night on tiles to gaggle of randomers hanging out in their flat

mosw

Re: It always pays to carry a Micro-Uzi in a shoulder holster

@ F111F "..but if Afghanistan and other fights are any indication.."

If Afghanistan is an example, then yes, an armed population might overthrow a government, but also likely replace it with anarchy and violence. If the goal is to make America more like Afghanistan then just keep adding more guns.

LastPass? More like lost pass. Or where the fsck has it gone pass. Five-hour outage drives netizens bonkers

mosw

Re: Another Day ...

"Another day -- another cloud problem. Anyone see a pattern emerging?"

Although I understand the sentiment in this comment, I would be curious to see some actual numbers as to the the availability of typical in-house systems vs cloud based systems. In my, admittedly limited, experience with small businesses I am seeing less downtime with cloud based solutions than in-house ones.

Brexit: UK will be disconnected from EU databases after 2020

mosw

Re: re: Scotland

>if memory serves Greenland left the EU while remaining a part of Denmark.

> ...

>PS. 91% of export is fish.

So I guess it was "goodbye and thanks for all the fish"?

John McAfee is 'liable' for 2012 death of Belize neighbour, rules court

mosw

Re: It makes sense

" but can you enforce a civil ruling in this case?"

I assume that winning the civil case would mean being awarding a sum of money to compensate for the loss. So enforcing the judgement would depend on where the defendants assets are. If the assets are in the US they may be able to seize them.

Oi, Elon: You Musk sort out your Autopilot! Tesla loyalists tell of code crashes, near-misses

mosw

Re: Whisper it…

There is no fundamental reason I see that electric vehicles can't have hitches other then reduced range. I am one of those people that occasionally tows a utility trailer, but never more than a few miles, so range would not be a problem to me. Looking at the cars parked on my street I rarely (1 in 20 ?) see a trailer hitch on a vehicle, and when I do it is an SUV not a sedan. YMMV of coarse.

Maybe future trailers will include supplemental batteries to compensate for reduced range? When the scale of electric cars production approaches that of ICE cars I expect battery prices and standardization will improve significantly.

Shift-work: Keyboards heaped in a field push North Yorks council's fly-tipping buttons

mosw

Re: Identifying the original owners...

Just look for the Fn Ctrl freaks.

mosw

Re: Identifying the original owners...

"Mine's Password123, and so's my wife's."

Are you sure you're not confusing a password with a safe word?

Americans' broadband access is so screwed up that the answer may lie in tiny space satellites

mosw

Re: Satelite-based "broadband"

With satellite clusters in low earth orbit, you are about 500 miles from the nearest satellite so the transit delay is only 2.7 ms. Current satellite internet uses geostationary satellites, which are 22,000 miles away with a transit delay of 240 ms. Also a low earth orbit satellite will have a smaller radio footprint so that you are sharing the available spectrum with far less customers, so more bandwidth for you.You just need a lot of satellites.

mosw

Re: Jug of the Danaides?

"I believe that the "rules" in question are Newton's laws of motion."

Not really, since you can use propulsion systems to keep a satellite up longer. Just releasing a small amount of compressed gas could be used increase the useful life in orbit. If someone has, or can develop, a miniature ion drive then even longer life orbits become possible.

Want to roll like one of the biggest minds in physics? Prof Stephen Hawking's wheelchair is up for auction

mosw

Re: Last Wheel Tonight

The perfect chair for his wax president?

'The inmates have taken over the asylum': DNS godfather blasts DNS over HTTPS adoption

mosw

Re: Another step

"Heartily agree. What privacy do we get by using ssl to to dns via 8.8.8.8"

For someone trying to invade your privacy, you reduce the available attack surface by using ssl. If you don't trust Google then find another DNS service. At least you get to decide who you trust rather than having to trust every one along the communications route.

Samsung's graphene batteries promise to charge five times faster – without exploding

mosw

Re: Sod phones

"... else the neighbourhood is going to experience a momentary brownout ..."

I understand that a few Tesla drivers have also experienced momentary brown-outs while using autopilot.

jQuery? More like preyQuery: File upload tool can be exploited to hijack at-risk websites

mosw

From what I see in the Apache 2.4 documentation (not sure about 2.3.9) support for .htaccess files is determined by the directives applied. So the story is really about bad server configuration rather than any specific problems with jQuery file upload plugin. Clearly the plugin documentation should emphasize that .htaccess support is required.

Chinese biz baron wants to shove his artificial moon where the sun doesn't shine – literally

mosw

"give 15,000kg for the mirror on a Falcon Heavy"

No. The only way to get a BFM into space is with a BFR.

mosw

Re: Elon Musk?

"Are we sure this isn't Elon Musk in disguise? It sounds like one of his harebrained ideas."

You might be right. So I guess this mirror will have to be called the BFM. Seems like the ideal payload for a BFR.

Decoding the Chinese Super Micro super spy-chip super-scandal: What do we know – and who is telling the truth?

mosw

Re: Anonymous coward

>"Don't the lawmakers and law enforcers treat the Constitution as toilet paper these days?"

Yes, and they only use it while sending their tweets.

Convenient switch hides an inconvenient truth

mosw

"... All logged on users were billed for about 30 years of connect time."

What ever you do don't let AWS know about that trick!

mosw

>'Well... how many times can we have "oops..." as a switch is clicked or a cable pulled or command line mistyped?'

What make these stories entertaining is not so much what mistake was made as what the unexpected consequences were and how/if our anti-hero survived the ordeal.

Laser-sharp research sees three top boffins win the Nobel Prize in physics

mosw

Re: This year's Ig Nobel in Literature is pretty good

"Where as Trump is just an odd president."

Literally true as, according to wikipedia, he is the 45th president. Also true for many other reasons.

Revealed: The billionaire baron who’ll ride Elon’s thrusting erection to the Moon and back

mosw

Well one of his proposed uses for the BFR is for travel between Earth bound cities. The ride would be short so no food necessary just a lot of 0 g barf bags.

mosw

Re: Job for a professional astronaut [Prediction]

"One hopes that this billionaire is getting a bit more for his money though. Like a pilot, to handle all the difficult stuff."

And at least a couple of "hairdressers and telephone sanitisers".

mosw

Re: Typical Muskery

"99% of the world couldn’t give a shit who this guy is, so no damage caused."

It does not matter what 99% of the world think of him. What does matter is the .00001% of the population that are his present or future clients, employers or parents of his kids classmates. Anyone who might have reason to do a social media search of him but does not already know him could be influenced by Elon's comments.

mosw

Re: This counts as _not_ going to the Moon

So when I "go to the Niagara Falls", which many tourists do, I am not really going to the Niagara Falls unless I'm in the Niagara river flowing over the falls?

Besides after selling the "First tourist around the moon" trip for millions or billions, he can still sell the "First tourist on the Moon" for even more!

NASA's Kepler probe rouses from its slumber, up and running again

mosw

Re: "NASA has fixed up one of its thrusters"

>"They are a bitch to park as well."

That's why some prefer SpaceX.

Post-silly season blues leave me bereft of autonomous robot limbs

mosw

"Ok... how do I load it with washing over the internet?"

Actually, it is meant for laundering money. Just not yours.

Psst, says Qualcomm... Kid, you wanna see what a 5G antenna looks like?

mosw

Re: Not really mmWave

"At 28Ghz the wavelength is over 1cm."

Yes, they should be called sub-decimeter waves.

mosw

Re: In other words

"'do the users notice?'"

Since the radio spectrum is always shared, achieving higher bit rates and throughputs per channel implies that they can support more customer per channel. This would mean more potential revenue for cell operators and a better data experience for customers in congested areas.

Xiaomi's Wang: We're coming to the USA

mosw

Re: hmmm... sure....

"I've not met anyone who puts the presence (or not) of a notch as a dealbreaker when it comes to phone choice"

I don't object to the notch itself but I do object to including the notched area in the screen size specification. When I compare the specs for phones, what I want to know about screen size is what is the largest unobstructed 16x9 image that can be displayed.

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