Posts by a_yank_lurker

Askwoody

The aggravation is very severe with many noting they are looking seriously at Linux or Macs because of the ongoing monthly update follies with Slurp. And these are primarily Bloat users.

Cooked versus Various Diseases

One of the reasons to cook food is to kill bacteria that cause some nasty GI diseases. Diseases that if untreated (assuming they can be treated easily) can have a lethality of up to 20%. I think I will take a miniscule risk of cancer versus a more certain risk of death.

Time Frames

Generally on this side we get severe weather advisories several hours out to may be a day out. This is not the problem in reality. It is the propensity of some of these storms to have either microbursts, very fast, linear winds, or tornadoes in very localized areas. Often the warnings for these are less the 30 minutes as these spin up rather quickly during the severe weather.

Rarely does a rough thunderstorm directly kill, but tornadoes, microbursts, and straight line winds do kill with regularity. Tornadoes are notorious for their unpredictability. Those of us who experience them regularly have a healthy respect for them.

Deck chairs

Why does this have the feeling of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic just before hitting the iceberg?

Shared Data

Sharing data between companies is very different from personalized ads/recommendations/emails from a vendor one has done business with. Amazon's onsite recommendations are based on one's purchase and search history, which is reasonable as long as the data stays with Amazon. Sharing this data with, say Target, is a major problem.

Wrong Insultants Hired

Itsy Bitsy Morons should have hired a bankruptcy legal beagle.

Ad based models

The problem with ad based models is John Wannamaker's observation: "Half the money spent on advertising is wasted, I do not know which half though". With the rise of ad blockers and vpns, the value of ads becomes lessened. Ads that are never viewed are not effective nor do they help the site pay its bills.

History Rhyming?

Reading the post, is it striking how the same underlying problem exists all over the IT landscape. Each area does not think basic security problems should be address until slapped upside the head with a baseball bat (aluminum not wood).

Not Going to Work

Between Congress critters and the military way of operating this is not going to work. Drafting various people because of the technical skills to be useful requires thinking outside of the box of how to pay and use them. One issue is Basic Training, may are to old and sick to make it through, so that is out. Also, giving them the rank of private would be rather insulting given the responsibilities many have had.

The only way I can see this working is by either direct commission (not likely) or using expanded warrant officer grades with a direct warrant.

Not Surprised

Criminals, at least the ones with functioning grey matter, know they can not use the same MO including money laundering methods forever but most try to outwit the flatfeet. The fact that posts like this mention several of the better known techniques means there is a general awareness about the problem by those who trying to stop the money laundering.

Second Shoe

The first shoe was the FDA, now the SEC, next DOJ with felony charges. She and her cronies are not out of the woods yet.

Relevance

The theoretical problem the 'researchers' posed is nonsense. At the distance one has to be for a decent transfer speed, one may as well being sitting at the keyboard. They also miss the point of air-gapping: the computer is isolated from the most dangerous external threats. For an air-gapped computer to be compromised one would need physical access which limits the number of people dramatically to maybe a handful. Exploits with an effective range of a few meters that can easily be blocked (play music in the room) are not worth worrying about.

Key Point

Chocolate Factory has a major problem claiming journalism - no one is doing basic journalism with the search as it is done algorithmically. The case hinges on whether a random search is basic journalism requiring reasonable judgement about the reliability of the information, relevance, importance, etc to the final result. Also, most searches are not journalists looking for information for a news article but someone just being curious.

Ethics

When I have worked on others' boxes I have never made any effort to search the drives. Doing that always struck me as seriously unethical. Plus even if I ever were to search I have no idea what is pornographic or what is a suspicious file as I do not have the hashes available. This raises the question of how did the techs know the image was pornographic without someone telling them what to look for.

The New Fusion?

Are AVs the new fusion, always 10 or 20 years away from being commercially available?

IBM and Strategy?

That is an oxymoron even if Slurp is not far behind.

Fake News

Given most of what the regular media is fake news because of sloppiness if Zuck was truly honest there would be virtually nothing in the feed. It seems like most news stories are overwrought and overhyped BS with little value. Anything of value or any deep reporting, not done.

The local media likes to focus on the local murders in metro Atlanta. But they almost never mention that these murders are mostly clustered in specific areas but try to make sound as if you will be used for target practice if you walk your front door.

Gig Economy

Independent contractors in many gig type businesses mostly lose money or at best break even. Relatively few actually make a decent income from the business. Many reasons for this but it has been true for many years long before Uber or Lyft ever existed.

Emphasis

Ethical behavior should be the expected of anyone calling themselves a professional and it includes being discreet about client information. The problem with any real world scenario is not programmers lacking ethics but often lacking domain knowledge. In the case of VW, programmers did what their managers told them to do, however how many have ever read the relevant parts of the CFR about feral emission testing? (A cure for insomnia) I doubt many at any automaker have read them personally so they are relying on someone else's interpretation or presumed interpretation. The critical part is the programmers, even if they might have some domain knowledge, probably do not have the depth of knowledge to always spot ethically challenged specs or flat out interpretation errors.

All it takes is a few unethical people in the correct places to undermine everyone else who are behaving ethically. Spotting this unethical behavior from afar is often not easy to do until it blows up.

Can't Tell Them Apart?

Not familiar with the breed, but some breeds of dogs and cats can look very much alike and the main differentiation is their behavior.

Seriously with the number of nice animals in shelters or available for breeders (both will cost a lot less) way clone? The only answer I can come up with is pure vanity couple with money and arrogance.

Fair Use

Showing the clips without any commentary on them is not fair use. Fair use allows for a clip with enough of the context to be shown as long as you are truly use it as a basis of something else. Now if they were linking to the clips on Fox's website, no problem.

Agile the philosophy or practice

This will end in an epic failure. Agile, correctly done, is a philosophy and related approach to solving problems. It has been around for ages in many organizations who practice collaborate working with colleagues in other areas as needed coupled with cross functional meetings as needed to solve problems, etc. Agile as Itsy Bitsy Morons is doing it is a rigid practice that does not address the underlying corporate problems. The philosophy of Agile does not require formal Agile training or scrum masters (an idiotic term), it requires a mind set and a willingness to discuss issues and problems with your colleagues to solve problems.

An aside, does being a retired rugby lock mean I am a scrum master?

Not Surprised

Given the average Georgia legislator is a barely literate graduate of the UofGA aka the Clarke County Community Cow College aka ThUGA this bill is not surprising. Being barely literate is about the best good old ThUGA produces. I get watch the annual follies up close every year. There usually are a couple of ridiculously stupid bills passed by the legislature every session.

A difference

Over here, my (very large) bank announced expansion plans that included new physical branches which means some jobs that can not be easily outsourced and definitely not offshored.

Question?

How will they check the US address is not being used by a front organization? The Russians (or anyone else) are quite capable of setting up a US based front organization. It does not take that many people or money to do, especially since it is being used as mail drop. About all a postcard does is to allow Failbook to wash their hands of the problem.