Posts by rdhood

Don't click links in email....

I'm just going to say the obvious: DONT CLICK LINKS IN EMAILS.

This scam fails utterly if the user goes to the Netflix site and logs into their own account. It only succeeds if someone has clicked on a link sent through email.

Just the other day, Google sent me a notification with a G**D*** link in it, and I sent them back a "WTF is this?" message. The average user CANNOT differentiate between a real/fake, and should just about NEVER click a link unless someone has specifically said to them: "I'm sending you a link". And that is what we ought to be teaching the average joe.

Re: Autopilot fun

"I predict flocking behaviour will be an interesting failure mode for fully autonomous cars..."

Your prediction is already wrong. That was the fault falure mode of all GPS systems for the first 15 years of their existence.. just like your boat example above. We are WAY past that. Waymo already does realtime traffic sensing and makes offers to divert around jams while using their mapping system. It makes sense that they would put this logic, that they already posses, in cars to drive around jams.

IR blaster

Like the IR blaster

OMG... forgot about that one. I had a Galaxy S5, and it controlled nearly every device in my house! Easily worth it just to not have to search my house for remotes.

Re: "The main problems..."

"So when they realise they have a crappy failing business model that doesn't provide any recurring revenue they can start charging for storing video"

This. everyone wants another revenue stream. The fact is, there are apps out there that will coordinate RTSP streams from multiple cameras to a storage device ... no 3rd party internet required. But those manufacturers that DID support that in their cheap cameras , INCLUDING MI, have removed that functionality so that they could charge you for cloud storage and viewing. That is a big steaming pile o'crap that is really killing the home security setup, as well as any sort of privacy.

Still wouldn't see me back anything with money i couldn't afford to risk losing!

And as crowdfunding goes ,those are words to live by.

I have bought into 4 campaigns similar to this. Two panned out and delivered a first round of product, and subsequently failed a month or two later, and two others never delivered anything. The value that I received from the two delivered items was exceptional. The problem was that they should have charged more and accepted fewer orders and they might have made it as a business. But they charged too little, were overcome with orders, and the projects that initially delivered subsequently failed.

Bingo! So, NKorea builds 200 missiles for 5 warheads and launches. The U.S. needs 2x/4x/6x/?? that number of WORKING anti missile missiles to ensure that none get through because we don't know which missiles have nuke warheads. The numbers game quickly overcomes missile defense systems.

Re: It is inevitable...

"This is just another step in the lifecycle of the IT mega-corporation: they've hit the stage where they are now driven by greed as opposed to any desire to innovate, and projects that are not making money are sidelined or dropped. At the same time, it becomes harder and harder to kick off anything new or innovative because the board/shareholders need proof that the new project is going to be profitable to a desired level within a given timeframe..."

In a nutshell, that was my experience at HP for the last 20 or so years.

Re: Google and Intel;

"Intel shouldn't be selling CPUs still at this point that are still vulnerable,"

Bingo. Or, at the very least, they need to release new performance numbers and admit that they have lost the speed crown.

Re: I brought in several models ago

"But would you trust the footage of your suicidal stunt being missed due to a shoddy cheap knock off?"

I have been using a "shoddy cheap knockoff" for a year. I guarantee that 99/100 could not tell the diff in footage between this and a gopro. Yes, I would trust a shoddy cheap knock off.

Re: Will this help current phones?

I imagine that, in the beginning, that Google thought that they would put out updates and the bloatware pushers would update THEIR respective images and send out an update. I imagine that Google DID care, but they couldn't fathom that ATT/Verizon/Sprint/Tmobile would sh!t on their customers. Once realized... and with a few really really nasty bugs floating around like a time bomb, Google finally acted.

Re: Whitman did the right thing

" I expect HPE to come thru. "

Like DEC/Burroughs/Unisys/Sun/SCO/computercodejour before them?

In case you haven't noticed, that does not happen, EVER, in this biz. I'm not saying it can't, just that it hasn't.

Re: I worried about the Nav bar...

This is the way it works on my $60 Huawei phone, and its fine. There is absolutely no reason for the nav buttons to be visible all of the time.

The bio version of Stargate Replicators....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_(Stargate)

Self assembly taken to the extreme...

600,000

I would suggest Minimum Viable population. Research has suggested that the number is between 160 and 40,000 people, with about 5000 being a true starting point. 600,000 is just a stupid number.

which hardware company has ever been too big to fail?

Re: These "new" iPhones

"Not saying others copied Apple rumors but clearly this began the design process before any bezel-less Android phone shipped."

"Clearly"??? Not to me. You obviously have inside info on ALL of the major manufacturers design processes so that you can make this "CLEAR" conclusion. But, Apple fanboi, let me say this: the bezel-less design is an obvious goal, just as it was for monitors and TVs. OBVIOUS!

Re: "Might have to move a couple more big cities"

"China is making more progress towards environmentaly sound travel than any other country..."

Yep. That is because they are a polluted mess. The same could have been said about the U.S. decades back. It seems the will to make progress is stronger when you can't breath.

Re: Who still uses farenheight for things like this ?

"The Register has to sadly support our old American neighbours. "

While that statement might make sense for any random person from the U.S., any American who is reading this article will generally be very well acquainted with different temperature and measurement systems. In fact, most of us wish the U.S. would just change so that we wouldn't have to learn every formula in two systems.

Re: How it made money is therefore a mystery...

THIS.

If I could get 52 millionaires per year to lend me $1,000,000 for a week each, set up sequentially, then I can continually earn interest on the money like I had a million dollars!

This is the way my credit union is able to offer me a free checking account... they make interest off of my direct deposit and money in the account.

If I can hold onto 1000 contractor's salaries ($2000 per week each) for a week at a time, then I essentially can pull down the interest on $2 million a year.

Re: Transparency...

"OK, everyone can call me naive and shoot me down in flames, but is there any reason why an AI CAN'T tell you why it has made a particular decision?"

In every situation, it can. BUT that does not mean you would understand it. Supposing I have some complex mathematical relationship with some changing natural phenomenon. By the time you get around to asking "but why?", the natural phenomenon that formed part of the input to the decision is gone, never to be reproduced, and the mathematical equation from which we derived the results might take you 4 years of college level mathematics to understand.

YES. AI can tell you why it made the decision. But you will not understand , nor will you be able to check, the answer.

Re: Nuclear Energy -- The Fuel of The Future

Not in this case. Two of those reactors (in Georgia. USA) are on the site of two older reactors. There are no protests nor NIMBY problems with these reactors, or the one in SC. This is a case of bad management, pure and simple, and the thought that they could pass cost overruns to the taxpayers. Anytime a pro-business Public Service Commission (the state government entity that allows the Southern Company, a parent company to Georgia Power, to charge customers instead of investors for power system expansion) starts approving charging the public for cost overruns, it sets up feed back mechanism to milk the taxpayer for BILLIONS extra in costs. Why come in on-time and in-budget when you can take an extra few years and get an extra few billion dollars from the taxpayers of Georgia? Methinks that they got lazy going for the extra billions, and let this one get away from them.

Re: Why are we creating bots and AI to combat fake news?

I'll tell you why: it is like all of the "fact checkers" run by newspapers. "Our impartial fact checker gave that story/quote 4 liar-liar-pants-on-fire"

They want to be able to say "Our impartial AI said that story is fake news".

Further, is a half truth fake or real? Is it fair to say, "illegal immigration brings rich diversity to our country" without saying "but costs us $120 billion dollars a year"? Both are real/true, but one without the other is a half truth.

So each side will produce its own AI to present it's factual side of the story, and anyone who doesn't agree with their impartial AI fake news detector will be wrong.

Re: Make something new

Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever... man that takes me back.

Re: Industrial policy versus science funding

"Science funding, on the other hand, should be broadly spread, because you can't predict the future results. If you can predict it, then the science is done and it turns into engineering. A side effect of Science funding is, of course, a population of creative and skilled scientists and engineers that might later go into profitable careers."

In an ideal world. sure. In the real world, it's not. Gov't money is invariably tied to expectations, and money is spread according to those expectations. Much of the time, you end up getting the science that you expect, with the same projects sucking up vast sums of money because of prevailing attitudes and expectations. And scientists tend to go where the money flows, and tries to give the expected results. A scientist has to eat too, after all.

Re: Guns + ammo, lack of electricity

and speaking of electricity, who is going to man the nuclear reactors? There are several in the state where "The Walking Dead" takes place.. one near Cartersville GA, one at Ga Tech (is that one still active?), one or several at the Savannah River Plant (military), two in south GA, and two more expected to come online in the near future, and one mothballed in the Dawson Forest, in Dawson county.

Re: Sudden crash coming again?

"The whole of the value is based on faith in people you probably can't trust (after all they're actively seeking an unregulated money transfer/launder)"

So, if I don't want the government or my CC company knowing (literally) every single thing I purchase, then I am seeking an unregulated money transfer or money laundering? I can't simply want to keep my business private? And If I want to deal with someone that only takes bitcoin, which of these two categories do I fall into? And if I am in, say, Venezuela, and I wanted to keep ANY wealth while my country is pissing away the economy, then I am money laundering?

You have reduced bitcoin to the realm of criminals, and missed the point entirely.

Re: Some people think it sounds crazy, some don't

That's not as crazy as it sounds. They could be making up press releases to expose who IS actually building one of these things, so they can hack them for the technology.