* Posts by ratfox

3721 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2007

Two fool for school: Headmaster, vice principal busted for mining crypto-coins in dorms, classrooms

ratfox

Re: 2K in bills

I read that the current Bitcoin price of $6000 is just above the average cost to mine one.

Of course, that depends a lot on how much you pay for electricity. The fact that miners are agressively looking into places where power is cheap is a pretty solid hint that they don't get a huge margin.

European Union divided over tax on digital tech giants as some member states refuse free money

ratfox

As far as I understand, services such as those sold by Google and Facebook (though not Amazon) are zero-rated. If some French company pays Facebook Ireland for an ad, Facebook does not charge for VAT at all, and the French company pays the French VAT rate to France.

Dutch cops hope to cuff 'hundreds' of suspects after snatching server, snooping on 250,000+ encrypted chat texts

ratfox
Black Helicopters

Looks like the plod should directly create the "secure" chat systems themselves, and advertise it to criminals.

Maybe they did already!

Has science gone too far? Now boffins dream of shining gigantic laser pointer into space to get aliens' attention

ratfox
Alien

https://imgur.com/gallery/a9Wqj

Humans! Please don't send us any more unsolicited nude pics with instructions on how to get to your house. It's creepy.

Sincerely,

The Aliens.

Google: All right, screw it, from this Christmas, Chrome will block ALL adverts on dodgy sites

ratfox
Paris Hilton

Re: Still worse than an ad blocker (by design)

I much preferred the internet back when websites either ran off donations or where the person running the website accepted that their hobby was going to cost them money [...] Websites had a value then [...] none of the shit we see today. Ads are not keeping sites free to view because those sites could never survive as pay to view because people wouldn't pay, they would find something else to do.

You realize you are writing this on a website which is kept alive by ads, right?

ratfox

Re: Eliminate the competition

Yeah, I'm thinking that they have balls of steel to make that move when they seem to have such an obvious conflict of interest. It probably feels insignificant to them, but I hope their lawyers are ready for the lawsuits.

Supreme Court tells Big Cable to shut up for once: Net neutrality challenge shot down

ratfox
Pint

Beer enthusiast

Now that's an epithet I can agree with. Good job!

Tata on trial: Outsourcer 'discriminated' against non-Asian workers, claim American staff

ratfox

Hmmm... It's not like Indian IT workers are rare; on the top of my head the CEO of Google and Microsoft both come from India, and they have a significant number of Indian employees as well...

But to get numbers like those of Tata? It's hard to say that's random. I'm sure that Indians are way more likely than Americans to seek employment with Tata, There's only so much that you can explain by Americans refusing to apply. Is it allowed to only advertise for jobs in India?

Android fans get fat November security patch bundle – if the networks or mobe makers are kind enough to let 'em have it

ratfox
Happy

Apple, a phone and watch seller known to dabble in personal computers every couple years

Nice one

DBA drifts into legend after inventive server convo leaves colleagues fearing for their lives

ratfox

Ctrl+Alt+Del works immediately

This revolution will not be televised – but it will be sanctioned: Googlers walk out over 'sex pest' executive scandals

ratfox

Re: Which is worse?

I guess the novelty lighter is somewhat similar to having a Playboy centerfold taped next to your desk. Technically, it's not hurting anybody, yet in many corporate culture it's obviously inappropriate, and you shouldn't even need somebody to explicitly complain about it to know that.

Supreme Court raises eyebrows at Google's cozy $8.5m legal deal

ratfox

Re: Original judge

If the damages were only $0.04/person, then lawyers should make no more than what each damaged person did.

The problem is that in that case, there's going to be no lawyer who will work on such a lawsuit.

The entire point of class action lawsuits like this one is to hold companies accountable for misdoings that are a relatively small inconvenience to a large amount of people. Without this system, there is nothing stopping the large corporations from polluting quality of life at a global level, because it is not worth it for any single individual to raise the issue.

The point is making the guilty party pay an amount proportional to the total damage they have done, to deter them from doing it again. Compensating the class members is purely secondary.

ratfox

Re: @El Reg Your ANTIFA t-shirt is showing...

I'm not going to go into whether Kavanaugh lied or not, but it was indeed entirely irrelevant to the rest of the article and felt out of place.

'Privacy is a human right': Big cheese Sat-Nad lays out Microsoft's stall at Future Decoded

ratfox
Devil

"Privacy is a human right"

Hmmm... I anticipate this can and will be used against Microsoft.

This one weird trick turns your Google Home Hub into a doorstop

ratfox

Re: chromecast based

The Chromecast allows anybody who is on the same wifi network to give it orders. If you give your wifi password to guests, they can set what music is playing.

For a Chromecast, it's a feature. For a home hub?

EU Android latest: Critics diss Google's money-spinning 'cure'

ratfox
Boffin

Re: Monopolist Often Don't...

MS makes profits selling things to users, and that's a consistently good business model.

I think you mean, MS makes profits selling things to businesses. This is the area where they have a huge advantage over Google, whose business offerings are often lacking.

ratfox
Happy

Logically, considering how cutthroat the competition is between phone makers, this might well have been reflected on the price of the phones. So you can send Google a thank you note for your phones having been cheaper than iPhones.

ratfox

That I understand, the original finding was that Google had abused of their power over the Play store to force makers put Chrome on every mobile phone. And now, according to this lawyer, they are abusing of their power to charge money.

I suppose that if the EU agree, they could simply order Google to distribute all their apps free, separately and without conditions.

New Forum Wishlist - but read roadmap first

ratfox
Pint

I understand that there's no icons on the mobile version of the website, and apparently no way to edit posts either. I understand that it's tricky to do these things right and it may be a lot of work to just port a feature from the desktop to the mobile version.

What I don't understand is why requesting the desktop version on my mobile phone does not simply give me the desktop version. There are sometimes technical reasons why a desktop version would not work on a mobile phone, such as using Flash or WebGL, but surely that's not the case here?

Beer icon, because I can.

Amazon's neural net offer to border cops, Waymo charges fares, the first AI portrait sold at auction, and more

ratfox

matched them against a list of innocent US congress members.

- Now that's an oxymoron

- I think you mean alleged innocent

- FAKE NEWS

- Trust the AI, throw them in jail just to be sure

Etc. etc.

Official: IBM to gobble Red Hat for $34bn – yes, the enterprise Linux biz

ratfox

$34B? I was going to say this is the biggest tech acquisition ever, but it's second after Dell buying EMC. I'm not too sure what IBM is going to do with that, but congrats to whoever is getting the money...

Florida man won't be compelled to reveal iPhone passcode, yet

ratfox

What could possibly be the file that they want to access so much, and why is it relevant to a car accident?

'BMW, Airbus and Siemens' get the Brexit spending shakes

ratfox

To be fair, if the separation goes on well, all this delayed spending will go down at the same time, bringing an excellent year.

If the separation goes badly, of course it's another thing...

ratfox

Re: BMW and Airbus have more to worry about...

I doubt that European countries are going to kick out British citizens. However, I wouldn't be surprised if UK kicked out EU citizens. That I understand, they've already started sending nasty letters to warn them they may be losing their right to reside in the UK.

If you saw a Google ad recently, know that it helped pay off one of its 'sex pest' execs $90m

ratfox

Re: different rules

SHE gets screwed and HE gets the pay off

She got screwed and he got fired. The $90 millions was just the payment required to make him leave quietly without the $150 millions he had expected to receive over the next few years.

Science: Broke brats glued to the web while silk-stocking scions have better things to do

ratfox
Angel

Re: Buzzwords...

Generation poop emoji

So, about that Google tax on Android makers in the EU – report pegs it at up to $40 per phone

ratfox
Devil

Re: Somehow I think the EU is going to reject this "remedy"

Considering both are free on the web, I'm not sure why you need them built into your phone at all - certainly not why you should pay $40 to get them as an app instead of bookmark.

Well then I guess the phone makers won't have to pay Google $40. Problem solved. What are people complaining about?

ratfox
Holmes

Re: Somehow I think the EU is going to reject this "remedy"

they've defined the business case for a competitor to come in and provide equivalent services (even down to the API level - fair use, right?). That competitor can say, "here's equivalent services, minus the data slurp, for $30"

The things that they are charging $40 for include YouTube and Google Maps. You can provide an equivalent API, but good luck providing equivalent data behind the API.

ratfox
Paris Hilton

What I find weird is that all of these apps are available for free, and yet Google thinks that phone makers are willing to pay them $40 to have them pre-installed. Which kind of implies that users will choose a phone that is $40 more expensive rather than just installing those apps themselves. Which takes like 5 minutes, tops.

Another interesting thing is that Google has been apparently sharing ad revenue with the phone manufacturers. I wonder if they do that with Apple, or if they just pay the reported $9B and keep the ad revenue?

London flatmate (Julian Assange) sues landlord (government of Ecuador) in human rights spat

ratfox

Apparently our six toed alleged rapist never learned that very important lesson

I feel myself compelled to correct you: Assange does not have six toes, or six fingers. The rumor may have been started by a heavily modified picture of him that was sometimes used by the reg.

Facebook names former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg head of global affairs

ratfox

I always knew he would make it big! /trollface

(Why can't I have an icon on mobile?? Even requesting for the desktop version doesn't work)

Anonymous Amazonian demands withdrawal of face-recog kit from sale

ratfox
Devil

Ha ha no

Employee activism might be a thing at Google and Facebook, but Amazon (or say Apple) are not that kind of companies.

Sure, Europe. Here's our Android suite without Search, Chrome apps. Now pay the Google tax

ratfox
Angel

Re: Ignore and continue as usual

According to reports, Google pays nine billion dollars to Apple, every year, just to be the default search engine on iPhones. If that is true, then a one-time fine for half that amount for whatever they did wrong with Android seems like something they would take in stride.

ratfox

Re: Or the fourth option...

I suspect that it would be very easy for regulators to do nothing. There's a billion Android phones in China that don't have Google, and it wouldn't take that much time to build replacements. Of course, users would complain and companies would lose money, but they would all blame Google. And then Google would lose the market.

Google apps are good; they're often the best. But the competition does exist, and is ready to take over if they stumble.

Tech hub blames tech: San Francisco fingers Uber, Lyft rides for its growing traffic headache

ratfox

Re: Just using Uber and Lyft as whipping boys

All these "TNC" trips would still be happening if the TNCs didn't exist. Except now, they would be in private cars or taxis.

Not quite... These trips are arguably easier to do now, and more attractive than in a taxi. Logic of supply and demand implies that people do more trips than before.

And I don't agree with the idea that mass transportation in San Francisco is that bad.

Depends what you compare it to, but it's getting worse. The whole region should be trying to solve the traffic problem, but by and large nothing is happening.

Azure goes quiet, Huawei Canada ban urged, US Senators are after Google, and more

ratfox

a colonel makes $78,000-$100,000 base pay a year

To be honest, I'm surprised by how low this is. Don't colonel have a rank just below general, and are supposed to lead about a thousand people?

GDPR stands for Google Doing Positively, Regardless. Webpage trackers down in Europe – except Big G's

ratfox

It's not so surprising. This kind of regulations are typically more expensive for the small guys than the huge incumbents.

I find your lack of faith disturbing, IBM: Big Blue fires photon torpedo at Pentagon JEDI cloud contract

ratfox

Re: “IBM knows what it takes to build a world-class cloud.”

At least Google had the decency to admit they were not able to do it, instead of whining it was not fair to award the contract to the most competent company...

Surprising no one, Google to appeal against European Commission's €4.34bn Android fine

ratfox

Re: "Google may reportedly pay Apple $9bn to ensure it is the default search engine in the iPhone"

When you compare the fine to the yearly bill they get from Apple, it starts to look as just the cost of doing business...

Pixel 3, 3XL, Slate tab launch: Google emits swanky iPad botherer while tarting up mobes

ratfox

Re: "no expansion" = more environmental damage

The problem is that this kind of modularity goes directly against consumers' luxury wishes for sleeker designs/no bezels/watertight. It's like asking Ferrari cars to have a trailer hook.

That said, there's a lot of Android models with expandable storage.

High Court of England and Wales blocks iPhone Safari privacy suit against Google

ratfox
Paris Hilton

Not suffered damage?

Did he just say that they couldn't get money from Google because they didn't really care about the loss of privacy?

Self-driving cars may not have steering wheels in future, dev preview for PyTorch 1.0 is here, etc

ratfox

Re: No wheel is one thing

This would be madness, as it's highly likely to exclude all other road users (motorcycles, bikes, horses, pedestrians, non-self driving cars, etc)

A lot of those are already forbidden on highways, so I'm not sure that's a great argument.

So aircraft regularly fly within a few feet of each other going in opposite directions do they or are in situations where literally being a few inches out could cause a crash?

You have to take into account the fact that aircrafts go ten times faster and can be fifty times larger.

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

ratfox
Trollface

Re: Newspapers making big deal of 1st woman for over 50 years

Yeah, you give them a finger, and suddenly they want the whole arm, right? As if they had equal rights or something...

Screwed SAP salesman scores $660,000 jury award

ratfox
Flame

Only $7200 for emotional distress? The way I see it, if I'm forced to sue to get what's mine from a previous employer, I should get at least a six-digits sum for emotional distress.

The ink's not dry on California'a new net neutrality law and the US govt is already suing

ratfox
Unhappy

Re: I don't see how the feds win this

If only it was easy to know what's legal and what's not legal. It looks like they specifically tried to make the law immune to lawsuits from the federal government, but I suppose the Department of Justice wouldn't start such a lawsuit if they thought they have no way to win.

I find terribly annoying that it takes months if not years of legal posturing and appeals to get answers.

US JEDI military cloud network is so high-tech, bidders will have to submit their proposals by hand, on DVD

ratfox
Trollface

Re: So... how is this old fashioned?

The proposal should also be hand-written, to allow our graphology experts to determine your profile.

Renegade 3D-printing gunsmith Cody Wilson on the run in Taipei from child sex allegations

ratfox
Black Helicopters

Conspiracy theories coming in 3... 2... 1...

Apple hands €14.3bn in back taxes to reluctant Ireland

ratfox

4.77M in the Republic, 6.58M on the entire island.

'Men only' job ad posts land Facebook in boiling hot water with ACLU

ratfox
Alert

Re: I think some people might have missed something...

Equality is primarily about opportunity.

Yes... But I'm going to follow attentively the case, because I think it's a bit tricky.

The law probably says that you cannot discriminate by gender at hiring, but I'm not sure this extends to how to spend ad dollars.

It's a fact that for multiple reasons, from social pressure to harassment, there are far fewer women looking for IT jobs than men. It doesn't need to be so, and it may well change in the future, but at this moment, it is so. Which means that advertising to women has a smaller ROI (and marketing is all about optimizing the ROI).

To make a comparison, it's probably illegal to discriminate by origin when hiring. That doesn't mean that when putting an ad for a job in the local newspaper, you need to also place an ad in every local newspaper in the country, even the most remote, just in case there's someone there who would want to move.

ratfox
WTF?

Re: In the current environment, women are too much of a business risk..

Given that women

* Are the overwhelming majority of sexual harassment complainants

Yeah, how dare women complain more than men about sexual harassment.

I also noticed, it's always the Jews who complain about antisemitism.