* Posts by John Brown (no body)

25255 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010

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That emoji may not mean what you think it means

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

All the right words. Just not necessarily in the right order.

(With thanks to Eric Morcombe)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Too old and eyesight is too bad

That's one of the reasons I have *ALL* of the "assistive" features turned off on my phone, eg auto-complete and the like. It's a work phone and if I'm sending an SMS, email, whatever, it's often technical. "Helpful" spelling corrections or auto-completes are invariably wrong because the words or acronyms don't exist in the dictionary. I'm still trying to figure out how to turn of "auto emojii" in Teams and Whatsapp :-(

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Too bloody many

Or it will be, eventually, after you spend 20 minutes finding it that first time. :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: See every Mafia movie of the last 50 years for 1 answer.

I remember being confused watching a US film and a black guy called another black guy a coconut. I thought it was just some "in group" racist slang that someone of a different racial group would be slammed for using. I think it was a few years later I found out it was a huge insult for one black guy to say that to another black guy.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: "there are 3,633 emoji in the standard at time of writing"

Now that you mention it, I'm not sure where or when I last saw that icon for save/save as. I think it's been deprecated for some multiple other random pictograms that various designers think means "save" these days.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Confusing emojis

I once asked a colleague what an emojii in a message to me meant. He explained it to me. I replied "Obrigada". He said "what?" I said, "Thank you in Portugese". he said "why didn't you just say thankyou". I said, "if you sprinkle your conversation with random foreign "words" and expect me to understand, I'll do the same to you. He stopped using emojiis.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"My work environment is very multicultural and I've learned that what is inoffensive in Western culture can be *very* offsenive elsewhere. "

That works both ways.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: It's often just the facade of politeness

"And there's an EXTREMELY useful use case for emoji replies even of the perfunctory insincere type: If I reply with actual text then a normie feels obligated to reply with actual text and then I have to etc. etc. even though we're both already long done saying anything useful."

I find those conversations never quite get that far if, once the relevant information has been passed, my last and final response is simply "thanks" or "ta". I find people rarely reply after that. Although, annoyingly, if it's on teams, some people like to respond with a thumbs up button click which means my teams icon on the phone now has an alert on it so I have to clear that too. I suspect I'll have to reduce my final response on Teams chats to doing that thumbs up thing on the other persons last useful comment and hope that ends it. :-(

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: It's often just the facade of politeness

"a chat might go a bit further than a trite picture of a broken heart', yes if a family member died I might leave a sincere message, "

Not exactly emojii related, but similar, but was it David Cameron who famously thought LOL meant Lots Of Love and sent a message along the lines of "So sorry your mother died, LOL"

Big Tech bosses call for computer science to be taught in all US schools

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: The big tech firms leaders are unqualified to pontificate on what's needed in education.

"Proper use of language is very important, but you can't be good at programming just by being good at writing, and I'm sure he knew that."

Oh, I dunno. Writing a COBOL program can be a bit like writing a long-winded novel :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Don't teach them how to program!

"the school was just a large south london comprehensive."

Considering when comprehensive schools where invented, it must have been right on the cusp of calculators being easily available. My LEA switched from secondary/grammar to comprehensive the year I started secondary education and I had saved up and bought my own calculator by age 12 or 13. I also did GCE O level Computer Studies starting in 4th form and was in the first or possibly second year the course even existed. Since the school year ahead of me was still Grammar school, the whole ethos of the school was still based around that so few other schools in the area did CS.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: computer science and math

I agree :-)

People are describing what I would call "Computer Studies", or a more generic and all encompassing understanding of modern technology, how it works, how to use it and the basics of programming/scripting, ie user level stuff, the "reading/'riting/'rithmetic" of computing. Computer Science sounds a lot more off-putting to younger kids and has overtones of "nerds" at early teen school levels and, to me at least, is a maths and science heavy subject suited more for later specialism at a more mature age of 16/18+

I remember learning how to solve quadratic equations at school. It was part of maths, not a major component and I don't think I've ever had a use for that knowledge in the 40+ years since I learned it. At this stage of my life, I remember the term. I *might* recognise one if I saw it written down. School level education is full of stuff like that because one never knows who will be inspired, who will find it useful, who will go onto a career because they learned it. But most of us will "forget" much of what we learned at school simply through never ever needing to know about it in practical terms for the rest of our lives, never knowing if one day, just being aware that "it" exists might be useful and we can then look it up and refresh if needed.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Don't toss all the older IT folks into /dev/null (Windows users: That means trashcan)

"Everyone wants the shinny new CS grads"

I wonder how many of those 700,000 jobs annually actually need CS grads and not just people who can be taught on the job? Many people get university degrees and then use the fact of just having a degree to then go into a different field entirely. Do the applicants need a CS degree or just "a" degree. Or even a degree at all?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"Personally I think it's the "everyone should do everything" attitude that is the root of the problem. "

But if "everyone should do everything" is removed, who gets to decide who does what? What if the next Einstein or Hawking gets directed to needlework, arts and crafts instead of science and never finds out they have an aptitude for inventing the first FTL drive?

Give the youngest the basic, including social skills, the middle group some of everything and the oldest get to choose their areas of special interest. Pretty much how education works across much of the world now.

1.9m patient records exposed in healthcare debt collector ransomware attack

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Criminals hack criminals

"I am not sure what is to be gained out of stealing the details of people from a debt collection agency "

It could help with some very personal and targetted Facebook/other social media posts/adverts from "interested parties" during elections.

SCOTUS judges 'doxxed' after overturning Roe v Wade

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Privacy is mentioned nowhere in the US Constitution.

"Although Amendment IV does not explicitly contain the word "privacy", it does contain the very definition of the word "privacy"."

Exactly. These things are written by lawyers. Why use one word when a couple of dozen will do?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"It is also an (attempted or actual) intimidation of a state official, which is a direct attack on the independent judiciary as one of the pillars of modern liberal democracy."

While in the main correct, it also highlights to the people that matter that this data was NOT properly secured and easily accessible so that it could be published. The reason it was so easily accessible is because there are no strong punishments for those people holding the data insecurely in the first place and this sort of things happens to millions of people on a daily basis and maybe it's time to look into this.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Everything here is fine

...and they put the floating duck houses on expenses!

US EV drivers won't be able to choose vehicle safety alert sounds

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Welcome to the global toy store

I suspect that for "parked", they mean stopped, with the foot on the brake and the gear stick in Drive position. Not parked as in not planning to move, or even "parked" is in having a smooching session with the GF. This is a US oriented article so "parked" may be used differently to other English speaking speaking.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Also...

The "tarmac" screech"? Like in almost every US TV/Movie car chase scene, even on gravel or grass?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Take a cue from Cyril Kornbluth

Don't forget the fans in the dashboard for that authentic wind-in-the-hair speed sensation :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: "we can probably all agree"

"Think of the confusion dealing with a different sound could cause."

Not counting current EVs, there's a limited range of sounds from moving vehicles, whether that be whatever penis extension it was you just described or a Reliant Robin. If the variation is vastly expanded to various musical clips etc then that's a whole other ball game. :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: "we can probably all agree"

"So how about we let the manufacturers set something reasonable "

From the article, it's clear that the manufactures preference is to allow customers to choose their own sound because "one size doesn't fit all" and (probably marketing) think different sounds for make, model, trim level and even year of manufacture (FFS!) should be different for every possible variation. With that in mind, do you really think the manufacturers are capable of coming up with a "reasonable" solution?

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Richer sounds?

"I guess it'll take a while for us to adjust to the idea of whiney motors indicating drama and excitement rather than just thinking it'll be a short chase due to range restrictions."

Even now, with much of the world using digital TV and/or video, some productions still use the "snow" effect on screens with no signal for "dramatic effect" or obvious analogue signal break-up for weak signals :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"as loud as a fighter jet doing five hundred or so knots a couple of hundred metres away"

At 500knts it's moved quite a distance in 1-2 seconds, ie nearly 260 metres per second, so possibly not really all that relevant to ground vehicles in an urban environment :-)

Smart thermostat swarms are straining the US grid

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: "why not rev up ready for it"

"You talking about the UK or Florida??"

All this panic over a few warm days in the UK, LOL Must be the kids, too young to remember 1976 :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"The paper is observing that if the peak was lower, by having a little more randomness in the demand, there would be fewer problems supplying the overall demand as it would be spread over a greater period of time."

That's true, but they are framing it like this is a revelation to the power companies. The power companies already know. They may not know precisely *why* it's happening, but they know it's happening and can account for it. On the other hand, as you say, it could be spread out more but that's really a public education thing, which the power companies might like to get involved in, but I suspect it would, in reality, end up with most[*] people thinking, "ah fuck it, I'll just add 'n' minutes to the timer". Most people will almost certainly add 1-5 mins, not actually making much of a difference. A real solution would be for "smart" home devices such as thermostats actually be smart and talk to others in the neighbourhood or the power company and negotiate a time around about when the user wants it on and come on sooner or later by some minutes.

[*] "most" being of those who even give it a thought, that is. There'll be plenty who think it doesn't apply to them or don't care, or assume others will do something. And, being the USA, there'll be a certain percentage who say something along the lines of "Muh FREEDOM!!! BigGuv/BigCorp ain't telling ME when I can turn on muh heat!!!"

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Great if you want to hand out free cash!

The DD is supposed be the average monthly cost of your expected usage over the next 12 months or whatever, but is usually set at a level that leaves you with significant overpayment at the end. Theoretically, the smart meter should be giving them better data to set the DD at a more realistic level. But why would they when they can hold onto £millions in overpayments, especially across the summer and collect the interest on it.

I've always found a quick phone call sorts out the high level DD proposed and get it back to a realistic level leaving me with a small overpayment come the next re-assessment. If it's over £50 I ask for it back and it's normally in my account before the next DD goes out.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Great if you want to hand out free cash!

!I've had reasonable success with going back and saying "here's my usage over the last year/2years using your current pricing - you can see our monthly usage averages at x/month, so the DD should be reduced to that".

I've never bothered with all that. I just phone them up and complain they put it up too much and every time the person on the other end agrees and puts it back down again. No muss, no fuss, no "proving" my usage. It's just the "computer" sets a rate and it's always in their favour. I suspect it will be a bit different this year though when the next price negotiation comes around :-(

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"if not worse than the long-lived things they have replaced."

I suspect that is the most salient point in the long run. A cheap electromechanical thermostat, maybe with a basic timer, probably lasts decades and more than "pays for itself" in carbon costs. Fancy modern "smart" thermostat, lucky if it lasts 5 years due to either electronics failure or the "smart" host going under or being deprecated and all the barely recyclable e-waste it generates over the decades the old style one will last.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Thumb Up

"capable of? I'd read advertised as capable of, I doubt any smart thermostat would ever save you that much unless you previously never set a schedule.."

Two words. Up to. :-)

UK government extends review of BT stake owned by French tycoon Patrick Drahi

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Chair polishers

True. But we were in the EU then and the relevant Act didn't exist.

Behold: The first images snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: yeah, and there's

Uh huh!

Another tech giant changes course on hiring – this time it’s Google

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

The stockmarket still confuses me!

"Shares of Google parent company Alphabet are down 21 percent this year while year-on-year Q1 2022 [PDF] revenue saw 23 percent growth – a slowdown from the 34 percent year-on-year growth seen in Q1 2021."

Revenues "only" up 23% instead of like last years 34% (pandemic effect), so shares drop 21%. It's madness!

Twitter sues Musk: He can't just 'change his mind, trash the company, walk away'

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Musk and Twitter both in the firing line?

"What could be better?"

Adding Trump into the mix :-)

I hear Trump has bad mouthed Musk over this and Musk had a public fit over it. Bearing in mind one of Musks aims on buying Twitter was to re-instate Trumps account (and likely donate to Trumps political aspirations).

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: What if Twitter were holed below the waterline

Hey, don't bad mouth Bad Robot. They've made some decent films and TV shows :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Musk's tweets

"He's kind of the textbook definition of "smug" and "smarmy". Seeing him get his comeuppance would be sweet to behold!""

True, but it'd be a shame if these shenanigans affect SpaceX :-/

FTC suddenly gets very stern about not-really-anonymized anonymized data

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Excpect the Supreme Court ruling that the FTC can't regulate that...

"Private citizens also owned armed warships, cannon, and fortresses."

That would be the eras equivalents of Musk, Buffet, Bezos, etc, ie a very few of the super-rich. Certainly not the average citizen. And even then, I doubt the framers thought of those few people as being part of a "well regulated militia" but felt it best not to legislate against them (or might even have been part of the "club" themselves)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Interesting voting pattern. Different wording might have reversed the pattern.

I downvoted you anyway for the way you brought your personal opinion into something that could have been worded neutrally and avoided the controversy while still making a good point.

Lenovo issues firmware updates after UEFI vulnerabilities disclosed

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

For any who don't already know...

...go here (https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/gb/en/) end enter your serial number and then go to the driver & software section. The auto download will find all drivers and firmware updates and install them using their app which will be/can be downloaded, or manually update from the list of available updates. Lenovo may be as shonky as most OEMs, but they do provide pretty much everything you might need to update or repair their kit yourself in terms of drivers and documentation, something I find certain other brands are a lot more reticent about.

(You may need to click the national flag at top right to select your local country)

Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Reciva Radios

Agreed. Much of what we get with DAB could already be done with FM. The "promise" of DAB was better and more features as well as better quality and more channels in the same amount of bandwidth. Then the beancounters figured out that lower bitrates in mono instead of stereo meant many more lower quality channels in the space we could have had many good quality channels. The relatively slow roll-out to a decent level of coverage hasn't helped either. I'd say the biggest problems with DAB are:

1. The way it's used by the broadcasters

2. The poor roll-out.

3. The lack of of an upgrade path to DAB+

FYI: BMW puts heated seats, other features behind paywall

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

You have a point, but I think it will very much depend on the uptake of the many and varied subscriptions for the various features. There will be a breakeven threshold and if it's not met, it could cost them a pretty penny. I suspect that's why they are trying it out in SK. They love their gadgets there.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"Most cars (in the UK at least) aren't bought any more. People just pay a monthly fee for 3 or 4 years then return the car."

At least until all those "smart young things", renting everything, owning nothing, start approaching pension age and suddenly realise they should have been paying into their pension pot, not renting heated seats and will not have a car once the pension kicks in and the salary stops, and now can't afford 90% of the "stuff" they've been renting all their lives.

That's probably be the next "pensions crisis".

These centrifugal moon towers could be key to life off-planet

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

The baby is "floating" in the amniotic sack through the gestation period. The mother, on the other hand, may never float in water until the baby is due and thus be subject to 1g throughout the pregnancy. Once baby is born, it also is subject to 1g, so the birthing pool has no effect other than whatever benefits the mother gets at that time.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: Nice

"Futurologist" seems to be a job title these days. I think it's what people who want to be SF authors end up doing when they find they can't write for toffee :-)

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Unless, of course, without their human overlords directing their every action, they evolve into something "better" and go off to colonise the universe, wiping out any threats to their ever growing expansion. It'll just be a different civilisation to the one we would normally envisage for ourselves, not an ending.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge
Joke

I'm also a bit concerned, as per the article, about the lack of research on children spending extended periods in low or micro gravity. I think we need to start sending children to space ASAP to see what effect it has on them. Maybe ask their parents if it's ok too. I'm sure the various ethics committees will be fine with this.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: And the first meteor strike

Meteors? I'd be more worried about worn bearings and everything juddering to a halt, possibly abruptly and catastrophically!. Not to mention the many, many other structural and engineering issues in just building it, never mind creating or shipping the millions of tons of materials needed to build it.

Meta asks line managers to identify poorly performing staff for firing

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

Re: That’s quick

Naturally! Any manager not "working" remotely while on holiday/vacation is clearly not a suitable "fit" for Facebook.

John Brown (no body) Silver badge

"Whilst not defending Metazuckbook, isn't it pretty standard practice to lay off rubbish staff?"

Being in the 10% or whatever lower performers doesn't mean you can't do your job. If you keep culling the lowest performers, eventually you are going to be culling good people, no matter how big the org.

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