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Comment: Re:Apple and their lawyers were lucky (Score 5, Funny) 217

by pnot (#41945529) Attached to: UK Court Sanctions Apple For Non-Compliance

Seriously, if I were the judge I'd just up the stakes at this point. Something along the lines of

"You have proven yourselves incapable of modifying the front page of your website in compliance with the court order. To avoid any further misunderstandings or evasions, we are providing this 800x1200px PNG containing the exact text we wish you to display. Your site shall serve this up as the only content of the front page for the next week, or we'll begin seizing assets.

... oh, and it's in Comic Sans."

Comment: Here's a link to the paper (Score 5, Insightful) 345

by pnot (#41942161) Attached to: Climate Change Could Drive Coffee To Extinction By 2080

Here's the paper. What's the fucking point in open access if nobody bothers linking or reading the research?

Five links in the summary, NOT ONE OF THEM TO THE FUCKING PAPER THAT REPORTED THE RESEARCH. Naturally the Telegraph article doesn't link to it either. Apologies for shouting, but this really fucks me off. Yeah, I know, if I hit the fourth link in the summary, there's another link three screens down that page which would take me to the article. Whoopee.

Would it have killed The Telegraph, Hugh Pickens, or Timothy to do us this small courtesy? As it is, the Telegraph sensationalizes the abstract, Slashdot sensationalizes the inaccurate Telegraph article, and 1000 idiots then argue about completely irrelevant points suggested by free-association from the title, because they couldn't be arsed to read the summary.

Henceforth I shall be tagging these stories "wheresthefuckingpaper".

Sorry I'm so grumpy folks, haven't had my coffee yet :-). I'm off to read the paper now -- why not join me?

Comment: What about GeeksPhone and Jolla? (Score 4, Informative) 179

by pnot (#41941717) Attached to: Why You Can't Build Your Own Smartphone: Patents

GeeksPhone are doing pretty much what TFA claims is impossible. Why haven't they been sued? Too small to be worth the trouble? Jolla (50 employees) aren't exactly a behemoth either. OK, so Jolla haven't released anything yet and thus can't be sued, but the fact that the company was formed implies that they don't consider the 250,000 patents a problem. (Yeah, I know, not Android, but the same principles apply.)


Climate Change Could Drive Coffee To Extinction By 2080 345

Posted by timothy

Comment: Re:Be ashamed, /.ers (Score 1) 336

by pnot (#41915459) Attached to: Elon Musk Will Usher In the Era of Electric Cars

I think the reactions are mainly against the OTT fawning tone of the article and summary, spilling over into attacks on the man himself. I mean, I've nothing against Musk, but when I read

paradigm-shifting industry disruption... not just Steve Jobs but also John D. Rockefeller and Howard Hughes all wrapped in one... genius generalist with “huge steel balls”...

my gut reaction is oh FUCK OFF. However, I direct that at the writer rather than Musk. Musk could be a Jobs-level asshat for all I know or care -- I'm never likely to meet him -- but I heartily approve of what he's doing.

(aside to the writer: "all wrapped in one"? Wrapped in one what, cretin? Tarpaulin? XXL muumuu? Soft taco shell?)

Comment: Re:Eli-- (Score 1) 173

by pnot (#41901653) Attached to: David Braben Kickstarts an <em>Elite</em> Reboot

The strained relations between Braben and Bell seem to be connected with some things Braben did on F:FE, after which Bell made some uncomplimentary comments in this interview, after which Braben sued Bell for libel. The original issue does seem to be in part some kind of glory-claiming, but I neither know nor care who's in the right... who knows, perhaps they've kissed and made up by now.

Comment: Re:what is a mall takedown? (Score 2) 770

by pnot (#41793233) Attached to: Canadian Teenager Arrested For Photographing Mall Takedown

Yeah, I wondered that too. Initially I thought they were demolishing the mall, or something. But apparently he took a photo of the mall security tackling some other guy to the ground.

Now that everyone's got a phone camera, I can envisage more "knock-on" incidents like this. Just imagine if someone else had photographed this guy being taken down, at which point security would have to go for the person #3 as well... pretty soon you're going to run out of security guards. It's probably good if everyone gets into the habit of filming police takedowns, precisely in order to swamp their capability to punish such actions.

Comment: Re:"Stop Resisting" is the new LEO mantra. (Score 1) 770

by pnot (#41793197) Attached to: Canadian Teenager Arrested For Photographing Mall Takedown

Just don't move unless they tell you to move, is it that hard?

I think you're missing Jane Q. Public's point, which is that they shout "stop resisting" even if you are not moving, to give the impression that their violence is justified.

Of course, once there's more than one, they can employ the classic technique of stretching a pedestrian.

Comment: Re:It was funny in 1995 (Score 5, Interesting) 313

by pnot (#41791551) Attached to: Rare Photos: Gnu Crashing a Windows 8 Launch Event

Amen. I use Ubuntu and am happy (on a pragmatic level) to have a set-up that's maybe 98% free software. I would sooner punch myself in the nuts than switch to Trisquel, but I'm keenly aware that were it not for RMS's single-mindedness, I would probably be using a set-up that's 98% non-free (or, more likely, doing something entirely different because the world of computers wouldn't interest me as much).

Comment: Re:Great idea (Score 1) 63

by pnot (#41772307) Attached to: Red Hat Devs Working On ARM64 OpenJDK Port

For me the language is less important than the goal: Write Once Run Everywhere (& Test Everywhere, this is the real world after all).

Indeedy. But these days you can use the Java platform without using the Java language. Next time I'm writing something for the JRE, I'm going to give Scala a shot. (And if it's riddled with gotchas, I can always come back to Java...)

Comment: Re:yes it can (Score 1) 317

by pnot (#41746553) Attached to: Can Nokia Save Itself?


You and me and ten million others. But Elop won't allow that kind of sanity.

I've just figured out who Elop is: The Old Man of the Sea from the voyages of Sinbad. He hops on Nokia's shoulders, clamps on like a barnacle, and uses them like a bitch till they drop dead.
