Root Access

bertieb

12:00 AM

Even still, they're looking better than they have done in the past...

Michael Frank

12:29 AM

@DavidPostill Screw that! Slash and burn, left and right! Show no mercy lest the xenos gain any foothold!

bertieb

12:47 AM

Does anyone else use the teamfreehugs SE Inbox Reader dealie?

2

Q: Inbox Reader - Reads your inbox

Screenshot About It reads your inbox License Inbox Reader is released under the Apache License 2.0. Download You can download Inbox Reader here: http://teamfreehugs.github.io/stackexchange/inboxreader/clean.html Contact I can be reached at eyeballcode@gmail.com. Code Inbox Reader is w...

I've had a tab open in Firefox for mine for ~~centuries~~ ~~decades~~ ~~years~~ many moons, and now it seems to only show a small number of entries

Last update to GH repo in 2015, so I wonder what has changed

Bob

"X is unsupported, use the standard Y"

"Y is unsupported"

.-.

Journeyman Geek

1:10 AM

@bertieb ehh. polite feedback is always good.

@bertieb there's some major UI theming system changes to SE going on

and stuff's been breaking

bertieb

I'll keep up the polite feedback, but will try to keep it on the feedback side rather than diktats :-P

Ahh

I figured the backend (json/whatever) feeding it would be the same

But if they're the kind of changes to run deep...

allquixotic

Well, Bitdefender Agent (the core of BitDefender) keeps crashing every few minutes on my desktop... I suspect a code/DLL/etc. error rather than being hacked, but I'm going to attempt an out-of-band scan to make sure

Journeyman Geek

0_0

allquixotic

1:32 AM

I'm really glad Shog and the community generally liked my meta.SE question of late -- I don't expect any short-term changes, but I imagine when they next assign a dev to touch the spam filtering, rate limiting or auto-banning code, they'll further de-emphasize IP address as a factor in determining whether to rate limit or auto-ban

most of that code's behavior is not publicly known, either, which means I won't even necessarily hear about it when the changes are made

Michael Frank

1:45 AM

@allquixotic You'll just have to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment when you see the blog post about how "Our spam filters are now much better."

Bob

@MichaelFrank pride and accomplishment*

Michael Frank

That's what I said. >.>

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic probably even if they did

the spam/quality filters are intentionally a black box in many ways

Bob

bertieb

↑ He knows what you did ~~last summer~~ a few minutes ago

bwDraco

1:53 AM

arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/…

Uber... is playing dirty at every stage. I will never give them my business. If and when I need a ridesharing service, it's Lyft.

Stealing trade secrets, then trying to suppress the facts in court. Uber is the most unashamedly immoral and unethical company I've seen since Enron.

allquixotic

@bwDraco don't insult Enron like that

bertieb

Off to bed but before I forget @bwDraco exa in #darktable came up with the idea of trying HDR program a go (or something like Hugin) to match colour balance across a sequence of images

The advantage potentially being multiple control points

I know you've got your workflow and are probably pretty happy with it, but if you're experimenting in the future might be an area worth exploring if you haven't already!

allquixotic

wow, Java JARs take a rather long time for Bitdefender to scan... seconds compared to milliseconds for most (even big) files

Bob

@bwDraco *3 years later* "Lyft... is playing dirty at every stage. I will never give them my business. If and when I need a ridesharing service, it's <insert-new-service>."

bwDraco

Was evaluating switching to Darktable (which would me put the full power of Astaroth to use with GPU acceleration) but it would require me to completely rethink my workflow.

Bob

1:59 AM

@allquixotic SEP increases copy time for a big Eclipse workspace (>1,000,000 files) from a few minutes to many hours

allquixotic

SEP? ... acronym overload :S Secure Enclave Processor? no?

bertieb

Somebody Else's Problem :P

Bob

@allquixotic Symantec Endpoint Protection

bwDraco

lol

allquixotic

I wonder what virus scanners do to analyze JARs? obviously they have to deflate the archive, but then what? simulate the bytecode?

Bob

2:01 AM

was gonna answer this last night but ... forgot

0

A: Firefox "this connection is not secure" for login form

they say the login is very well submitted encrypted That's not good enough. It doesn't matter if the login form is submitted to a HTTPS destination if the page the login form is shown on is not itself encrypted. I believe this is what you are seeing: Login form is displayed on a HTTP si...

bertieb

I'm not sure how well darktable does the colour matching stuff across photos, but I've used it a little as a Lightroom-alike on Linux; it seems amenable to some amounts of automation but there's probably a relatively high cost to switching as you say, given that you're happy with your workflow

bwDraco

No company is perfect, but Uber is a very bad company.

Bob

I've lost track of how many times I've seen site operators blame firefox for those warnings

(granted, they could be a bit less intrusive)

bertieb

(I just happen to idle in #darktable for similar reasons to leaving a browser tab open... I was in there before and haven't /close-d yet)

Actually off to bed now before my neck seizes up fully, my eyes fall out and my head crashes to the desk o/

bwDraco

rofl

Still at work, be back later.

Michael Frank

2:25 AM

@Bob Wasn't there that Pacific Oil and Gas company that outright demanded that Firefox remove the message from their website?

Ahh, here is it: bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/…

Bob

@MichaelFrank Yup.

@MichaelFrank I remember that. Also, that logo hurts my eyes.

@MichaelFrank I remember when that bug was publicly viewable :(

Michael Frank

Yea, I'm pretty sure I sure it publicly as well.

It looks like their website has stepped up security since then though.

Journeyman Geek

adding https to a (small) site is trivial ._.

Bob

@MichaelFrank "looks like", read: "we've slapped quick fixes on the most glaring ones but ignored the rest"

Michael Frank

That's probably why the logo looks terrible.

Actually, even without being stretched it's still quite terrible.

Bob

2:43 AM

@MichaelFrank reddit.com/r/programming/comments/60jc69/…

they ... had both an FTP server and SMB share exposed to the internet

ouch

Michael Frank

Ha, I saw a similar post on /r/sysadmin

Oooh, nonononono.

Journeyman Geek

Just watched the spaceX launch.... maaaan

allquixotic

3:17 AM

@bwDraco I put in an order for a pair of PXC 550s. Returned my Beats Studio3 Wireless. Keeping the Beats Solo3 Wireless because aside from no ANC, they're the best headphones I own (great sound quality, not overdone bass, very lightweight, comfortable to wear all day, over 40 hours of battery life) but I still need something as good (aside from battery life) that's also got ANC. The Studio3 hurt my ears.

hope the range is sufficient...

allquixotic

3:39 AM

cs.cmu.edu/%7Etom7/abc/paper.pdf

Michael Frank

@allquixotic umm...

cool?

bwDraco

@allquixotic Congratulations. You won't regret it.

@allquixotic Some quick testing... got me about 60-70 ft in an area with very busy RF activity before it dropped.

I'd need to perform more formal testing, though. This was with my phone on the scorers table and across the stands at a basketball court.

Bob

@allquixotic Plantronics? :P

bwDraco

@Bob Sennheiser.

Bob

@bwDraco I know what the he got. It's just become a bit of a running joke.

bwDraco

3:51 AM

lol

Bob

But hey, at least I have aptX LL ... which no hosts use :S

bwDraco

@allquixotic, how much range do you need?

It is distinctly better than my Plantronics Voyager Legend headset, which starts dropping out at about 50 ft.

Bob

@bwDraco That one isn't specced as class 1

bwDraco

On second thought... I think I got the equivalent of 100-120 ft of range on my PXC 550.

Bob

~10m is standard for class 2

50-100m LoS is expected for class 1

bwDraco

3:57 AM

PXC 550 is Class 1, with 10 mW power according to the manual.

Feb 1 at 19:24, by bwDraco

I'm expecting 30-50m with unobstructed line of sight.

(and aptX is more robust with marginal signals than SBC; the signal drop was quite abrupt, unlike with my Voyager Legend)

Bob

Ya, these claim the full 100m but I've not found time to test it yet

bwDraco

Sharper cliff effect points to stronger ECC, improving performance where the signal is weak, but with a rapid dropoff once the SNR gets too low.

Bob

@allquixotic O_O

. For good  reasons that  I will  explain later, this  paper must  be 20
. pages long.

... some ways later

- Specify a much larger than usual "pages in header" (0x2020 * 16 =
.     131kb). Since the header isn’t loaded into memory, it doesn’t count
.     against the program’s memory needs. A really big header also gives
.     us space to store the paper. You’re looking at part of the "header"
.     right now.

O_O

bwDraco

Or it could just be the headphones, not the codec.

allquixotic

4:16 AM

wtf, C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Platform contains no files

I have no Windows Defender antivirus on my system at all

sfc and dism show nothing wrong

Journeyman Geek

4:40 AM

0_0

Bob

5:16 AM

5

Q: What is "DON'T PANIC" a reference to on the dashboard of Elon Musk's car?

SpaceX recently launched the Falcon Heavy into space while carrying Elon Musk's car to be sent into orbit around Mars. (News article reference) During the launch, footage was shown of a space suit wearing mannequin in the front seat of the Tesla, while earth is visible in the background. As yo...

quotes reference

Heh.

APL is not a golfing language, but rather an array-oriented language which allows interactive development of full-stack multi-paradigm applications with industrial strength. — Adám 17 hours ago

@Adám: Bingo. — Eric Duminil 17 hours ago

Journeyman Geek

@Bob that felt a lot like a gratuitous attempt to HNQ

user226528

5:35 AM

Hi, guys.

user226528

My WSUS is downloading one giant Windows Defender definition update, size 700 MB+. Does anyone have something similar on his or her side?

allquixotic

@FleetCommand usually it only downloads that big if it's never downloaded a definition file before, or if it's been years since the last one

Michael Frank

Maybe a reseed?

allquixotic

IIRC the incrementals are tiny

user226528

@allquixotic Even a full cumulative set of definition updates isn't that big.

user226528

5:46 AM

See this: go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=121721&arch=x64

user226528

The update size is 116 MB.

user226528

This doesn't make any sense. BITS is currently set to download ten files: a 44 MB, a 43 MB, a 14 MB, and the rest are small potatoes.

user226528

That's nowhere near 700+ MB.

user226528

Oh, God. The most freaky thing just happened: A Windows 8.1 computer with no network connection whatsoever has started to install 180 updates.

allquixotic

6:10 AM

I've had quite a few freaky things happening on my home network of late, too, though almost assuredly unrelated

Bob

6:24 AM

-7

A: Why is Voyager 1 approaching Earth?

...and we all know with 100% confidence tis they that pay attention most who are able to regurgitate best and therefore rewarded most highest honor roll. And the award goes to "image", with an A+ for the correct retelling of stories told in school. The blue planet indeed. clap clap clap – cla...

@_@

how on earth did that get upvoted

DavidPostill

8:32 AM

@allquixotic I don't even have a Platform directory in that tree. I don't run defender any more, there are some files in that tree.

allquixotic

8:46 AM

@DavidPostill upgrading my Windows build to the Insider Slow ring fixed the problem (I guess when it overlays the new OS over your existing one, it restores a lot of stuff to factory settings)

DavidPostill

ah. I'm happy I'm not running Windows 10 yet ;)

allquixotic

@Bob github.com/bitwarden - Bitwarden - FOSS password manager with modern browser extensions, iOS and Android apps, TOTP support, and the ability to either host on your own infrastructure or on their own "vault" centralized server for $10/year (even then, you can export your data to CSV and put it somewhere safe from ransomware)

Written in C# / .NET Core and really good cross-platform

dunno if you previously mentioned to me or if I'm just now discovering this (among our little group here) but it looks promising

Bob

@allquixotic same question as always: "why?"

tbh I don't really like this fragmentation of password managers

I mean, it's nothing that can't be done with KeePass + plugins

so what's the benefit of Yet Another Password Manager (Format)?

allquixotic

9:04 AM

@Bob the Keepass ecosystem itself is pretty heavily fragmented; you get your desktop/Android/iOS apps from different developers/authors entirely, with inconsistent support for all features/versions of the file format, with or without TOTP support, with or without sync to cloud backup support, and plugins introduce yet another source of untrustworthiness and potential breakage

the core Keepass devs don't seem committed to maintaining all the features that people want on all the platforms they want (at least, not all the features I, personally, use) so the "go find the plugins / apps you want and craft a solution" approach is pretty hacky and far from foolproof

I'd much rather have a core dev team that is building a product that has all the killer features, and is willing to support them all, on all the platforms I use

and bitwarden being FOSS is at least an upgrade for me from my current solution of Enpass

I'm fine with the bazaar of plugins approach when it comes to modding Skyrim or creating a music listening solution for fun, but passwords absolutely have to work or I start being unable to pay bills, check my email, order pizza, or cancel that $99/year subscription I forgot was going to autorenew

losing access to my passwords even from my phone at any point is a showstopper on my life

Burgi

morning

djsmiley2k

that moment when my PC is so silent I'm convinced the kids have turned it off

bwDraco

jalopnik.com/…

This attitude... is why we, as a country, are ecologically bad.

Burgi

good question

djsmiley2k

@bwDraco please see your president

Burgi

9:18 AM

i suspect it is due to the fact that historically the US has had super cheap fuel

bwDraco

We need to start by dramatically increasing fuel taxes. Way up. At least triple the current tax rate over 5-10 years.

Burgi

> For those of you who cannot understand Steven's question due to his British accent

no you need to tax the manufacturers for creating large engines

taxing the fuel is only going to impoverish the hard working american

bwDraco

@Burgi We already have an excise tax on low-fuel-economy vehicles.

It needs to be expanded.

Vastly expanded.

Anything below 35 mpg, even 40 mpg, should be taxed, and vehicles currently subject to the Gas Guzzler Tax needs to be taxed higher.

Because in Europe, 50+ mpg is the norm, not the exception.

djsmiley2k

my car does 32 :(

it's also 12 years old

Michael Frank

@allquixotic Benefits over LastPass?

@djsmiley2k EcoTerrorist.

bwDraco

9:36 AM

Problem is that historically, transportation in the US is built around an extensive highway system. In Europe, long-distance travel is typically by rail.

I don't mind taking Amtrak, but most Americans prefer to stick to the roads.

(or Metro-North or LIRR out of NYC)

Michael Frank

@allquixotic So... I created a bitwarden account and used LastPass to generate the password, it refreshed the page but didn't offer to save the generated password. I'm pretty sure I just set a world record for fastest irretrieveably forgotten password. rip

OH THANK GOD! LastPass has a recently generated history.

Burgi

50mpg is normal? i think you've huffing fumes!

35 is the average

bwDraco

> Europeans take public transportation everywhere, which means they don't have as much need for a car as Americans do.

Burgi

the UK being the exception

djsmiley2k

@MichaelFrank yup i've had that happen a lot lately

something is broken with generating passwords in lastpass

i now manually copy it

@bwDraco they.... don't

Autobahn

The Autobahn (German: Autobahn IPA: [ˈʔaʊtoˌba:n] ( listen), plural Autobahnen) is the federal controlled-access highway system in Germany. The official German term is Bundesautobahn (plural Bundesautobahnen, abbreviated BAB), which translates as "federal motorway". The literal meaning of the word Bundesautobahn is "Federal Auto(mobile) Track". German autobahns have no federally mandated speed limit for some classes of vehicles. However, limits are posted (and enforced) in areas that are urbanized, substandard, accident-prone, or under construction. On speed-unrestricted stretches, an advisory...

The Dangerous Arc De Triomphe Roundabout In Paris

►

generally in metro areas then public transportation is the way to go

but outside of the cities it's like 50/50

bwDraco

9:45 AM

I don't have a driver license so I'm used to taking public transport.

Bob

@allquixotic Thing is, the KeePass ecosystem is well established at this point. All these new ones have only existed for, what, 1-2 years? I think it's more likely that they just disappear one day.

KP also rarely changes. It already works (TM), so breaking changes are highly unlikely.

It's pretty much the definition of stable and boring.

Almost... enterprisey.

TOTP is the only possible nit, but the plugin support for it looks alright.

@bwDraco "jalopnik" NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE

bwDraco

@Bob Kick-mute time. Reading sources without fact-checking is not okay.

I've done the community a great disservice by consistently and flagrantly failing to check my sources.

Bob

@bwDraco eh, don't take my instinctive reaction as anything serious

bwDraco

Or, consider a mod-level suspension. I'm serious.

@JourneymanGeek, would you be willing to suspend me from chat for at least 12 hours?

Bob

it probably is a perfectly valid source

idk what that article actually says

I just ... don't like gawker much

bwDraco

9:52 AM

I am deeply sorry about this. It's disruptive and actively harmful to this room.

Bob

(...I can't believe I just called a gawker site a "perfectly valid source")

@bwDraco man. calm down. the only thing disruptive is this begging for suspension.

Michael Frank

Pretty sure this is a "I need to go to bed, but I can't tear myself away from chat... better get myself banned." moment.

bwDraco

Dec 27 '16 at 8:27, by bwDraco

In all honesty, my repeatedly linking to WCCFtech as if it were reliable is inexcusable. It's not much different than intentional deception and might warrant a kick-mute or even a chat suspension because it's actively harmful to the community.

This is a very old problem.

Journeyman Geek

and one I don't see kicking fix

@Bob I do read some ex gawker stuff. And assume a lot of it is crap

IO9's gone somewhat downhill in terms of overall quality :(

Michael Frank

LifeHacker used to be my jam... when it was like 90% written by that woman, and the layout was something out of a GeoCities catalog.

bwDraco

9:58 AM

Hmm... come to think of it, I kinda think this is going too far. My history of living under strict discipline has resulted in an "everything is disciplined" mindset, where even minor faults warrant disciplinary action, and repeated missteps should lead to escalating penalties.

Journeyman Geek

dude, you want to get punished. There's a word for that,

bwDraco

If this were to be applied on Stack Exchange, this would mean going up to a network-wide suspension if this continues unchecked, which quite frankly is ludicrous.

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco have you considered complaining about your own behaviour is just as bad?

Its how things work here. We complain about things. Then we move on.

bwDraco

Well... I don't like doing this. It's how I was raised. And I agree it's counterproductive.

Journeyman Geek

if you don't likee doing a thing, well, don't do the thing?

bwDraco

10:03 AM

Going forward, what should I do to address the problem of posting links to unreliable sources?

We can't just leave the problem unsolved.

Journeyman Geek

you solve it.

Michael Frank

It's really simple, in time of strife and inner turmoil, we should all ask ourselves... "WWJMGD?"

5

bwDraco

In the grand scheme of things, it's not exactly a serious problem, but a problem is a problem and it should be addressed.

@MichaelFrank It's not that simple. JMG isn't perfect.

But... there is much to be learned.

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco JMG taught himself to do plumbing, and wire up ethernet off the internet

;p

Perfection is impossible. Trying to solve your own issues isn't

bwDraco

You know what the real problem is? I'm not motivated to actually take initiative.

Michael Frank

10:05 AM

Nobody is perfect. But we all do the best we can, recognise the times we can't, and actually learn from those experiences.

Bob

man

Journeyman Geek

@bwDraco so, find the motivation.

Bob

look, if I wanted you to go away, I'd say that - directly

an "eww" or "nope" is for a bit of fun

Michael Frank

@Bob It wouldn't be the first time either.

Bob

it's not at all saying I don't like you or what you're doing

Burgi

10:07 AM

when i'm in NYC next year i want to buy @bwDraco a beer and get him smashed

Journeyman Geek

@Burgi man, what's in these new york beers 0_0

Burgi

idk

Michael Frank

No, I think the beer and getting smashed are two separate events. >_>

Burgi

apparently americans do everything bigger and better than europe

Journeyman Geek

ah

I thought that was texas.

bwDraco

10:09 AM

You understand that I care a lot about efficiency? :p

Burgi

so i expect their beer to be divine and at least 12%

Journeyman Geek

@Burgi american beer, I hear, is like making love in a canoe....

Michael Frank

No, the beer is less alcohol.. so you can drink MORE of it.

Burgi

they are having an ale revolution in the US at the moment

Journeyman Geek

(though I'm told its getting better. I'll stick to my non alcholic beverages. Booze and dogs don't mix)

Burgi

10:10 AM

they have interesting IPAs and stouts

dogs love beer

bwDraco

So... I will probably just role-play as a dragon more, just as JMG role-plays as a dog. It might, inter alia, make me take jokes and humor better, reduce escalation incidents of this sort, and just let me have more fun.

Burgi

the person that escalates stuff is you...

no-one else was commenting or complaining

bwDraco

The problem is, a lot of how I try to address my behavioral issues at home is through order, discipline, and brute force.

An example is how arrogance issues are currently handled. I tend to get annoyed by my mom reminding me to, say, check if I've left anything behind or drinking some water before leaving someplace. I tend to say "I don't need to be reminded" when in fact I still sometimes forget.

Currently, this issue is handled by yelling at myself, "NO YOU CANNOT SAY 'I DON'T NEED TO BE REMINDED' BECAUSE IT'S ARROGANT".

I've imposed strict rules on myself that require strong evidence that I no longer to forget to do x before a formal request can be made to stop reminding me to do x.

Anything else, and it's treated as a serious infraction.

This started July last year, when increasingly arrogant behavior led to concerns that if left unchecked, I might wind up doing illegal things because it could lead me to develop a "I can do whatever I want" mindset.

Michael Frank

10:29 AM

Weird... There's a.. wait now it's gone. o.O

bwDraco

I panicked and wound up treating the arrogance problem as an existential risk. It's been handled as such ever since.

To a degree, this was inspired by Aesop's Fables, which I read the hell out of in my high school years.

@MichaelFrank lol

At the end of the day, I think I need to realize that brute force generally isn't the answer.

bwDraco

Back on topic.

pcworld.com/article/3251838/storage/…

Will cloud storage ever completely replace local storage for personal data like documents and photos?

Michael Frank

I'd suggest many people that live from their iPhone only have one backup, which is iCloud.

Journeyman Geek

ugh. One is none, especially if you don't control it

Bob

hmmmmm

my computer forgot how to hibernate

Michael Frank

10:39 AM

I've had something similar, it wouldn't sleep for more than a few seconds before waking back up... Kinda like my kids at the moment. :|

Bob

@MichaelFrank well, it's more like wakeups fail

access denied :/

bwDraco

I think consumers will stick with external hard drives and flash drives, and I tend to see portable SSDs as a more probable replacement for these devices in the future, not cloud storage.

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic heh, that password manager seems neat but I'm already running 2 DBMS on my server T T

Michael Frank

I'm giving it a go, my LastPass premium runs out in a couple of months. If I like it enough to switch I will do so.

Journeyman Geek

the fact that it does identity seems neat

Michael Frank

10:47 AM

identity?

Journeyman Geek

openid

Michael Frank

ahh

DavidPostill

@bwDraco That's because the manufacturers have all cheated on the testing:

> According to the results of a 2014 study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), the gap between official and real-world fuel-economy figures in Europe has risen to about 38% in 2013 from 10% in 2001.

> The major loopholes in the current EU tests allow car manufacturers a number of ‘cheats’ to improve results. Car manufacturers can:

Disconnect the alternator, thus no energy is used to recharge the battery;
Use special lubricants that are not used in production cars, in order to reduce friction;
Turn off all electrical gadgets i.e. Air Con/Radio;
Adjust brakes or even disconnect them to reduce friction;
Tape up cracks between body panels and windows to reduce air resistance;
Remove Wing mirrors.

@Burgi I'm sure you said that before :)

Burgi

yeah but i'm actually going to NYC now

my GF wants breakfast at tiffany's for her 30th

Michael Frank

wtf is a 'deterministic password manager'

Burgi

10:59 AM

it guesses your password based on the Brownian motion in a lovely cup of tea

DavidPostill

@Burgi Your GF is becoming high maintenance ... ;)

Burgi

she buys me beer, food and games

the least i can do is sort out a trip to NYC

DavidPostill

Hmm. Flights 2 * £244, breakfast starting at 2 * $29, + hotel ... not as expensive as I though it would be :)

Of course you need to add in the cost of the engagement ring - that would be a stylish way to propose ;)

@Burgi ^^^

Burgi

nope

bwDraco

@DavidPostill Wat.

Wow.

DavidPostill

11:13 AM

@bwDraco It's happened in the US as well

> It was discovered that the 2016 Chevy Traverse, GMC Acadia, and Buick Enclave were all sold with window stickers that indicate fuel economy ratings a full two MPG better than the EPA's official numbers.

GM blamed the issue on "improper calculations," and put a temporary stop-sale on inventory of affected vehicles until corrected window stickers could be printed. For owners who purchased the mislabeled vehicles, GM is offering up to $900 in make-good money or a free extended warranty to make up for the calculated lifetime cost associated with a two-MPG drop in fuel economy. The action is …

$100 million cost for that mistake.

And:

> Late in April, Nissan revealed that Mitsubishi had been artificially boosting its official fuel economy ratings by up to 10 percent by overinflating tires during testing. At first, the act was thought to only affect about 600,000 Japanese-market kei-cars, tiny city vans with 660cc engines—470,000 of which were built by Mitsubishi but sold with Nissan badges.

Things unfolded from there. Within a week, Mitsubishi admitted that the fuel economy deception reached all the way back to 1991, a systematic effort affecting untold millions of vehicles. By mid-May, the Japanese automaker announced …

bwDraco

But the US tends to be much stricter when it comes to enforcing honesty in fuel economy ratings.

DavidPostill

@bwDraco Really?

> It's getting harder to trust those gas mileage numbers you see in government ratings and on the window stickers of new cars.

Revelations yesterday that Mitsubishi cheated on gas mileage testing, following Volkswagen's (VLKAY) diesel emissions testing scandal, raises questions about the honesty of the MPG ratings and emissions data reported to car shoppers.

"While I wouldn't describe fuel economy manipulation as rampant throughout the industry, it's obviously a recurring issue, one that will have regulators reevaluating their testing and certification procedures," said senior analyst Kar…

bwDraco

Well, then why does Europe actively allow cheating on fuel economy tests?

DavidPostill

It doesn't. When they get caught there are repercussions. Just like in the US.

> In the Volkswagen case, a "defeat device" was installed on diesel models so that the car's sensors could detect when it was being tested on a machine rather than driving on the road. During testing, the device would turn off emission controls for smog-causing nitrogen oxides. That boosted the MPG. On Thursday, VW agreed in principal to a deal with the U.S. government on how it would compensate owners of the affected diesel models.

The issue didn't start with Volkswagen. In 2012, U.S. regulators fined Korean corporate siblings Hyundai and Kia a combined $300 million for manipulating fuel …

> Part of the problem -- in the U.S. as well as in Europe and Japan -- is that the automakers do their own testing for gas mileage under standards set by regulators. This is unlikely to change.

"It would be nearly impossible for the EPA to do all the tests themselves without an immense amount of funding," said Jessica Caldwell, director of industry analysis for Edmunds.com. Given the current political climate in Washington, more funding for the Environmental Protection Administration is highly unlikely.

bwDraco

FWIW, this is a very hard problem.

DavidPostill

11:20 AM

So they have been cheating in the US as well.

bwDraco

You wind up with clashes between customers and shareholders, which can impose conflicting requirements on a company - and favoring the customers can get a publicly-traded company in more trouble than favoring the investors.

DavidPostill

It's the old problem of $corp doing whatever it can to maximise profits and taking it on the chin when they get caught doing something illegal/immoral/unethical/whatever.

$shareholders (which usually includes the $corp directors) don't give a shit for the $customer as long as they can continue to line their pockets.

$corp rule #1: maximise profits

bwDraco

And when a company tries to do the right thing, investors shy away from it, stunting its growth.

Because investors want profits now.

And doing the right thing is expensive.

Even if it means customer loyalty and a sustained revenue stream.

Dec 31 '17 at 18:18, by bwDraco

> Investors don't like seeing companies spending huge amounts of money with the expectation that they would only make it back several years down the road; they want to see profit now, even if it means hurting customer satisfaction and loyalty.

DavidPostill

@bwDraco That's because of the stock markets. Trading algorithms look for instant profit not long term growth. So we can blame all those geniuses who are responsible for:

Algorithmic trading

Algorithmic trading is a method of executing a large order (too large to fill all at once) using automated pre-programmed trading instructions accounting for variables such as time, price, and volume to send small slices of the order (child orders) out to the market over time. They were developed so that traders do not need to constantly watch a stock and repeatedly send those slices out manually. Popular "algos" include Percentage of Volume, Pegged, VWAP, TWAP, Implementation Shortfall, Target Close. In the past several years algo trading has been gaining traction with both retails and institutional...

bwDraco

HFT, heh.

DavidPostill

11:30 AM

And:

High-frequency trading

In financial markets, high-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic trading characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools. While there is no single definition of HFT, among its key attributes are highly sophisticated algorithms, co-location, and very short-term investment horizons. HFT can be viewed as a primary form of algorithmic trading in finance. Specifically, it is the use of sophisticated technological tools and computer algorithms to rapidly trade securities. HFT use...

Journeyman Geek

hah.

DavidPostill

> While there is no single definition of HFT, among its key attributes are highly sophisticated algorithms, co-location, and very short-term investment horizons

Journeyman Geek

Its worth remembering if you're running a big enough company, no one gives cares if you actually succeed.

bertieb

o/

People who take the long view of a company and put their money in and leave it there and investors

DavidPostill

Unfortunately very true. There have been many scandals in the UK where directors are sacked after major fuck-ups and are still paid a large bonus and pension (because that's what their contract said).

bertieb

11:34 AM

People who make money on the dance the stock market does any given day are speculators

bwDraco

So ethics take a back seat to people running computers executing thousands or millions of trades a minute.

DavidPostill

Exactly

Journeyman Geek

Ethics is for poor people ;p

2

bertieb

In theory, HFT exists to exploit the margins between those buying and selling

It's the predatory vulture firms that come in and run a company with lots of goodwill/reputation/prudence to the ground before fleeing

Not that I'm bitter or anything

Journeyman Geek

in practice. they also take advantage of the fact that they can react faster than anyone else to market changes, and often the fact that they're big enough to cause small shifts in the market and take advantage of it

bertieb

11:36 AM

Aye

I still maintain that if a business is limited by the speed of light, physical distances measured in meters (rather than 100s of km) or affected by a patch for an Intel vulnerability that causes 1-2% slowdowns (or any other weird constraints) that's speculating, not investing :P

Journeyman Geek

@bertieb oddly enough....

apparently parts of SE infrastructure are badly affected by the spectre/meltdown patches it seems

bertieb

Oh, really?

Journeyman Geek

yup

bwDraco

More often than not, people who make the most money do so because they manipulate money, not because they worked hard to earn it.

bertieb

Well, simple solution, SE needs to do less HFT then :P

DavidPostill

11:41 AM

Stock trading companies pay $shitloads for internet connections that are milliseconds faster than their competitors so they can get their trades in first.

bertieb

> Once you get into milliseconds it's almost not HFT any more.

Journeyman Geek

Oh we deployed Spectre/Meltdown patches to our elasticsearch cluster. It didn't go well. The cluster continually fell over until we enabled the kernel flags to kill them.

Tweeted by Nick_Craver on February 2, 2018 at 1:07 PM

bertieb

39

A: How fast is state of the art HFT trading systems today?

I'm the CTO of a small company that makes and sells FPGA-based HFT systems. Building our systems on-top of the Solarflare Application Onload Engine (AOE) we have been consistently delivering latency from an "interesting" market event on the wire (10Gb/S UDP market data feed from ICE or CME) to t...

DavidPostill

> In the high-speed world of automated financial trading, milliseconds matter. So much so, in fact, that a saving of just six milliseconds in transmission time is all that is required to justify the laying of the first transatlantic communications cable for 10 years at a cost of more than $300m.

bertieb

Aye, there's a whole bunch of new cables going in for it

I was sure there were NY-Chicago being laid for $ridiculous, too

DavidPostill

11:43 AM

Old news, but:
> The laying of the new transatlantic communications cable is a viable proposition because Hibernia Atlantic, the company behind it, is planning to sell a special superfast bandwidth that will have hyper-competitive trading firms and banks in the City of London and New York queuing to use it. In fact it is predicted they will pay about 50 times as much to link up via the Hibernian Express than they do via existing transatlantic cables.

Michael Frank

12:27 PM

Hmm... anyone else had trouble running nano through the new ssh for Windows?

Whenever I try and writeout a file, it will only let me delete a couple characters from the filename before spazzing out.

djsmiley2k

o_O

Michael Frank

It starts overwriting the wrong parts of the screen and gets really screwy.

Seems to work fine with RoyalTS though.

shrug

djsmiley2k

12:45 PM