Be careful what you ask for

What if this spyware was created at the request of the US government?

Boies has not made a real court appearance for SCO

He won a mock trial that was used to convince people to invest in SCO's interminable litigation. For some reason, he delegated SCO to Stuart Singer. SCO was lucky there because Singer has done remarkably well considering that his client gave him nothing to work with and Boies could not win a legal argument with a gardener. I hope B&N end up with someone as good as Singer.

Not necessaily ignorant but definitely overconfident

History logging in controlled by some environment variables that are set in one of the files that bash reads when it starts up. Which files are read depend on how bash is started. That choice of files was changed, and the documentation took some time to catch up. Not cancelling bash history correctly when started via ssh on the first attempt is an easy mistake. The embarrassing mistakes are not checking that history was disabled and getting it wrong on an active machine instead of testing the procedure where no-one will notice a mistake.

The man page for sshd_config is over 30 pages long. There are some changes I could make to that file from memory. If I was working on a remote machine, and the version of ssh could be different from my local machine, then I would read the manual on the remote machine. A mistake might make it very difficult to log back in and fix my mistake.

Linux has dozens of ftp clients. If none of the ones I am familiar with are installed, then I would have to read the manual to do something unusual. Iptables is for setting up the firewall. The firewall is made up of many kernel modules. New features are added with new modules in most kernel releases. The syntax for an experimental module can change. Getting it wrong on the first attempt is almost certain. Getting it wrong on a remote machine is dangerous - you could easily add a rule that blocks ssh and so make the machine hard to fix by remote.

The easy way to wipe the disk on a local machine is to boot from a live CD and type 'shred /dev/sda'. On a remote machine, you need to copy all the files for a minimal operating system into a ramdisk and use the pivot root command to run shred from the ramdisk. This is something you have to practice at home until you get it right because a partial failure will prevent further remote access.

PS: Shred is not a good choice to use on an SSD. Upgrading the firmware should do the trick, but you need to pivot root into a ramdisk to ensure the firmware upgrade completes.

Activities prohibited on Shabbat

There are 39 classes of activities that are forbidden on the Shabbat (Friday sunset to Saturday sunset). There are different ideas about what is and is not a prohibited activity. For example, flicking a light switch can cause a spark, which is interpreted by some as lighting a fire. Turning a light on or off can count as igniting or extinguishing a fire (fire was used for lighting).

Using a timed switch to avoid a prohibition is either acceptable or naughty depending on who you ask. Writing, erasing (preparing a surface for writing), applying the finishing touch and transferring between domains are also prohibited. (At first, "transferring" looks like carrying a physical object, but when you look at the definition of domains, publishing an article, photograph or being a commentard look suspicious to me.)

I am sure computer use on the Shabbat was debated ad nauseam decades ago. Considering some of the activities that are definitely dodgy, I am surprised that iPads are allowed.

Ducks have a 20 year head start

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12168-uk-on-alert-for-plastic-duck-invasion.html

Scunthorpe & Penistone

I am sure Pakistan has equivalents where the locals will not be able to text their addresses.

What is he going to do?

Lets say I break into some military computers and issue orders for people to fire missiles at each other. General Kehler decides I deserve some retribution, and activates his malware in my computer. Next time a toy robot falls on the delete button the block of C4 in my computer detonates and ... wait a minute ... I forgot to install a block of C4 in my computer. I cannot find them at Misco or Novatech. Where did Matt Farrell from Die Hard get his? Do I need a free PCI or PCIe slot? Is there a Linux driver?

Two good things about the BSA

1) They only have power over you if you use proprietary software.

2) http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

Four cores will be under powered ...

... if Microsoft provide the software.

Who is in charge - you or the window manager?

I found KDE 4 very irritating until I found Trinity. With KDE 3.5/Trinity I could disable almost everything (like the panel/task bar/start button/kicker and icons), set up keyboards short cuts for things I do regularly, and put a different customisable menu for each type of mouse click on the desktop to access everything else. When I tried KDE 4, nepomuk trashed the machine's performance. All the off switches for nepomuk did not work. Luckily I found Dovydas's solution at http://www.freetechie.com/blog/disable-nepomuk-desktop-search-on-kde-4-4-2-kubuntu-lucid-10-04/

There was plenty more in the new KDE that I hated and could not get rid of at all. I could not set up my keyboard shortcuts. KDE 4 was telling me how to work instead of the other way around. I was extremely angry that I might have to buy a graphics card louder than a tornado just to switch between tasks. When I found KDE 3.5 was alive and well with its name changed to Trinity I calmed down and now I do not care what the KDE 4 developers do. The only fly in the ointment was the intense boredom that set in waiting ⅕ of a second for the web browser to smooth scroll. (In the [KDE] section of ~/.trinity/share/config/kdeglobals, add: SmoothScrolling=false)

Not 2000 years old

Saint Nikolaus of Myra was born in 270, so he is about 1741 years old.

"God has created us to be truly free"

For contrast, here are are some quotes attributed to Jesus:

"All slaves should show full respect for their masters so they will not bring shame on the name of God and his teaching."

http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=1Ti&c=6&t=NLT

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ."

http://bible.cc/ephesians/6-5.htm

I have yet to find any quote attributed to Jesus that says keeping slaves is wrong. The OT includes instructions on buying slaves, beating them and selling your daughters as sex slaves.

Not just £6

£6 extra the first year, £12 extra the next, then £18 and so one. There is no plan to bring prices back down afterwards. I pay all that money and still do not own the meter. Sounds just as sensible as paying for fibre that BT rents back to me.

Please can I buy my computer without a hard disk

I used to pull out the pre-installed drive, fit a 7200rpm one and use the old drive as a USB backup dive. Now I pull out the installed drive, fit an SSD and use the old drive as a paper weight. I would much prefer to buy a boxen with no pre-installed hard disks.

As a bonus, no hard disk means no need to pay the Microsoft tax. I am happy to split that cost reduction with the distributor.

Power, perfomance and the thing Intel doesn't talk about

So in a year or two the next generation Intel chips will be able to compete on power requirements with the last generation of ARMs. Some tasks are sequential and benefit from a big high performance core, but servers mostly run parallel tasks that can be run more cost effectlively on several small cores. Intel's real challenge would be to compete on price, but I cannot see that happening this decade.

Missing statements

If these companies are actually paying Microsoft real money, is there any evidence that they are not receiving more in return for allowing Microsoft to publish these press releases?

Do these patents cover the device no matter what OS it runs, or are they apply only when Android is installed.

Unless these deals are published openly, I will assume it is just Microsoft paying hush money so their investors do not find out that all these patents are a load of rubbish.

Bagger 288 was moved to a new site in 2001

http://www.wisoveg.de/rheinbraun/rb-bg-17022001lnk.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288

Nothing new here

For ages the UK patent office has said you cannot patent software as such, but you can get a patent for software if you call it a computer implemented invention. Now they are saying you can get a patent for software as such. As there was never any difference between a such and a computer implemented invention, nothing has changed. As before, software patents although granted are still invalid. Given time, money and luck you can still get software patents declared invalid through the courts. But don't worry, they will fix that when they require all patent disputes to be conducted in a special patent court that will never invalidate any patents.

Write to your MP. Get referred to the party's minister responsible for software patents. Write to that MP. Get a fobbing off letter. Reply with a debunking. Get another stupid responce. Copy the correspondence back to your MP. This is time consuming, mostly to calm down enough to avoid flaming, but it does work.

<220kW

There are plenty of definitions of horse power, but for a car motor, 260hp is probably a little over 190kW. Electric motors that size are usually 90-95% efficient so with 1.21GW, you can power well over 5000 DeLoreans.

The first GPS satellite was launched in 1978, so GPS would be useless before that. Until 1989, there were only ten satellites. You need to be able to see 3 satelites to do anything useful (4 if you want to know your altitude). If you need GPS in the 1980's, get a hover conversion. You stand a better chance of seeing satelites if the signals do not have to go sideways through a thick atmosphere, some hills, buildings or a wet leaf.

Evidence for the existence of this kraken?

Show us a photo of a fossilised playmobile kraken or it didn't happen.

First educate the bankers

The Halifax owns halifax.co.uk, but if I try to do some internet banking, I end up halifax-online.co.uk, which I have no confidence in. If it does belong to The Halifax, it shows such an abysmal understanding of internet security that I have to assume the actual site contains some more equally brain dead design decisions.

Well done ARM

Last time I saw innovation from the DRAM industry, Intel ignored it and went for RDRAM because they got a sweet patent licensing deal that let them crush third party chipsets. Things must have changed radically enough that DRAM manufacturers are confident that their R&D spending will turn into a mainstream product. AMD and Via do an excellent job of keeping entry level x86 under $1000, but they do not really challenge Intel. If this product gets anywhere it will be because Intel worries 3DRAM+ARM will be cost effective.

Should have read the instructions

"This is our flexible meter reading and bill service. Here you can enter your meter reading whenever you wish."

The web site is clearly for readings from flexible meters. Most people have rigid meters. Also, only use the website if you want to. If you coerce someone into using the site against their will, you will be charged extra.

This came up decades ago with dail modem chips

The manufacturer paid for a license to make the chip. The chip was then licensed no matter how often it is resold, given away or scavenged from a skip. The legal term was patent exhaustion.

One important feature missing:

Cut the price by a factor of three and I would be interested.

Who doesn't backup their bookmarks?

"Chrome's beta version is unaffected, making it a suitable substitute until Microsoft can correct the error."

What was the error, deleting Chrome or not deleting the beta version?

Quick! Send some to Australia.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/29/drunk_parrots_in_oz/

What would happen if you could choose what OS to install on your phone?

In 2015, analysts (who are always right and never report their employer's preferred predictions) think it will be 49% Android, 19.5% Microsoft, 19% Apple, 12.5% other. Microsoft won't even be second rate for another three years. Why are HTC rushing to jump down the toilet when Nokia are currently stuck in the U-bend?

Check your history

The term "patent troll" is nearly two decades old, so I would not call it recent.

Patents are what established companies do instead of innovation. They let other people do the research, development and take the risk of setting up for mass production. When someone starts to see return on their investment, they rent their patents to a litigation specialist to sue the inventor back into poverty. (Suing directly is a bad idea. They would would be hit with a counter suit, forced to settle and cross license. The patents are almost certainly invalid. Going through a shell insulates the troll from the legal costs of failure.)

From the point of view of a government, patents are a zero sum deal. Any taxes they earn from patent trolls are taxes they lose from technology companies. From the point of view of consumers, patent lawyers put up the cost of products without contributing anything.

If you are thinking about entering the patent business yourself, the minimum cost for defending a patent used to be £100,000. These days you would need to bully tens times that out of ignorant manufacturers before you have a big enough war chest to attack someone with a clue. PS - buying patents is expensive. Please convince your employer to buy them until he goes bankrupt then pick up the patents in a fire sale. Please to do not ask the government to waste taxpayers' money on patents.

The only thing that is recent about patent trolls is that now many consumers are sufficiently aware of the damage they do that they are lobbying their governments in big enough numbers to matter. Perhaps this will result in another round of taxpayer funded adverts telling us how wonderful patents are.

The other thing to look out for:

No Linux driver: waste of space.

Closed source Linux driver: When the manufacturer wants me to buy a new printer, all he has to do is stop maintainting the driver. Assume the printer will be dead in two years.

Open source Linux driver: The manufacturer has to work harder to make me buy a new printer.

Perhaps other people would have given more to charity is they had not spent all their money renting Bill's software, or paying huge taxes so politicians can buy Bill's software.

I think whoever writes the software (or pays someone else to write software) gets to choose the license. I support Bill's right to rent out his third rate software at exorbitant rates. Google are Apple are welcome to spy on their customers who do not bother to read the terms and conditions that come with the products and services.

The other half of the glass

Diageo's sales jumped by 20 per cent. Did their competitors jump by -20 per cent? How much of that 20% was bought by children with their pocket money?

If people are concerned about underage drinking, why not organise a school trip to visit some homeless drunks? How about an art class on face painting all those who do not object the morning after a binge? Instead of trying to ban everything, cann't we see some positive suggestions?

235 secret patents

If Microsoft ever said which patents they were talking about, a pile of prior art would be found for each within a month.

Proper numbers

The plan is to use the atmosphere as propellant and beamed power to heat it. This is much a much more effective way to get from the Earth's surface to low Earth orbit than building a huge propellant tank and using enormous amounts of propellant to lift the propellant.

1MW of beamed power puts 1kg of spacecraft into low Earth orbit. Here are some spaceship masses:

4547kg: Apollo Lunar ascent stage. (Takes you from the surface to the moon to lunar orbit).

14696kg: Apollo Lunar descent + ascent stages. (Take you from lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back again).

5560kg: Apollo command module. Holds three astronauts during their trip to lunar orbit and back. Has a heat shield and parachutes for re-entry into Earth atmosphere and a splash landing (Do not try this at home unless you have a large navy to rescue you afterwards).

44776kg: Apollo service module + command module + descent stage + ascent stage. Takes you from Earth orbit to the moon and back to the Earth (well, the sea anyway).

10809kg: Altair ascent module.

45864kg: Altair descent + ascent modules.

8500kg: Orion crew module (Holds 7 astronauts).

66864kg: Orion service module + crew module + Altair

Going to Earth orbit and back would require a 5 to 10 GW laser depending on whether you choose Apollo or Orion kit (Dragon is about 10000kg, Soyuz is about 7250kg). Going to the Moon in a single launch would require a 50 to 70 GW laser. If you can bolt the modules together in orbit, you could cut that back to 10 to 20 GW depending on how good you are at construction in orbit.

A Falcon 9 lifts 10450 to 26610 kg into low Earth orbit, so a 10 to 25 GW laser could do the same sort of things ie resupply the ISS or launch a commercial satelite with a rocket big enough to put it in geostationary orbit.

If you combine beamed power with VASIMR, you can substantially reduce the mass of the service module (20000 to 25000 kg) or low earth orbit to geostationary orbit transfer rocket.

One password to bring them all and in the darkness gpg them

Here is the program I use to generate new passwords:

strings < /dev/urandom | less

Passwords live in an encrypted password file next to their corresponding user names and security question false answers. If you cannot type, cut & paste to annoy the key loggers.

What happens with an intangible touch screen?

Back in the days of DOS: "Keyboard not found. Press any key to continue."

Then came Windows: "Mouse not detected. Click here to change."

Now that Microsoft is looking at tablets do we have "Touch screen not detected, tap here to continue."

If Microsoft had a product, who would make an effort to sell it?

For desktop PC's, Microsoft makes third rate software, but they control the distribution channel. Who in the mobile phone business wants that sort of relationship with Microsoft?

Well done Boundary Commssion: 9/10

The maps are here (found on the first page of sear engine results):

http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/

I found the right pdf on my second attempt (I live very close to a boundary).

pdfimages (from poppler-utils) extracted the underlying map without any problems.

pdftotext pulled out most of the text, near enough, but there is not that much text.

The boundaries are a little more tricky. For a single pdf, I would put the full rendered image and the underlying map in separate layers of the gimp and trace boundaries into paths by hand. If I had to deal with all 500, podofo looks promising.

Most government reseased datasets are a pain to find and decode. It looks like the Boundary Commission made no effort to hide, obfuscate or encrypt this data at all. I am sure heads will roll, but if the people responsible somehow survive the inevitable pogrom: SVG format boundaries would be nice.