Posts by Anton Channing

In space no-one can smell your armpits...

So its not really the smell of outer space, but rather the smell of space suits that have freshly been brought in from a space walk (where they were no doubt bombarded by radiation). Since our sense of smell relies on the molecules of various gasses entering our nose, space itself cannot not have a smell detectable by a human. Darwin Award to anyone that tries...

Title chosen because I just watched 'Alien' last night after having picked it up for 50p in VHS format...

Elgg and Moodle

As a programmer currently working for a college, I suspect the kind of social networking apps that would be used as teaching resources are much more likely to be custom built inhouse sites based on open source software such as Moodle and Elgg...

...I seriously doubt any teachers are using facebook or myspace for teaching purposes.

More linux mobile OS branches?

I'm not really that interested in Google's device. But I am quite interested to see what the linux community makes of the Android OS, possible branches and other distros etc. Could usher in quite an exciting and competitive time in the mobile OS market. Also interested to see what happens with Symbian since that too is open source now, but I suspect a linux based OS will capture more users imaginations...

Personally Identifiable Information

Surely the DNA from the blood sample is personally identifiable?

Disable website for IE 6.

Since the scanner is pretending to be IE 6, any webmaster that was sufficiently concerned about the extra bandwidth could quite easily redirect all IE6 traffic to a page telling them they need to upgrade to a more recent browser, with links to IE7 (or whatever the latest one is), FF3, Opera etc...

I would imagine a significant number of legitimate users would simply update their browsers in such circumstances.

I admit it is quite a drastic step, so it really is a last resort method of dealing with the problem. But it would work quite simply.

On another note, I really am going to recommend a certain friend of mine get rid of AVG. He refused to let me replace it before, but after reading this I am now convinced it is the cause of his machine suddenly being real slow...

ClamWin

Back when I still owned a PC with windows on it, I used to use ClamWin. Free, Open Source, reliable, never suffered an infection during the several years I had it installed.

@Steve Raith

Not get laid? But girls LOVE my Eee. And if they love that, just think what they'd make of the One. Trust me, go out to a bar with your cute little laptot, and girls will flock around you to get a look... :D

...its happened to me several times already!

Servers not in France.

If the companies are not based in France, and the servers are not based in France, then they shouldn't come under French jurisdiction. This should be challenged to the European Court.

If we allow a situation where each country can impose its own laws against websites elsewhere in the EU, only the lawyers will be laughing. All the way to the bank.

re: Brave New World

I may have only seen the film 1984 (original black and white with Peter Cushing mind you), but I have read Brave New World.

The reason they haven't let Brave New World have a good film is because it is a Distopia based on American Capitalist values, whereas 1984 was is a Distopia based on Soviet values. And history is always written by the victor.

Since China has turned capitalist whilst remaining a dictatorship, and the democratic west is increasingly not only in their debt, but also increasingly dictatorial, they provide a real life example of where we are heading if we can't change direction...

@Translation and mini rant

I have three computers. One is a dual boot machine with XP and Ubuntu. Another is an Asus eee PC with the original linux OS. The most recent is a 20inch iMac.

I've never used Wine or virtualisation. I suspect if I did I wouldn't need the XP partition anymore. In fact I am not even sure why I do need it. Occassionally I use it to test what my websites look like in IE. But overall I find it slow and unresponsive.

In my experience XP takes a hell of a lot more configuration to get it 'working' (if you can call constantly having to manually update spybot, adware and clamwin anti-virus just to keep it secure 'working'). With Linux everything has just worked out of the box, and when I'm at home I am pretty much always in Ubuntu.

I use the Mac almost exclusively for editting film using Final Cut Studio 2. Although its also portable enough to be moved into my bedroom for the purpose of watching DVDs in bed. Overall though I get frustrated by the single button mouse and the lack of right click context menus. I still find myself trying to right click sometimes, and then wondering what I'm supposed to do instead.

Overall I like Linux. And I know plenty of people using Ubuntu now whose degrees are in the Arts. I've never had to configure anything for them. Things just work out of the box. At least they do for me. Not with XP though. And the only copy of Vista I've seen was running at a crawl. Maybe there is a way to configure it, but non-technical people don't want to be bothered with that. They'd rather an OS that just worked. Like Ubuntu.

Fond memories...

I still have my BBC Model B micro, a tape drive and all the casettes. Still, I rarely actually use it these days due to having discovered BBC emulators that let me play what I want on Linux. Citadel was one of my faves, in addition to Elite.

Although for multiplayer entertainment, 'Way of the Exploding Fist' and a couple of joysticks...

@ paul and Duncan, re: Competition

I personally just use the mp3 capabilities of my phone, which is with me everywhere anyway and has sufficient storage for, but a friend of mine was very impressed with the offering from Creative she obtained a couple of years ago. In terms of style, usability and functionality. People only think Apple lack competition because they aren't aware of their main competitors.

@ Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

I would sign the petition, but you failed to provide the url.

I've just looked for this e-petition on the http://petitions.pm.gov.uk website, but searching for Phorm, revealed no petitions, and scanning through all 161 petitions in the "Information and communication" category also turned up nothing that seemed to be about this issue.

If there is a petition, could we have the url please? I would create one, but you seem to imply that one should already be there and I don't want to duplicate the effort...

passing H20

So all the crap downloaded will be 'passing H20' in the sewers?

Ah, yes thankyou, the big black leather one thats looking a bit worn in places...

...thanks, I'll be off then...

The future

The future is dark! The future is black!

This'd be great for an anarchist black flag... >:)

Łódź for words

This would be the same Łódź that just paid £10,000 for a website. A website that consists of just one page. A page that consists of just one image and no actual text. Image mapped to link to a bunch of external sites. All paid for by Polish tax payers money...

It sounds to me like Governments are just a waste of taxpayers money. Whereever you are in the world...

market competition and online privacy?

"Redmond has vigorously fought the deal, claiming that a marriage between two of the most successful internet advertising operations will hamper market competition and destroy online privacy as we know it."

Is this the same Redmond that does everything in its power to hamper market competion in its own market so that it can continue to produce software so ridden with security holes that online privacy for its users is an uphill struggle requiring lots of third party protection? Shurely shome mishtake?

I like GNU/Linux...

...and this product is kinda cute(*), but seems a tad over priced for what it is if you ask me.

(*) Albeit somewhat nerdy and gimmicky at the same time.

A bit slow on the uptake...

As a black magician I had a picture of Baphomet on my mobile years ago. A bit slow on the uptake of new technology these religious types aren't they?

@Neal

We do still have the Poll Tax now though (albeit with the rules slightly tweaked and renamed as 'Council Tax').

Still, none the less I have signed up to NO2ID. My passport doesn't expire for another 8years and I don't drive.

Its not a bad idea.

I rarely use bookmarks, most of the time information I require is one hit. Occassionally though for various reasons I do need to go back to a page I didn't think I'd need to. And searching on Google is still easier than trying to find it in thousands of previously saved bookmarks anyway.

I might try this feature out as I may well find it useful.

As for influencing others search results, if there was some clever way of only allowing influence from users with similar tastes or somesuch, maybe only other users in my gmail address book, then that might not be too bad an idea. So long as my own preferences for any given site override those of other users. :)

Bill Hicks on Marketing

To paraphrase Bill Hicks, "If any of you work in Marketing, kill yourselves".

This article is spot on when it says that time is better spent collecting our thoughts than listening to yet more pointless advertising.

Still no-one is forced to listen to this stuff yet, and like Paul, I will probably simply excommunicate any friends that opt in to such a silly idea. Just another avenue of corporate propeganda for me to avoid.

New?

What is new about this kind of attack? Surely they've been around for years.