Posts by Tom Wood

Our oven clock is a PITA to set, but for some reason the oven won't work at all (i.e. won't get hot) unless the clock is set.

So the procedure after a power loss is to mash all the buttons for long enough until it shows some sort of time (what exactly doesn't matter, we don't ever look at the clock) and then the thing will actually start cooking food.

Re: cold-calls..

You don't need a voice service on the phone line, but you still need to rent a landline (physical wires) for the broadband. Since providing and maintaining the copper wires does cost money, it seems reasonable for them to charge you line rental one way or another.

Once the wires are in place, the voice service can be provided at virtually zero marginal cost.

So, while they could roll the line rental cost into the monthly broadband subscription, and not provide a voice service, it would probably be no cheaper overall than the current deal.

While we're grumbling....

What's with the adverts that say "search online for xyz"

1. surely they're asking for a googlebombing

and

2. isn't that what URLs were invented for?

Re: Wait a minute

Uh, I'm fairly sure they do mean what you thought they meant. The Graun shows a picture of the two of them with arms around each other and says they live together (not "are housemates").

I wasn't even really aware that AOL was still going.

Re: Try This

Er... did you read the article? The replay attack was on a wireless sensor not a door lock.

"Our attacker just identifies a lock on the network and sends it a new network key from his own network controller; the fickle door lock happily forgets its previous attachment and stands ready to respond to new commands, suitably encrypted using the new key, such as "open the door, please"."

The network key is part of the "algorithm" you mentioned.

Re: Tin foil hat time

Or, you could learn to cook. One very useful life skill is being able to examine whatever bits are sitting in your fridge, knowing what you have lurking in the back of a cupboard or in the freezer, and being able to say "hmm, I could make some kind of pasta sauce from that". I don't need a fridge to tell me that if I just nip out to Tesmorasburys I could buy some more stuff that would go well with a few of the things I have left in there.

Re: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

While they maybe don't get checked personally, presumably the shop manager (and possibly by extension any security staff) will face penalties if head office starts to think too much stock is "disappearing" from the store.

Are you mixing and matching between manufacturers? Didn't think you could do that

You can. That's the point of a standard!

As I mentioned above, I mix Devolo 200 AV units with a Zyxel 500 AV unit with no problem.

"Somehow we survived!"

That's OK then.

Re: One Thing i have to say about the yanks

But you have to pay when someone calls you on your mobile (even if it's a telemarketer).

Re: He's rude, but he's right

"Wrong stuff made by nice people, or stuff that actually works?"

False dichotomy. I'll have stuff made by nice people that actually works, thanks.

Might be traceable, but the police have to be arsed to do the tracing

Yes, techincally you might get caught, but I believe in practice the chances are slim.

I once had a PC from Comet charged to my credit card (I believe they must have got the details from a dodgy employee of a place I legitimately purchased online).

The CC company spotted it before I even saw the statement, and a few days later I received a paper VAT invoice through the post from Comet, listing my address as the billing address and the delivery address somewhere in Coventry.

I passed the info to the CC company, but I never heard any more - I doubt it ever got as far as a police investigation even if they could have just knocked on the door in Coventry for a start.

Re: Organic?

What is wrong with fatty and energy dense? Provided you are aware of that of course and incorporate it into a balanced diet.

Also, as for the added salt - anyone who believes food shouldn't have any salt added needs to learn to taste properly. You don't need much salt (processed food generally contains too much) but you do need some.

Oh, the irony

Daily Mail found saying someone else spouts bollocks?!

Re: Sadly

You won't even get as far as the departure airport these days if they don't want to let you in. The immigration form for the visa waiver program(me) must be filled in online in advance (it's called 'ESTA') and without pre-approval your airline won't board you.

(They still ask you questions on your arrival, and can in theory kick you out at that point, but you don't get a form to fill in other than a customs declaration).

Different if you have a visa, but I presume you don't...

Re: Yes, but...

You would only get a 25% discount for being a single person, not 50%.

Re: Isn't this just babyfood?

It's basically maltodextrin (a carbohydrate, similar to glucose, but less sweet) and whey (protein powder, a byproduct of cheesemaking) and olive oil and various vitamins and minerals.

Whey is commonly used as a supplement protein source by bodybuilders and other sportspeople (in addition to real foods) and maltodextrin is commonly used in sports energy drinks.

They are OK in addition to a balanced diet of real food, but I wouldn't like to survive solely off them.

Re: Face piles of trials with smiles

This is Dish... primarily a satellite TV provider. Nobody is going to stream the Superbowl live over LTE when they have a HD satellite stream right there.

Though I appreciate that's not really the issue you're getting at. Hundreds of people in the same neighbourhood watching different on-demand content might be more of an issue...

Re: Root password, sure, but why wasn't the data encrypted?

@Lee D - computer systems in gov't organisations, even highly secretive ones, are not like those in the movies. They're basically the same as those in any large organisation. Some will be new, some will be old, some will be in dire need of replacement. They have USB ports on them for the same reasons as the PC on your desk has USB ports on it.

They run Windows because most of the time the work done on them will be done using MS Word, Excel, etc. Specialist tools will be Windows GUI based apps because the companies and engineers who develop them are good at writing Windows apps and the staff who use them know how to use Windows apps. And so on.

And the whole point of background checks, security clearences etc is that you're supposed to be able to trust people who work with such data (and are granted unsupervised physical access to it) to keep it a secret. Even without USB ports, someone who is really determined to get data out of a secure enviroment will do so one way or the other.

Lying on the form

Indeed. I've always assumed the crime of "lying on official paperwork" was easier to prove/prosecute someone for/carried a more severe penalty than the crimes they ask you about on offical paperwork. For example, the questions in the ESTA form you need to complete to enter the US under the visa waiver program include "are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?" and "Have you ever been or are you now involved in... terrorist activities".

I seriously doubt many criminals or terrorists tick "yes".

Global shipping costs have little to do with geography and a lot to do with the competitiveness and availability of shipping routes.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/09/19/keith_tatlinger_shipping_container_inventor_dies/

http://xkcd.com/927/

Re: NOT only Open Networks

Yeah, as far as I can tell, WPA2 uses a four way handshake which ensures that the AP needs to authenticate itself to the STA as well as the other way round. So a middleman couldn't just set up an AP that accepted "any" password (for WPA2-PSK at least).

Maybe what Thorin says is true for WPA (not WPA2) though (and WEP is broken anyway).