Posts by Neil Barnes
1141 posts • joined Wednesday 18th April 2007 10:33 GMT
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
"Yes, Manny. We can throw rocks."
Very neat
But as noted above, doing away with mag strip readers is the more secure approach, at least in the short term.
However you do it, anything which has access to the electronics or the transmission eventually has access to a man-in-the-middle attack, but at least this kills the scan'n'watch approach (which is sneaky because it works on a chip enabled reader even if the reader isn't using the strip).
Though the obvious approach is to remove the mag strip completely. Thinks: I wonder how much utility I'd lose if I killed the mag strip with a degausser or simply wrote garbage over it...
While I'm at it, what idiot thought that touchless payment technology was anything like a good idea? If I pay for something, I want it to be a positive act with at least one secret as an authorisor - not something that can take a tenner from my pocket before I've even decided which card to pay for (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22545804 - terminals reading a contactless card while trying to pay with a different chip'n'pin).
Your call is important to us...
But not quite important enough for us to devote a minion to answer it.
Meanwhile, here's some very bad Stravinsky for you to enjoy at 8p a minute.
Buy 'em all you want
If you're daft enough - or vain enough - to think that the world is an infinitely better place because you've recorded all your daily doings, you're probably beyond hope or redemption.
On the other hand, there are those of us already disturbed by the huge amount of video surveillance already around the place, who would like to be able to go about our lawful business without being snooped or recorded.
Perhaps the required protection is that citizens carry some sort of reality distorter: say, half a brick or a spray can of black paint?
Re: bottle it
As long as it's been stored properly - see the label: Store in a cool, dry, place.
Posted in What is this white van with unusual antennas doing? Spotted in the City of London near St Pauls.
It's a radio outside broadcast van.
TV OB trucks are either stuffing great 40-ton beasts that get bigger when you push the right button, or the little SIS satellite link vans with a four-foot dish on top.
Posted in This week I have reading...
Rereading...
Legacy of Heorot - Niven, Pournelle, and Barnes (no relation!)
and let’s just assume it’s a nice pal
Let's just damn well make sure it's a nice pal...
I'm really unconvinced by this concept of the internet of things. It seems to be slapping connectivity and monitoring on things that have no need - except in the eyes of the marketeers - for either...
Re: Eat PETA
PETA = People Eat Tasty Animals.
Feed the bugs to PETA. Feed PETA to the animals. Eat the animals.
A world where bacon is replaced by insects is not to be tolerated.
"not be able to open my old files"
I seem to recall a quote from years back, probably referring to Redmond at the time, but apposite now: if you can't open your data, you don't own it.
Sorry to sound like Eadon, but this is a definite call for open data standards.
Are intermediate files obfuscated/encrypted or merely undocumented?
Boys are not the most natural writers?
Shakespeare, W.
Dostoyevsky, F.
Aldiss, B.
Asimov, A.
Banks, I A.
Stephenson, N.
Dickens, C.
Zelazny, R...
Re: the trouble with auditors
What's 2+2?
Engineer: 4.00, to appropriate clearances.
Mathematician: 4, assuming a rational number line and a base higher than 4.
Auditor: Locks door, closes curtains, sweeps room for bugs and then whispers 'what do you want it to be?'
Re: I wonder how much of the opposition matches mine?
That's the point, I think, Andy.
I don't have to prove who I am. The state has to prove that I'm not.
I wonder how much of the opposition matches mine?
I am *not* opposed to an 'ID' card which must be presented to show entitlement to a social service - whether it be 'I am old enough to walk into this cinema' or 'I am a paid up member of the national health service' or things in between (though there are certainly cases where the 'ID' part of that need - and I believe should - not be displayed, nor the data logged).
What I am, and I suspect many others are, is a requirement to *carry* an ID, so that any official can demand it of me.
They serve me. I do not serve them.
Posted in Urban Farming
I'm a firm believer in evolution in the garden
... if it can't grow on its own without help it's doomed...
Herself is in charge of the pretty stuff and growing the lawn; I get to look after an 8'x6' green house and a couple of small raised beds.
Usually we get some sort of tomatoes and peppers working in the greenhouse - some curly orange Romano peppers from seeds taken from a supermarket pepper, last year, so I'm curious to see what the second generation does, and some dedo de mocha 'cold' peppers. And some strange Bulgarian tomatoes.
Outside, last year was not a great success. Some leeks worked, and some onions, but nothing else wanted to grow. Lettuces merely fed slugs, and cabbages won't grow for me at all. Even the apple tree didn't deliver, though the plums were so heavy they were breaking the branches off.
This year, there are potatoes outside (they'd started chitting in the kitchen) and there will be some beans, with luck.
We have arrived at the stage
where we require instructions on a toothpick.
Is there one single solitary instance of a use case where this is superior to a push-button?
Baen Books also
provide drm-free (and in many cases, just free) ebooks.
I've spoken to a number of SF authors, and they seem much different to the 'rent the IP' model that was pushed with music: they don't expect you to have to purchase the same thing in a dozen different formats, and indeed are quite happy for you to scan their books provided you (a) have a purchased copy and (b) don't distribute it.
Pick up handset, dial number, speak...
And then put phone down.
That's all it needs. Whatever is behind the scenes is immaterial to the user. Doesn't matter if it routes through Mars, as long as that basic functionality is present. Bells and/or whistles? No thanks.
I'm still curious to know
How many of the 'sales' have been people upgrading existing systems or building new boxes, versus those forced onto new retail PCs?
Indeed...
Even in the UK it's worth baking your own bread - it's a third of the price of the shop-bought Chorleywood process predigested pap that passes for bread in the supermarket and an improvement in every meaningful respect.
Lester, I'll sort out something on your fund page when I'm back in the UK next week.
p.s. Soak pulses in boiling water before leaving for work - ten to fifteen minutes in the pressure cooker sorts out the hardest. The salt goes in *after* that, when you add the flavours.
I begin to see a pattern
It seems to be that netbooks are going the same way as ereaders and phones. The device is paid for not in the initial purchase price but by the projected sale of applications, adverts, or content.
Such sponsorship is all very well but I see the end of small cheap general purpose computing devices - makers will be required to lock down their devices to prevent any use other than that of the sponsor.
Re: Does this £1/day include energy costs ?
He's going to have a devil of a job using solar power looking at the weather map... thunderstorms and snow yesterday, rain today... the sun might shine later in the week.
Re: Bread beans and flour...
Not unless we hang around till September... round here, even the gages and cherries are still in flower; the apples haven't opened their leaves yet.
Re: Not representative
This is true - it's not a matter of what the numeric value is, but what that dollar a day buys you. If it buys you enough to live, then it doesn't matter whether it's a dollar or twenty quid - provided that you have it in the first place.
It's certainly not reasonable to compare cost of living between two countries with completely different infrastructure and cost bases. In particular its unfair to compare food prices when the price of food has so much loading for dragging it halfway around the world...
And yet...
<blink>Blink</blink>
Bread beans and flour...
Not knowing the prices in sunny Spain, it has to be UK prices: but a 1.5kg bag of flour is 45p in Tesco: it'll make you three loaves of bread (you left it a bit late to start a sourdough, so you'll have to buy yeast - 65p for 125g, of which you'll use about 30g so you can probably fudge the numbers there if you have to.)
Dried beans? £1.09 for half a kilo, will feed you all week. Spaghetti, 19p for half a kilo.
That leaves you £2.62 for some flavour - an onion or two, couple of tomatoes, an egg perhaps.
Pudding is unlikely you be an option...
Posted in Review: Western Digital Sentinel DX4000
Did I understand that correctly:
An NAS that requires a Windows client to set it up?
Sorry guys...
Re: Less is More
Analogue dials give trend information: is the temperature where it usually is, for example. You're probably correct that many drivers won't know the difference and wouldn't take any notice of it anyway - look how many cars these days have nothing but a speedo and a red light.
But a red light is really saying 'oops, too late'... not for this engineer and car enthusiast, thanks.
Posted in 787 battery fix approved
"to stop the batteries from overhearing in future"
Presumably, then, someone spoke of the batteries and their ears were burning? That could explain it...
We're already using the freefall detect
Amongst other options:
1) target height reached
2) current height too low below previous max height
3) (possible - still thinking about this: too long without height changing)
What about something really simple: the parachute pulls an insulator from between two springs? I can lay my hands on a little beryllium copper wire...
Posted in Review: NetAtmo Urban Weather Station
But, but, but...
What's the point of a weather station that doesn't include wind speed and direction?
Re: They call it dark matter
It's probably down the back of the sofa. It's dark back there...
provided a "diligent search" is made
Presumably, through the Hub... fancy that.
Let us not forget the Perfumed Garden
Wherein one discovers in chapter 6, advertised as performed in India, El loulabi, the screw of Archimedes.
Along with the necessary instructions, of course.
Don't worry, the porn industry will kill it...
After all, they seem to drive every major technology adoption... and where's their market if you have to keep absolutely still while watching to avoid the channel changing?
Re: Resolution is less important than screen size
Yabbut... the current glo fits nicely in the back pocket of my jeans. The new size is a touch big for that... the bezel does seem proportionally larger than on the glo.
I'll second the point made earlier about the touch screen not reaching the edge of the device; that would make it unmanageable. I *hate* touch sensitive things you can't actually pick up...
Re: Meh..
Which is why I grow my own epubs.
And meanwhile, in the department of the bleedin' obvious
This has been wishful thinking since day one. While the bandwidth to broadcast dtt or satellite remains constant irrespective of the number of viewers, if each and every one of them wants their own personalised TV then you either need a hell of a lot of distribution, or you, er, broadcast...
Irrespective of content
Powerpoint is the work of the devil. Check out Charlie Stross for proof.
We won't even mention Edward Tufte: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB
Re: Interesting
The results might be different if the choice of Windows or Linux were to be made at the three or four hundred quid price point... and to more than one brand of computer.
Though of course there will be the same effect as Acer had with the 'One' - "Take this back, it won't run XYZ.exe windows software." Er, it won't run apple software either, but no-one complains about that...
The joke is of course that it's an almost cost-free option for a maker to drop Linux onto the machine. If it doesn't sell, revert to Windows (or perhaps don't install software until point of sale for mail order). Extra support costs, in the short term - but if my octogenarian technophobe parents can manage linux for the usual browse, skype, email, photos stuff, anyone can
the absence of any and all OEM crapware
Always a benefit.
@ Robert Harvey
Initially, yes...but resistance is futile.
Hi! I'm Clippy!
Looks like you're trying to control a plane! Well done!
Would you like to go to:
[a] Cuba?
[b]...
If the manufacturers are losing sales and blaming it on W8
Then why aren't they doing the obvious and offering their machines with W7? Or even Linux - with the exception of windows-only games there's nothing that most domestic users do that, say, Mint 14 or any of the other alternatives doesn't.
Could it be the MS wont *let* them?
Posted in Review: Kobo Arc Android tablet
Re: Kobo has already been where the smart shoppers have ended up.
@AC - 16:34
What makes you think my epubs are pirated? Have you heard of Gutenberg? Does the concept of scanning material you already own, OCRing it, and converting it to epub surprise you - and in what significant way is it different from ripping a CD (apart from the obvious 'it takes a lot of time and effort')? Are you aware that the Kobo desktop application - required to purchase ebooks - is not available for Linux?
I don't care about reading on multiple devices. I do care about DRM: I object to any technology which assumes I am a thief and will do my damnedest to avoid it. I object to any technology which prohibits my usage of that which I have purchased as I please and so I do not purchase DRM encumbered material. But I have several hundred epubs, and for each in copyright (and many older) I have a paper original, in the same way that for each of my .ogg or .mp3 files I have the original CD.
But I am neither thief nor pirate, and resent the implication. You bought a bookselling mechanism. I bought a book *reading* mechanism.
Posted in Review: Kobo Arc Android tablet
Tapestries? Discoveries?
I am driven *mad* by tags...
Strikes me there's no need for anything more complex than an alphabetical series of books, one page (shelf, in the older 'glo') to an author... I want to see who I have on the device, and then I want to see the titles. I don't want to see 'adventure', 'crime', 'foreign authors', 'cheese development board', or 'science fiction' - particularly as there is so often a disagreement between different taggers as to which category a book should be in, which renders the whole concept somewhat tenuous, if not pointless.
Hierarchical reference is a concept probably older than libraries; it's worked well for centuries. But the last five or ten years have buggered the concept completely. I can't listen to a whole album in the order the artist intended; I can't see at a glance whether I have anything by a particular author. The whole world has gone mad in a pokey slidey pokey slidey interface that simply falls over if there are more than a couple of dozen items.
I have yet to see an ebook which can handle - without jumping through hoops - any significant number of books (i.e. four hundred to a thousand). I have certainly never seen the obvious 'autotag' button: tag by author.
Meh.
</rant>
Posted in Review: Kobo Arc Android tablet
...the social reading and statistics actually make you want to stay with Kobo.
Surely you jest, sir?
Of all the things I want a reader to be, a device that tells the world what I'm reading and me what the world thinks of it is the last... reading is, was, and always should be a private activity, something to do on your own when you want to shut the world out. 'Social reading' is a contradiction in terms in my world.
Epub based is the reason I use Kobo - though I won't buy any book with DRM or which I cannot store and view on a local device *without* the necessity of wireless connection.
Re: Orion Mk 2? (@ Neil Barnes)
Indeed, and I too wish them every success - I want to ride this beast. My immediate judgement would also be that the fuel is certainly safer than the horrible nasties that are even 'safer' rocket fuels.
But - I'm no expert on the atmospheric test ban, but I don't believe it's restricted to fission. And that would prevent its use in atmosphere by any signatory.
Though of course, the significant thing about Orion - and one of the things that got it cancelled - was that there was no practical way to get it up without using its fission propulsion from ground leve... this one could well be built in orbit using a kit of bits (I don't think we can get a 150 tone payload up in one bit yet) and it also may be that it's not going to generate 1+g anyway.
