* Posts by Eugene Goodrich

296 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007

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Tag-a-lag: Chip implants mooted for UK prisoners

Eugene Goodrich

Shootouts in the USA

>>>[Great Britain is] following the USA where shootouts for the most minor crimes are commonplace.<<<

Citation needed.

Reaper airborne war-droids to patrol 2012 Olympics

Eugene Goodrich

UAVs vs. Blimp

As an American, I am offended that our blimps are considered inferior for top-down cameras vs. UAVs.

How large a tyre advert can you stick on the bottom of a UAV?

Is it or isn't it? Brown keeps bottling the ID card question

Eugene Goodrich

Just tattoo foreigners.

Just tattoo everyone who visits your island. If someone hasn't got a tattoo, they're either native or paid up with the right people (work for government, have a nice speedboat and night vision goggles, etc.).

Of course, then you'll have problem with unscrupulous people drugging their neighbors when they're angry at them, and tattooing them.

Come to think about it, if your neighbor gets angry at you, what's to stop him drugging you and signing you up for a national ID card? :(

Oz drafts 'batter an orphaned roo' guidelines

Eugene Goodrich
Pirate

Barbituate injection?

Should everyone in sight of, or planning a trip though, kangaroo country be issued hypos they can use to painlessly (and bloodlessly - and that's the measure of a civilized society!) put the joeys to sleep? (Not sure if that American phrase translates - it's what we say when we take an ailing pet on the one-way trip to the vet.)

I suspect the shotgun may be seen as uncivilized because it's a gun, and the Aussies are distancing themselves from such uncivilized devices. (Look at how many guns the United States has, and the fact we Americans can barely cook a slice of dead cow without burning our hands. ;) The answer is the needle, naturally, and I don't see how that could cause any problems....

SETI@home needs You!

Eugene Goodrich
Alien

Aliens vs. cancer / alzheimer's / etc.

Ah, but once we find the aliens, they will cure our cancer / alzheimer's / itchy scrot for us. So it's a tricky decision to make.

Of course, it's hard to be sure if they'll cure us with medicine or by death ray...

Sears admits to joining spyware biz

Eugene Goodrich

"goes to great lengths to describe the tracking aspect"

54 pages, apparently...

Now RIAA says copying your own CDs is illegal

Eugene Goodrich

What does an authorized copy license look like?

What does a license for an authorized copy look like, then? I used to think that if one possessed the actual, original-made CD (in the jewel case with the liner notes, natch) that one had a license to make method-shift copies of the works thereon for personal use. It seems that is not the case.

So, if a person possesses an MP3 (or equivalent) copy of a song, what else does that person need to possess to prove that file is a legitimate copy, purchased from iTunes or another online digital music retailer?

And can a person with several thousand dollars' worth of compact discs (which seem to be authorized copies judging by looking at them) purchase authorized-copy licenses to copy-convert these CDs to MP3 (or equivalent) to play on that person's personal computer or portable music player at a price lower than iTunes' $1 per track? Can such a person purchase an authorized-copy license that allows that person to choose the encoding of the copy of the song for personal use (e.g. copy to minidisc, or OGG, or some lossless digital file format)?

If such licenses (i.e. authorization) do not exist in any durable, externally-verifiable form, then I don't see how any person could ever safely use a portable music player that didn't come pre-loaded with the only music being played on it.

US surgeon snaps patient's tattooed todger

Eugene Goodrich

Second hospital gown needed

Obviously he just needed to wear a sock on under. I'll make a note to do this myself if I have to go in.

If it had been me in this situation, I'd tell the hospital the going rate for a snap was five hundred and a letter of approving review.

New Jersey scraps death penalty

Eugene Goodrich

It's still a death sentence

The ability to put someone in jail for life, without possibility of parole (or for ten consecutive life sentences, or for 160 years to run consecutively, etc.) is a death sentence.

The difference is just how someone is killed, how long it takes, and in what ways (and, naturally, how long) they suffer until they die.

Nintendo Wii said to 'attract cockroaches'

Eugene Goodrich

Isn't this why we have the scientific method?

Can't someone just test this? It's not like the requisite components are difficult to get. Cockroaches, and ... oh. Yeah, might take a while to put this test together after all.

Dear customer: you owe us $211 trillion

Eugene Goodrich

Re: What a pity

If it had been a mistaken credit and not a debit, then the bank would be asking him to hand it back. With interest.

Google wants to make renewable power cheaper than coal

Eugene Goodrich

Never retry anything old that didn't work.

A solution to this problem has been attempted before, and failed, therefore it won't work this time. Google should not even try, and furthermore we should ridicule Google for mentioning it.

No improvement has ever happened due to investment in research, unless the advance was inevitable - and I mean known to be inevitable and guaranteed within reach at the time the investment was made, with further knowledge that nothing unexpected would happen during development that would cause the attempt to fail.

No improvements were attempted multiple times only to fail every time except the final time, when they succeeded.

Amazon's $399 folly book reader

Eugene Goodrich

Re: bookies, today's concept

>>> Put me down for £20 on it flopping within a year.

Payout is only £.002 on this, unfortunately... ;)

>>>law, medicine, engineering etc [would] definitely benefit from it

Only if they allow searching. Some ebooks don't do that. (I suppose it's bad for the battery life?)

Around here, law frequently depends on page numbers, which are copyrighted. If the page numbers on the e-reader aren't identical, the material could be perused by the reader but not cited in court.

-=-

I looked at the existing Sony ebook and went to their online bookstore and searched for some books I might like to read. First some classics - The Hobbitt / Lord of the Rings; Dune; Anne Frank's Diary. Not available. (Moby Dick was, however.) Then things I've already read from the not-local used bookstore - various sci-fi and semi-fantasy writers. Spotty coverage.

That's what tore it. The books were $6 each instead of the $2.50 I pay used normally; fine - I'll pay for the get-it-now convenience. The device is $300, so it would be a long time before I'd make that up in volume. (300 divided by negative 3.5 is...) But to not be able to get the books I'd actually want to read?

I'm just as skeptical about the Amazon reader. Do I have to wonder what books will be "compatible" with Amazon's service?

Telling me I can read the newspaper for $400 plus a subscription fee, instead of on my laptop for free, is not the least bit enticing.

Props to them for giving it a theft-deterring appearance, though.

911 phone phreakers face jail

Eugene Goodrich

Where's the Why?

What was the motivation? Elliot Carver taught millions of us unwashed readers that the most important part of a news story is "why". Thanks to Jonathan Pryce's on-screen rendition I'm here to say you need to add a bit to this story. Either what's missing, or an excuse. Or you could add a bunch of speculation. ("Did their adolescent brains get altered by a lack of sleep and a surfeit of Red Bull?" etc..)

BitMicro pumps solid state drives to 1.6TB

Eugene Goodrich

Why 10,000 cycles is a lot

There's some magic called "write leveling". The short version is the flash controllers can do a good job of making sure if the memory lasts for around 10,000 write cycles, you can write almost 10,000 times the disk capacity to the device before you get into the lifespan failures. For most people, a 1.6 TB drive won't see 16 petabytes of data written to it very quickly. (I suppose it would take 5 years of writing 100 MB/s nonstop.)

Hopefully this isn't more "MTBF"-style theory that doesn't hold up in real life.

Half of computer users are Wi-Fi thieves

Eugene Goodrich

So, what's the official procedure, then, in your country...?

How do you officially present permission for someone to use your Wi-Fi connection, if it's not encrypted?

It makes sense that if unauthorized users are stealing, then there are authorized users who are not stealing. Does the law codify how to tell these two folk apart?

If it does spell out what form(s) authorization may take, then we can ask a followup question: is it legal, and if so how does one do, to allow strangers to connect to your Wi-Fi connection, if it is not encrypted?

I'm going to step out and say that there is probably no proactive way to assure strangers whom you don't meet that your non-encrypted Wi-Fi connection is for everyone's use, and that they have your permission to use it. Certainly no legal, contractual way to do this.

So I suggest encrypting the Wi-Fi then writing the connection key on sidewalks, dumpsters, and so forth be one official way to do this. It figures that someone with a valid key must be authorized. Er, unless they stole the key.

Another possibility would be using a key of a specific value. All zeroes, for example, if that is permitted by the spec.

Someone needs to add a bit to the preamble that says it's for public use; sheesh. Concepts like RFC 3514 suddenly stop being strictly humorous.

Xbox girl-on-girl game upsets Singapore

Eugene Goodrich
Boffin

What some of us really care about...

How far into the game is this bit?

Is it a lone incident, or does this seem to be "going around?"

And, sure, while I'm asking these questions: does it advance the plot?

Samsung samples SATA II 2.5in SSD

Eugene Goodrich

Re: Selling spanking new latest model laptops

No matter what hard drive is used, laptops will continue to grow old and cranky then keel over when you look at them funny, necessitating the purchase of either a used laptop of the same model (with just as much remaining robustness within earshot of an indigestive parakeet) or a spanking new latest model laptop.

I assume this lifespan issue is due to the abuse laptops must take by being handled all the time, while also being less protected than desktops by having to fit into a tighter volume with lighter materials. (No doubt, there are materials that can be both light and strong, but then they aren't as cheap.)

California inches toward 300 megawatt solar plant

Eugene Goodrich

Re: big oil & coal: Goals don't mean squat by themselves

It's well and fine for California to set goals, but it doesn't mean someone else is going to act in a manner that's poor for their business to make those goals happen. There has to be a workable way to get from the starting point to the goals. And until the details of such workable ways (subsidies or tax breaks, or public investment) are reported, I'm not going to just assume they're extant and sufficient.

Oz nanoboffins punt paper-thin flak jacket plan

Eugene Goodrich

Everyone untwist their knickers and have some tea

Boffins are quoted as inventing all sorts of weird stuff with unbelievable claims. It's clear that 1. we haven't got the whole story here and 2. it's going to be a while before they've made anything and tested it so we can see some results instead of speech and 3. when they have made something, it'll probably include some extra details that aren't in the article we just read.

There are a number of materials that are flexible under normal circumstances but can become rigid on their own under certain stresses or can be made rigid electrically. That wasn't mentioned here, but if that concept can be combined with an extremely springy material, they could solve some of the things we're worried about here, by making the entire garment very temporarily conduct the distribution of force against the wearer.

But I suggest at this phase of any story the read just say "standard speech-blather to make the boffins feel like they're accomplishing something more quickly than one invention in ten years" and wait until they actually film a test.

But thanks for the gecko angle. ;)

US Border Patrol laughs off spyplane prang wristslap

Eugene Goodrich

Why watch the US-Canadian border?

I think mostly they'd be looking for people smuggling marijuana. By radar scanning the rugged, evergreen-covered hills in the area. Or by looking for heat signatures and figuring out whether it's a bear.

Manhunt 2 leaked by Sony Europe employee

Eugene Goodrich
Happy

Re: testers; Question about plot

Regarding the testers of a game like this: if they don't like what they're testing (or are going to have to test), they can quit. Coincidentally, I did once. (Not really because I didn't like the product, but rather I didn't like the testing job we were going to have to do to it due to an unexpected sale.)

-=-

I had a look at the screens for Manhunt 2 and the violence seems to be a tad too dark for my tastes, but I am still curious about the plot and gameplay. Has the author (or, really, any non-gaming-specific news site author) read the NGamer exclusive review?

I say El Reg needs to have one of their boys or girls play the game (start to finish, natch) and write us a review.

Finger-chopping jihadis derail MPs scanner system, claims MoS

Eugene Goodrich

Perimeter security is only as good...

... as the guy who props the side door open.

Igor-style human, animal parts assembly on horizon

Eugene Goodrich

Embryonic immigrants

Re: more proof embryonic stem cells are a dead end

Donor cells also guarantee that any medical technique will have to be custom for the patient. No better way to keep the cost of treatment in the millions of dollars than to use a process that cannot be genericized and prepared in a factory prior to diagnosis - and credit check.

Re: (article quote) "it ought to be feasible to custom-build complete Lurch-style butlers or other handy menials to order"

Isn't that what work visas are for? (Around my neighborhood, we would simple say "Mexicans".)

Pentagon in orbital solar power plan for world peace

Eugene Goodrich

Windmill farms and American blood and fault lines

I've only visited one windmill farm, but to me it's gorgeous, quiet, and awe-inspiring. I accept that tastes among us vary. (e.g. Some people seem to think babies thumping silverware at the next table during breakfast isn't annoying in the slightest.)

As for disturbing wind patterns and such: I agree that if we humans all just lay down and die, or did activities that were supported only by whatever natural resources came along right in front of us and presented themselves, the planet would be much more like it would if we weren't here, and that would suit a lot of non-people denizens pretty well. But we're here, we have an impact, and the planet needs to get used to it. Meanwhile it makes sense that we try to minimize the badness of our impact, such as perhaps replacing coal power plants with windmills.

-=-

I think the Register's including of the words "if it's just American blood" means that the number of Americans killed or wounded, or even all military and support troops killed or wounded, is not all that huge a number given the character and duration of conflict at hand. And most noticeably, it is hugely smaller than the number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded.

-=-

Inductive reasoning: I live over a fault line; I haven't died yet from it; it's safe.

Chernobyl to get new steel lid

Eugene Goodrich

Would have been cheaper if they'd built it in the first place?

So, a containment vessel around a nuclear reactor? Like the one that should have been built there at the same time the reactor was, so that if the reactor were to leak its magic smoke, there'd be a chance to contain it?

I suppose if most reactors don't fail, then it _would_ be more cost-effective to only put containment vessels over the ones that do....

Of course, for that viewpoint one would have to look at the radioisotope pollution, psychological damage, and loss of trust for the entire industry as unimportant costs, or just as a cost "someone else" has to pay. Hooray for externalities!

Apple restricts ringtone rights

Eugene Goodrich

Paying (or not) for convenience

Ringtones aren't like drinking water. Nobody needs them. Not even people who already have that song on CD.

So I reckon it's like paying the $2 at the ATM to get cash: the benefit is convenience. If someone finds it convenient to have their phone play some favorite song whenever a specific someone calls, then they pay some money and they get something out of it.

Sure, the entire system could work without that extra fee. But the people charging that fee own the barrel and if someone voluntarily leans over it, they pay the dollar.

We'll see the fee for ringtones go away when someone finds a way to make more money without it.

Until then, I make two suggestions for anyone interested in taking them: 1. buy ringtones or don't, based solely on whether you feel you're getting your money's worth - not on the righteousness of the concept of paying for ringtones, and 2. stop talking about people who choose to pay for ringtones.

I submit there are some people, Apple/iTunes fanboys or not, who look at a dollar as hardly big enough to give to a beggar, and don't feel any pain trading it for a ringtone.

Raygun 747 test will be delayed, hints Boeing

Eugene Goodrich

C&Cs tend to be tougher than intercontinental ballista

The laser can smoke an intercontinental missile because they're light and live in aluminum tubes; melt the middle of that aluminum tube and it should become sufficiently unaerodynamic that its flight ends. The challenge is putting enough power on it for a short while to do that.

Doing damage to a building would require a lot more power / energy. It wouldn't be efficient to use a system designed to damage something small and fast-moving to damage something large and sessile, or at least large and dormant. The wasted optimizations bring along with them a lack of overall damage-dealing capacity. Although, the zero-flight-time ability does reduce the enemy's ability to defend against the attack.

Still, I assume the better way to destroy an enemy's command and control system, from hundreds of miles away, is to hit it with a bomb. (Either the bomb flies the hundreds of miles, or an airplane carrying it does. Have you seen any enemies physically deny us the ability to fly planes with bombs over their targets recently?)

US in move towards GPS-based air traffic control

Eugene Goodrich

99.99999% uptime for 5 years is 26 minutes allowable downtime.

Unless my math is wrong, that's a bit strong of a requirement, isn't it?

Boy racer cuffed for 140mph YouTube jaunt

Eugene Goodrich

That can't be the video - it doesn't show a crime.

I saw a dash dial indicating 140 and a brief snip of the road and some plants. I suppose that's enough to arrest for, but I hope they don't call that "beyond a reasonable doubt". (Do they need that in Scotland?)

Anyone want to see a video of my 95 hp Hyundai Accent doing 220 mph? I may have to hunt around a bit for a dial face that goes up that high...

HP boffin predicts preggers spy bog

Eugene Goodrich

Next thing...

Next thing you know, our flying cars will (via the free municipal WiFi over cities such as Chicago and San Francisco) tell our bosses or spouses when we're late because we've stopped off for a cheeseburger on the way.

China slaps ban on reincarnation

Eugene Goodrich

A bit harsh - where's the five-times license?

Shouldn't they say you can only reincarnate five times under the terms of the license? Isn't that what passes for "fair use" or somesuch these days?

Seriously, though, I'd like to see what passes for evidence in a Chinese court if they declare someone has reincarnated without permission. I assume it's going to be a lot of talk. Maybe even some of that logic I hear so much about.

NSA surveillance and the dream police

Eugene Goodrich

The plaintiffs' harm is?

I don't mean to take the government's side on this because I like illegal surveillance, which I don't, but don't the plaintiffs at some point have to show harm? Have they actually been harmed by the illegal surveillance in any way that they know, other than that they have been surveiled illegally (and thus perhaps had some constitutional / legal rights abrogated)?

Xbox 360 Halo 3 kick-ass console priced

Eugene Goodrich

Gorgeous

Actually, I think that's a stunning color scheme. Very "Space Marine", which is far more/older than just a Halo thing.

Maybe I should paint my GameCube to look like that...

EC accuses Rambus of 'patent ambush'

Eugene Goodrich

Right quick, these EC types?

It seems to me that this was a blowup a year or three ago. Why is the EC just getting to it now? Is that just how fashionably they like turning up to the party?

Boffins chill chip with ion wind

Eugene Goodrich

Increased efficiency or just efficacy?

The efficiency of the cooling system could be described as the amount of heat it can clear out per unit of energy it takes to do so. I heard someone run some math (which looked as reasonable as not) suggesting the ion wind costs a few times as much power as the fan it makes more effective.

So overall they might not have changed power efficiency, just efficiency of space, weight, complexity (assuming, of course, that ion wind hoosits are less complex than other high-performance alternatives), and perhaps noise.

I say we turn instead to doping and etching the chips onto diamond and let 'em run smoking hot. ;)

Fake e-cards signal massive DDoS attack

Eugene Goodrich

Famous quotes

"10,000 bots ought to be enough for anybody."

AK47: the open-source weapon that took the world by storm

Eugene Goodrich

Americanese Clip vs. Magazine part 2

The illiterate among us Americans do often refer to a magazine as a clip, still.

The technical phraseology is that a clip and a magazine are both devices to hold ammunition to be placed into a firearm, but a magazine encloses the ammunition; a clip does not.

Thus stripper clips (for rapidly reloading some weapons' magazines through the top of the action) and moon clips (for rapidly reloading many revolvers while at the same time using the grooved, rimless cases automatic pistols digest) are still properly referred to as clips.

* Note I'm from the Northwest continental United States, and my language knowledge may not apply to some other parts of the country, especially the deep South.

US robot carrier-jet contract announced

Eugene Goodrich

We all treat this like new?

I laugh reading some of the previous posts and getting the impression that the posters treat this like some wholely new development. We (yanks) are already employing drones in actual combat, and periodically improving their software and hardware capabilities. So what's new, here? A heavier drone that can operate from carriers? Doesn't sound like much to worry about, for anyone.

The things to worry about, for people so inclined, are totally outside this picture.

Thirsty Koreans fight duff whisky with mobiles

Eugene Goodrich

If you don't trust an RFID tag, fry it.

RFID tags are going to be cheap and contain a bit of digital semiconductor, right? That should make them pretty weak at standing up to serious ESD. I assume once RFID tags become commonplace, purple wands (a tesla coil variant or relative) will be popularly employed to just break the RFID chips.

Then let the tax man inspect your bottles.

Petrol latte for Kiwis in dairy biofuel push

Eugene Goodrich

Why burning ethanol isn't a waste

It may seem a waste to the drinker, but as an ethanol salesman if you compare the per capita consumption in an industrialized nation of liquor to motor fuel, I bet you'll see that once you've finished getting everyone drunk, there's another great big market in helping them to drive! And the cars like their drinks to be stronger than people do, even as they drain far larger glasses.

US law firm cleared of robots.txt DMCA hacking charge

Eugene Goodrich

Robots.txt a legal requirement?

Is there any legal requirement for anyone to obey robots.txt? I thought the only way someone could "make" you obey robots.txt was by a licensing agreement / contract, which would stipulate that anyone accessing the data on their site implicitly agrees to obey robots.txt - but I'm not sure this kind of contract has been found enforceable in court yet.

Further, does DMCA really allow a "technical measure" that is based on an unsigned contract?

Silicon Valley struggles to save toxic landmark

Eugene Goodrich

May I suggest:

Step 1: bulldoze it.

Step 2: clean up the contaminated dirt around it.

Step 3: rebuild a replica of it.

The way I see it, stopping the contamination / preserving the environment has to be done. Might as well get started on it - it could be a decade before the paperwork is all filled out. But the preservation of such a beautiful sight / nostalgic eyesore * is optional. Yes, it'd be nice to combine the historic preservation with the environmental cleanup to save money, but I don't feel awkward saying they are probably full of contradictory details that mean the savings will end up being theoretical only.

(* I've seen it.)

Online games turn British man into hero

Eugene Goodrich

CS:S not really applicable here.

There is next to no play in Counter-Strike: Source that is unarmed. From a technical perspective, it seems this particular game can have no bearing on his actions.

Unless he was trying to defuse a bomb or rescue hostages, I suppose; those actions are conducted without the direct use of weapons, but no CT (counter-terrorist; the one of the two teams in the game who rescues hosties or defuses) would undertake these actions in the direct presence of an enemy unless he (or she) had lots of cover and little time, or was so desperate that being killed seemed an acceptable likelihood (since once the bomb or round timer runs out, you'd lose anyway).

Now, if the guy had shot the robbers in the head with a pistol or slit their throats from behind, that would point to Counter-Strike: Source.

(My apologies if this guy plays the older classic Counter-Strike, the details of which I am not intiminate familiar with.)

NASA gunman: police blame work grudge

Eugene Goodrich

How long? - Maths

If the United States has around 4 million babies born per year, and there's one firearm-related performance-review-based homicide per day, then this won't finish the American population off very quickly. (Due to the small number of days per year.)

One could also add in any number of other types of firearm-related deaths and until that plus heart disease and cancer exceed three million deaths per year, continued population growth is likely.

Ethanol cars unhealthier than petrol ones?

Eugene Goodrich

Hot lead; uranium stores; the first switch is the hardest

200 deaths per year is rather less than the U.S. military is suffering to "maintain stability" in Iraq right now.

-=-=-=-

I'd heard a complete switch to nuclear power would cause a peak uranium problem in not too many years, because the known supply of the stuff won't hold up to the world's staggering power consumption.

-=-=-=-

A switch to ethanol, or to any other fuel, could be a first step to flexibility in general. How long has gasoline (for cars; diesel for trucks) been the only U.S. motor fuel? How long has everyone said there's no way we could ever change because of the logistics? If we change one time, we've broken the ice and that increases the possibility of researching different fuels in the future. (I refuse to believe the current thinking on all these fuels and what it'll cost us based on where we are now is the "final answer" for the next fifty or a hundred years. I believe in iteration.)

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