Posts by frank ly
2124 posts • joined Wednesday 10th June 2009 09:17 GMT
Page:
Four legs good, ....
.... six legs weird.
re. 'deal'
So, RBS agreed to let the government pour money into them, provided the government didn't interfere with the future running of RBS? That doesn't sound like a 'deal' to me; it's sounds like a charitable donation.
The situation was probably more complicated than that, I'm sure.
Posted in Hotelier faces FTC data breach lawsuit
Re: re: Why were they storing credit card data?
I thought they stored an authorisation code (from the credit card provider) that was time limited and unique. That way, only the hotel could steal from you (if they wanted to) and nobody else could.
Posted in Hotelier faces FTC data breach lawsuit
Why were they storing credit card data?
I thought that credit card data was exchanged with the credit card provider, via HTTPS, who then gave a linked authorisation code to the hotel (retailer).
Re: Fair use
In terms of context it may be obvious and 'fair use' as you say. However, did you consider that Sooty (or the administrators of his estate) may object to his picture being used in an article in The Register?
Sooty had a clean and wholesome 'family' image and there are often obscene words in El Reg comments and many articles contain less than 'wholesome' humour. As such, this could tarnish and dilute Sooty's brand image and marketability. Just a cautionary thought.
Re: CA added that RBS's technical issues were "highly unique to their environment".
I fully agree with your obvious point, but I think the correct word is 'absolute', not 'binary'. (Absolute: free from restriction/limitation/qualification)
Re: Yes. that's all fine and well...
I've no bloody idea either but I was enjoying the little stroll you took us on. I enjoy amusingly surreal but disturbingly relevant analogies - please continue with your insightful analysis.
I find this strange ....
The OFT is worried that an organisation which provides me (if i choose to use it) with a free service, has bought up another organisation that can provide me with a free service. What does this have to do with TRADE?
Immersiveness ... outpainting .....
Yuk.
I like the T-shirt ....
.... but you can't buy it on its own.
Re: A shame....hmmm.....
It's nice to have it written down, for reference.
Re. Mystery Location
On the picture shown, is that a barrage balloon in the upper right corner?
I'm also surprised that the location hasn't been identified.
What the ....
"Having given up on getting a cut of the transaction fee the mobile operators are now hoping ..."
Why should the telco operators expect to get a cut of transactions? That would be like UPS getting a cut of the value of the contents of any parcels they delivered. Keep them as dumb pipes because they have a difficult enough job doing that properly.
Re: *to accommodate high-penetration renewable energy"
Possibly; but what does it actually mean, in technical terms?
... change was essential to kick-start the "knowledge economy."
Maybe someone should tell them it started a while ago.
re."... what AmeriCash Advance characterises as an extortionate demand..."
It's not an extortionate demand; it's extortion. If $15,000 was an extortionate demand, there would be a lower amount that could be regarded as a reasonable demand.
I was waiting for them to take their clothes off ......
.... to investigate the action and relative effectiveness of different laundry powders; under controlled conditions with proper recording of results and cross checking by an independent peers.
@Thorne re. puppies/kittens
Your story does not make easy reading and is very confusing. Is there any way you could explain this 'scam' better, because it doesn't make sense to me, not as you've written it. (Note: I'm in the UK and if I was selling puppies, there is no way I'd ship one abroad so your example had my barriers up immediately.)
three hours eh?
Did you consider using Google Maps (or whatever) to show it to him, on the map?
The examples given are spurious
The examples given (time shifting of broadcast works, for later private viewing, as a service) have nothing to do with 'cloud computing', except that the service just happens to use the internet and networked storage, somehow and somewhere. These particular examples have been thrashed out in the courts in various forms over the years, with various technologies 'in the dock'.
I would suggest that this 'study' is being used (badly) as a justification and a stepping stone to modification of copyright law and/or the control of copyright law, by people with vested interests in seeing this happen.
"Unless you modify copyright law, the bright and shiny future of cloud computing (and your cut of a multi-billion pound/euro industry will be threatened" Yeah, right.
re. collision avoidance on aircraft
Also, for large aircraft, there are ATC systems which have collision prediction and flagging tools to alert ATC staff; and large aircraft fly on predetermined routes at predetermined times. When they converge at at airport, there are established systems staffed by experienced people to monitor and direct them. The PAV will not have these systems (apparently) and so it will be a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult to predict/control and avoid accidents.
As for cars: In the town where I live, there are cars for hire that will take you where you want to go and you don't need to drive. They have built in AI that understands human speech (usually). They are called taxis.
Posted in Google blocks MP3 rippers from YouTube
Re: Utterly pointless effort by Google
Steady on Jon. You're talking about old fashioned analogue technology, which was replaced by the new digital methods to avoid all the problems with fidelity and copying distortion that went with that old fashioned and discredited technology. And you'd need another computer to convert and record the first computer's audio output; it gets silly.
My clone just went rogue, ....
.... it signed me up to fifteen extreme porn sites and ordered 15 litres of KY-jelly and a gross of dildos. (I should never have given it my address and credit card details.)
It's not on the torrents yet .....
... so I'll wait a while.
re. ".. vertical row.."
Many people refer to this as a 'column'.
Re: The only time I've previously heard of Habbo Hotel
When I first started running around the internet unsupervised, at the tender age of 40, I was shocked, saddened and annoyed by trolling and griefing in various places. After a while, I developed coping strategies and recognised behavioural patterns and markers that alerted me to the type of people I was dealing with. Now, it's water off a duck's back.
Maybe it's good for children to see trolling and griefing on the internet before they encounter the real thing in the real world.... develop their recognition and coping techniques at an early stage?
When a politician speaks .......
"Business Secretary Vince Cable offered his "assurances" that future changes to the law in these areas would be subject to "proper parliamentary scrutiny" and that, in practice, the "order-making" powers would be used to ..."
Oh yes, you can always believe politicians when they tell you what new laws will be used for and how there will be proper scrutiny if they are modified.
I thought that parody and pastiche were already protected under copyright law, as was a 'reasonable' level of copying for genuine comment and criticism?
As a side issue ....
"..scandium to the people who make the fuel cells that Apple uses to power its expanding server farms and data centres."
Are fuel cells used much to provide power to server farms and data centres? How about an brief article on the subject?
But what is it?
Is the interstellar radiation thought to be made up of gamma rays, high speed particles; and what are their intensities compared to local interplanetary space?
I realise that no instrument has been there to measure them, but what are the theories?
Re: Tumbleweed-plagued Google+
"...most of Google+ activity is in private circles."
So, do you spend your evening jerking from one circle to the next, or can you take part in more than one circle at a time? (I do have a Google+ account but nobody has invited me to join a circle. I was thinking it might help if I made myself visible.)
ICANN have invited me .......
.... to a drinks party at a south London brewery. I won't bother going.
Re: I'm so over pendantry.
I'm not. 'Birth' as a veb is often used for the physical act of giving birth, e.g. as in 'birthing pool'. The verb 'bear' has the implied sense of carrying along a burden (joyfully we hope) during pregnancy and also supporting a child after the moment of it's birth.
As such, for inanimate objects such as stars, to say that a galaxy is 'birthing stars' seems fine to me.
Re: Tense is everything... (but common usage prevails)
It's a standard way of talking about visual records. When you show a picture of a family gathering that was taken 10 years ago, do you say, "At the time this picture was taken, my brother was eating lots of cake", or do you say, "There's my brother, eating lots of cake."?
@Tigra 07: Re: My only question.... Point 2)
"...hanging around tall people will make you tall."
I tried that for a long time and it doesn't work. I know this is only anecdotal evidence but I thought I should share my observations on this one.
Re: As somebody...
Ok... set up and use icannstuff@mydomain.com, filter everything to go to spam unless it's from icann.com (or whatever they use). This is the technique I use to get rid of 99.99% of spam sent to my 'mydomain' email addresses. I also use yahoo adresses and autoforward them to a collector address at my 'mydomain' email address, with similar filtering techniques.
Re: As somebody...
You should have used a disposable Yahoo e-mail address for the application.
Re: The plural of 'chaos'
Chaos is a state/condition and is not countable, hence it has no plural. Consider 'happiness', 'loneliness', etc.
Re: Cern LHC has become the Augean stables
After reading that, my mind is now in a Perpetual Harmonic Oscillatory state.
Re: There must be
I think the sheer amount of data would overload all the public ISP routes across Europe.
Re: So..?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop
Here's a starter for you :)
Re: FOSS to the rescue?
"...you can make your software speak English like a butch German woman."
Whatever appeals to you AC :) For the child-user market, I'd think that the parents (and the children) would prefer a synthesised voice that sounded like a child. It may be possible to do this with clever signal processing or existing library modification. Otherwise you'll need some volunteer children to get speech samples from, to produce a 'better' sounding output from the speech library.
Re: The allure of luxury
You could have got it for £96 at ukmulberrybagssale.net. haven't you heard of shopping around?
FOSS to the rescue?
Apple are simply protecting themselves, as you'd expect them to do. I have sympathy for the developers of this marvellous application and cannot understand why the patent defense of 'obvious to anyone with a bit of knowledge and imagination' cannot be used. I would think that the target market is not very visible, well known or profitable; hence the dearth of affordable 'solutions'.
Enter FOSS..... A small group of developers should be able to turn out a very nice application along these lines, running on Android or Windows (for general accessibility) and make it available as a free download. (The only 'tricky' bit I can think of is the speech library - but that can be produced by volunteers if a free one isn't available.)
"... data-dredging ..."
...gives you lots of mud.
"..your Big Ben looks like you expect."
My Big Ben is bigger than four inches and It's not available on the internet.
Re: It's called a laptop!
Structurally, 'laptop' may have the same number of syllables as 'lappie', but the double consonant 'pt' is more difficult to say since it requires a more complex lip and tongue movement at the transition. For casual speech (and casual writing), this is the reason I prefer to use 'lappie', 'deskie', 'tabbie' and 'mobbie'.
(Note: 'mobbie' may have one more syllable than the 'mobe' alternative but the longer 'ie' sound at the end allows relaxed vocalisation as part of a more natural breath pattern.)
Language changes and we should take advantage of increased efficiencies and comfort afforded by these advances.
Re: Medical?
"here is your blood - it's a good idea to keep it inside"
In 'O'-level biology (early '70s), we used to prick our thumbs with lancets to get blood samples for microscopic examination and demonstrations of blood typing. I still have the scars at the base of my left thumbnail. As a result of this early exposure to blood and pain, I can perform minor operations on my own body when it gets penetrated by wood splinters and metal fragments, with no bother at all apart from the ocassional swearword.
Kids nowadays eh?
'AC 11:56 Re: Too much added, not enough removed
"The amount of times I've had to correct native English speakers ..."
That should be "The number of times ...", since you're referring to a set of events which are countable. You could say "The amount of time I've had to spend .....".
Re: what a load of nonsense
I suggest mud-wrestling matches (or knife fights) between the registered CEO's of the companies concerned. I'd pay to watch them.
