* Posts by frank ly

6077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Amnesty International accuses tech giants of battery bastardry

frank ly

Re: Cue lots of Apple hate

"Because the report headlined with Apple ..."

Did we read different articles?

20KB trojan turns on bank customers in Singapore, Indonesia

frank ly

How's that anonymity working out for you?

AMD accuses Intel of VW-like results fudging

frank ly

Re: It's not just AMD saying there's a problem.

If I download and install/run a .msi or .exe file, doesn't the same binary code run regardless of whether I have an Intel or AMD CPU? So does this only affect performance if I compile my own benchmarks?

Zombie OS lurches through Royal Melbourne Hospital spreading virus

frank ly

It's a modern meme

"A spokeswoman for the hospital said patient safety is its highest priority ..."

Amazon cloud increasingly powered by hot air

frank ly

Subsidy?

Does the US have any kind of subsidy for electricity generation from 'renewables', where you get paid more than the standard price when you feed your generated electricity into the grid? I'm wondering what the capital repayment period is for a project like that and the ongoing ROI.

Nude tribute to Manet's Olympia ends in cuffing

frank ly

Oh, the irony

"While the museum is demanding charges of indecent exposure, ..."

Facebook is no charity, and the ‘free’ in Free Basics comes at a price

frank ly

Communication

"Ganesh apparently used Free Basics to double his crop yields and get a better deal for his produce."

People in Kenya had similar experiences when cheap mobile phone communications with text messaging became available. This was because of an increase in communication between people over previously inconvenient distance. It's not about accessing internet websites, it's about people being able to communicate with each other anytime they want to and need to.

Microsoft herds biz users to Windows 10 by denying support for Win 7 and 8 on new CPUs

frank ly

Re: Here we go....

"... can even run legacy Windows software ..."

Maybe we'll see producers of popular 'Windows only' software issuing Linux releases of their products?

PDF redaction is hard, NSW Medical Council finds out - the hard way

frank ly

I tried to repair a friend's hernia last week

I bought some surgical scalpels, a retractor, a medical suturing kit and some chloroform. He recovered well and walked away. Two days later he collapsed and was taken to hospital. I was arrested and the doctors who treated my friend said I was stupid to try to do that without having had proper training in the use of those tools. I'm a qualified engineer dammit; it's a simple concept and I was very careful. Those medical people make things too difficult.

Swivel on this: German boffins build nanoscale screwing engine for sluggish sperm

frank ly

Re: Bad Bad Bad

"... bad eyes, which normally would be weeded out of the gene pool."

Apparently, in neolithic times, some craft workers produced intricate miniature jewellery, without use of magnifying lenses. It is assumed that they were very short sighted but they survived because they had skills that were valued by their community. In the modern world, we need people who can do more than run and jump well and kill bison effectively.

Trustwave failed to spot casino hackers right under its nose – lawsuit

frank ly

Re: Where is the gaming commission

Especially since this :- " including ongoing activity from a malware program named “Framepkg.exe,” which Trustwave had found, but apparently had not contained or sought to remediate, during its investigation in 2013."

French say 'Non, merci' to encryption backdoors

frank ly

I'm wondering

"... the murderers coordinated their killings via unencrypted SMS which wasn't picked up, despite some of them being under police surveillance."

Have the various politicians and supporters of 'backdoors' put as much effort into enquiring why this happened?

Put your private parts on display if you want to keep earning a living

frank ly

The first three paragraphs

They're a filter to get rid of those with a weak constitution and any sense of decorum. I walked straight through it. Your life is more interesting than mine but I'm not at all envious. Thank you. :)

Late night server rebuild led to 'nightmares about mutilated corpses'

frank ly

Simon is a big feather on the Australian wing of El Reg.

Skype now translates in real-time into seven languages

frank ly

Any commentard reviews?

I'd be interested to hear the opinion of anyone who's used this. How does it deal with idioms and 'rare' tenses?

Hyatt says hackers took card data from 250 of its hotels

frank ly

This is why ....

.... I use a pre-paid credit card for my occasional hotel bookings, regular petrol purchases (if I don't have enough cash) and purchases over the internet.

Indie review blasts detained immigrants' Facebook, Skype ban

frank ly

Facebook and Skype aren't 'UK sevices'. The marginal cost of access to an imigration claims help site is zero and it may not be a site not run by the government anyway. The question is, why don't the government want them to have access to information that is freely available to everybody else and to be able to communicate with people who can give them information and advice?

After-dinner Mint? Stylish desktop finale released as last of the 17 line

frank ly

A quick point

I've just settled down with Mint 17.3 MATE which is LTS to 2019, after 3 years on Mint 13 which was LTS to 2017. To my surprise, based on the official Linux Mint site, it seems that Mint 18 will be released in May/June of 2016 and will be LTS to 2021. They are 'looking into' ways of making an upgrade path from Mint 17.3 to Mint 18 so that a fresh install isn't needed.

For some people, it might be better to wait until May/June this year and start with Mint 18. However, it's free and easy to 'play' with 17.3 and make a total mess of things while having a 'learning experience' to get you used to Linux if you've never tried it before.

Go on, do it, break it in many different ways, swear at it and learn how to restore it; it's not difficult.

No escape: Microsoft injects 'Get Windows 10' nagware into biz PCs

frank ly

@JeffyPooh Re: Linux, Linux, Linux, Linux,

Whatever the number, at least they download and install very quickly and you don't get nagged to restart. Even after the initial install from a CD, I only had to wait five minutes for all the updates to arrive and then 2 minutes for them to be installed.

A few days ago, I ran Win 7 Pro after an absence of two months. It took 2 hours to download the updates and some failed to download. After I'd downloaded and installed them all, it told me there were another 17 updates and they took another 30 minutes, with a couple of failures. It was a total WTF experience.

With Linux at home, I can backup my entire system by copying partitions onto a spare hard drive then restore by simply copying them back. Try doing that with Windows if it gets borked.

Petit a petit, l’oiseau fait son nid: AWS to open data center in Montreal

frank ly

Re: Weary != Wary

I agree but they might also be weary of all the research and checks they have to do with their lawyers to make sure they are operating within their own country's legislation regarding data privacy.

Council of Europe gets tough on net neutrality

frank ly

"With the exception of traffic management, ...."

The case you set out sounds like reasonable (and expected) 'traffic management'. Residential consumers should have been made aware that 'up to' speeds depend on network loading and may be less that the headline figure at peak times.

Intel Skylake delays, Win10 and stock glut blamed for Q4 PC sales shrinkage

frank ly

That seems like a reasonable rationale to me. Also, I wonder how many people actually need a new PC?

Fortinet tries to explain weird SSH 'backdoor' discovered in firewalls

frank ly

Semantics

"This was not a 'backdoor' vulnerability issue but rather a management authentication issue. ..."

It's a backdoor key issue.

Switzerland, Spain and France are beating UK at DevOps – survey

frank ly

@Rimpel

Next, face a mirror and say "Candyman", three times.

Juniper resets 'days since last rogue code incident' clock

frank ly

Re: Nonce?

"Number used once" is a happily convenient backronym. A 'nonce word' (a word made up for a particular use and not intended to be used again) is a term that was invented about 100 years ago, some time before its use for numbers in cryptography.

Have a look at:

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/nonce-words-for-the-nonce-and-nonce/

Going on a date, and it's just the two of you? How ... quaint. OkCupid's setting up threesomes

frank ly

Re: To answer your question about demisexuals

Given the three numbers on the 'sexual scattergram', it would be a simple matter to map that onto three RGB intensities and have a particular colour as an indentifier. You could wear a t-shirt of that colour or perhaps a simple coloured badge on your nights out.

Jenkins issues code of conduct to keep rowdy automation fans in line

frank ly

Cutting the nose off the cheese

I had to Google that (and the white tie event). I'm a pleb.

Swiss try to wind up Apple with $25k dumb-watch

frank ly

Sueball alert

It has rounded corners!

Confirmed: How to stop Windows 10 forcing itself onto PCs – your essential guide

frank ly

The recently released 17.3 is the Long Term Support version (until April 2019) and I prefer to stick with LTS versions. However, it is easy (and free) to try other versions if you have a spare drive to play with.

Foetuses offered vaginal music streaming service

frank ly

Re: Only one album fits

When you say "fits", I assume you mean 'is appropriate/relevant'?

Activist investors want tepid Yahoo! to reboot crashed Marissa Mayer

frank ly

You see the subheading for the article on data migration

"How do you move a 500lb gorilla? Gingerly."

Is this related?

Longing to bin Photoshop? Rock-solid GIMP a major leap forward

frank ly

Re: GIMP: love it

Layers are great once you get to know them and their associated alpha masks can be useful too. You just need to play/practice with them or watch one of the many YouTube tutorial videos about them.

GCHQ mass spying will 'cost lives in Britain,' warns ex-NSA tech chief

frank ly

Straws in the wind

"A few months later Binney was arrested at gunpoint by the FBI while in the shower, and other NSA staff who had raised similar questions were also collared by the Feds."

Punishment arrests. This shows how it will go in the UK as things 'progress'. (Should I be posting as AC via a Tor browser?)

Bash, smash, trash Flash – earn $100k cash

frank ly

Re: Not dead yet, is it?

Pehaps someone with humour, imagination and creative writing skills could produce a short sketch for our amusement?

Yet another music video treat from Insight Enterprises

frank ly

Were they volunteers?

Or were they encouraged to be team players?

Library web filtering removes info access for vulnerable, says shushing collective

frank ly

There's a lot of it about

"... likely included as a "sub-category of sexual content", ..."

Wikipedia has some 'sexual content'. Do they block that as well?

Face, meet book: Zuckerberg plans to dabble in AI this year

frank ly

re. Yann LeCun email

Send him a bottle of elderberry wine and a hamster skin cap. He's earned them.

Periodic table enjoys elemental engorgement

frank ly

Re: Element 115

Or Lemmyum?

Edit: Sighs; beaten to it.

Irked train hackers talk derailment flaws, drop SCADA password list

frank ly

Re: Who the fuck ...

But, but, it's cheaper that way and it makes it easier for management to monitor it from the comfort of their office.

"... possible paths between trains' operational systems and passenger entertainment systems, ..."

That should be impossible. But, but, but.

2016 in mobile: Visit a components mall in China... 30 min later, you're a manufacturer

frank ly

Andrew !

Since you moderate every comment, here's a correction:

"... it doesn't look like the (?) of design, either."

Whatever word you had in mind, it must have been too horrible to type.

A well presented analysis, thank you.

iOS 9 kludged our iPhones, now give us money, claims new lawsuit

frank ly

Jezabel !

"Furthermore, the seductiveness of Apple's software ecosystem meant that the plaintiffs couldn't easily move to the competition, the lawsuit claims."

Trustworthy x86 laptops? There is a way, says system-level security ace

frank ly

What do Intel have to say about it?

Not just PR releases; current and ex-engineers may have interesting information to 'leak'.

Researcher criticises 'weak' crypto in Internet of Things alarm system

frank ly

For not at all simple homeowners

" ... are designed to provide simple homeowner monitoring ..."

" ... designed to interact with properly designed and managed IT networks that provide an appropriate level of IT security and integrity in their own right."

Google brews a fresh pot of Oracle's OpenJDK Java for future Android

frank ly

Re: non-harmonious Harmony

Now, in my late fifties after what feels like two wasted lifetimes in engineering, I'm wondering if I should have studied for a law degree when I was in my thirties. Someone I knew who did that, at that time, told me that it wasn't difficult.

Microsoft in 2016: Is there any point asking SatNad what's coming?

frank ly

Re: Screw Em

A fresh installation of Mint is faster than some Windows updates. (I've recently gone back to using Win 7 now and then for something 'special' and it is amazingly, frustratingly slow with updates and mandatory reboots.)

Watch out, er, 'oven cleaners': ICO plans nuisance call crackdown in 2016

frank ly

It's if the company has a 'relationship' with you that they are allowed to cold call you. This also applies to their parent company, any subsidiaries and any company they buy or get sold to or enter into a formal partership with. If you make a donation to a charity, they are allowed to cold call you in future to ask for more money because you have entered into a 'relationship' with them. The TPS is a joke.

After eight years, NASA's Dawn probe brings Ceres into closest focus

frank ly

I'm admiring and liking The Expanse so far but haven't read the books. (It's not strictly off-topic since Ceres has been colonised in these stories.)

Hey, Santa – duck! Space shaft buzzes Earth on Christmas Eve

frank ly

Re: "Santa and his eight tiny reindeer"

I don't believe in Rudolph.

India may have binned Facebook's freebies on net neutrality grounds

frank ly

"Facebook initially selected participants in Free Basics ..."

What a mistake to make! They should have carefully consulted the head of the TRAI and then a few high ranking government ministers. That would have given them some carefully chosen Indian owned webservices to include in Free Basics.

No, Kim Kardashian's plump posterior's pixels did not break the App Store – just this El Reg man's mind

frank ly

re. Emojis, in general

Can you design and send your own emojis or do they need to be from some kind of 'standard' set? If so, how much influence and money do you need to add your own emojis to the standard set?