* Posts by frank ly

6077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Jamie Oliver serves up steaming pile of malware

frank ly

Shuttered?

I had a look at eponymous.com and it's just a static page with barely any content. Nothing to do with Jamie Oliver at all. Has it been closed down or something?

First HSBC, now the ENTIRE PUBLIC SECTOR dodges tax

frank ly

Re: Two things

It's a meaningless monetary merry-go-round. I wonder how much is spent on administering this 'set of rules', updating it and developing computer systems to keep track of it all?

Torvalds turns to Sir Mix-A-Lot for Linux versioning debate

frank ly

Re: Running out of digits?

This standard model human gets severe cramp if he tries some particular 'binary number' representations. I am getting old though; ah well.

Hey Apple - what's the $178bn for? Are you down with OTT?

frank ly

Human nature?

"... with Apple engineers apparently upset by being leapfrogged by former Beats employees."

We need you, with your technology, abilities, skills and experience, but you have to realise that we're more important than you and deserve the juicy positions and salaries.

I've heard and seen that sort of attitide in many places.

Apple drives itself round bend: Pities the fool who inks deal with carmakers – source

frank ly

Re: Dark secrets in Cupertino...

Wheels have very rounded corners.

Gullible Apple users targeted by bogus order cancellation scam

frank ly

Re: Thin line

I've often considered setting up a simple spelling-n-grammar correction service. Along the lines of "Send me your specialist e-mail or document, with a Bitcoin payment. I'll correct your spelling and grammar then send it back to you." P.S. Advice to scammers: don't start your e-mail with 'My Dear'.

Vint Cerf: Everything we do will be ERASED! You can't even find last 2 times I said this

frank ly

Re: Rince and Repeat.

Rincewind? I'm sure Terry Pratchett's books will still be around in 100 years time.

IBM says dating apps can give you a nasty infection DOWN THERE!

frank ly

"... man-in-the-middle attacks, ..."

I read that as '... man-in-the-piddle attacks, fisting and cross-dress stripping ...'

Yes, I will be alone on Valentine's Day. How did you know?

You'll NEVER guess who has bought I Taught Taylor Swift How To Give Head dot-com

frank ly

Re: TS went down on me

"... & her wig fell off ......", yes indeed.

Have you noticed her throat? Adam's apple?

Death knell for Windows with Bing, licences carved up

frank ly

Re: "Death nell" not so much

That would be the poisoned oranges. You have to watch her all the time.

Hear that sound? It's the Windows XP PC bubble popping

frank ly

Re: For me it's older Xeon workstations.

Yes, I got one (dual quad-core 3GHz with 8GB RAM for £185) and very nice it is too. However, there is a strange problem with many T5400 motherbords (which happened in mine after three months regular use) in that they can develop a fault where on restart, but before booting from the HD, they hang up with just a flashing cursor showing for 5 minutes before proceeding to start up as normal. After trying three replacement motherboards from a local PC-recycler-seller, I found that this was a common problem. I won't go into details but I think it's caused by repeated mains power cycling, which is the sort of thing you do when you get a second hand machine and start fitting bits to it and generally messing around with it. In 'normal' use in a commercial environment, this doesn't happen to them.

I've seen reports of problems with an identical description on various forums.

Jeb Bush, the man who may lead the US in 2016, dumps Floridians' private data on the web

frank ly

I've often wondered

Would it be worse to be ruled/governed by an evil dictator or by an idiot?

Data retention: It seems BORING ... until your TV SPIES ON YOU

frank ly

Re: How can Samsung be so aggressive and yet so naive in this post Snowden world?

"Why? Because [Hackers,] Security Agencies, Police and the Rogue Elite, are going to find ways to access leaky TV data and use it against us in ways it was never intended...."

You answered your own question :(

frank ly

Re: Before someone writes "block access to the Internet via the router" please consider...

"A blocker is placed over the cable to stop users connecting their own router or inserting their own along the chain."

If an ethernet cable comes out of it, you connect that to the upstream port of your own router; surely? Or is it a very devious arrangement?

Boffin the boffin and his boffinry pals in double dwarf super-prang alert

frank ly

Re: how did they resist

"... William Herschel, the man behind Uranus"

Resistance is futile.

Brit boffins want £50 million to launch exoplanet observatory

frank ly

Light from a star

"Tinetti adds that a platform outside Earth's atmosphere is needed to conduct this kind of analysis, since the light filtered through a planet's atmosphere “is only about one ten thousandth of the overall light from the star”. "

I assume this is about infrared attenuation due to water vapour in the atmosphere?

Linux 3.19 released for your computing pleasure

frank ly

Good enough - ship it

"... there are still a couple of bugs in this release but they were pretty obscure so “... while I was tempted a couple of times to do an rc8, there really wasn't any reason for it.” "

Is there a desperate need to meet a deadline? Does a major contract demand delivery?

Taking a look at Luna: the smart bed that knows your sleep secrets

frank ly

@BillG

A person might say something in their sleep that indicates they should be subject to further observation, so it's important that the NSA/GCHQ/etc can collect the sound recordings.

Similarly, disturbed sleep of a particular pattern could indicate serious health problems, so this should be used to unlock the door to allow access to emergency services responders, paticularly for older people or people who live alone.

All this would be subject to appropriate oversight of privacy and personal security considerations of course.

California Uber Alles: Google wants to become the World Privacy Court

frank ly

"US English, rather than UK English"

Thats US-English rather than English.

Snowden leaks LEGALISED GCHQ's 'illegal' dragnet spying, rules British tribunal

frank ly

The ruling 'against' them ....

.... says that it's now ok to carry on doing what they have been doing. Foam rubber dentures!

Helium HDD prices rise way above air-filled spinning rust

frank ly

Re: How do they keep the helium in?

I think I read (can't rememebr where, it may have been speculation) that there's a small metal bellows (like an accordion) with a case breather hole leading to one side of it and the helium filled innards on the other side.

Major US news organisations to develop ROBOT JOURNALISTS

frank ly

They're quite advanced nowadays

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOxguUqrxL8

Maybe a bit stiff in his movements with a dry/resonant voice? I'm wondering.

Assange's cop chaperones have cost £10 MEEELLION to date

frank ly

He's obviously dangerous

Look at how many police officers wearing protective clothing are needed to deal with the situation.

NASA: Check out this TWIRLY SPACE DWARF – and NEVER moan about our budget

frank ly
Coat

"... photos NASA later released as a GIF."

Why not use Flash?

NSA lays out its reforms post-Snowden (they can fit on back of a stamp)

frank ly

Re: As Commentard as detects as secret as code

Now my post looks silly.

frank ly

Re: As Commentard as detects as secret as code

This is why you should use the Corrections link. Fixing the error can make your comment look surreal (not a bad thing) or silly.

Anthem, America's second biggest health insurer, HACKED: Millions hit by breach

frank ly

"I want to personally apologize to each of you for what has happened,..."

So, he'll be doing lots of driving and footwork for a while. Or will each of you be invited to his home/office to receive a personal apology?

Forget Norks, Russian hackers are in Sony Pictures' servers – claim

frank ly

Re: I think we need a new mechanism to identify who broke in.

I'm not allowed to tell you about my (lack of) involvement.

SPITTLE SPATTER as America weighs into FCC net neut shoutgasm

frank ly

Chairman Wheeler?

What are the conventions for using job descriptions as titles? Is it about rank/appointment? We refer to "President Obama" and "Queen Elizabeth" but don't say "Prime Minisister Cameron" or "Director Jones".

China demands real names online, bans parody accounts and news article comments

frank ly

Re: Somebody is panicking

Cyncism and negativity are also banned. Your attitude is not conducive to a harmonious commentardiat. A re-education unit will arrive at your location shortly.

O2 notifies data cops 'for courtesy' ... AFTER El Reg intervenes in email phish dustup

frank ly

"Companies are required by law in most places to maximise profits, ..."

Are there actually any laws that say, "The company must be operated in such a way as to maximise profits , etc.." or do the laws say, "The directors must act in the best interests of the shareholders, etc".

This isn't the first time that I've seen comments to the effect that companies are legally obliged to maximise their profits.

Watt the CHIP!? ARM pops out THE most powerful 64-bit Cortex for mobes'n'slabs

frank ly

I'm wondering

When will we see this pair in a Raspberry Pi?

Enough is enough: It's time to flush Flash back to where it came from – Hell

frank ly

Re: This is or isn't funny....

Ad? I see no ads.

Call Gordon Freeman! Apple to build $2bn 'data command center' – BLACK MESA?

frank ly

Re: Those who don't learn from history ...

"... a handful of security guards and a few cleaners ..."

And an untidy looking man to turn it all off and then on again, as required.

Google, Amazon 'n' pals fork out for AdBlock Plus 'unblock' – report

frank ly

I think it's because Blue Peter is definitely targeted at an audience of children.

Tango UP – Google graduates 3D tablet from the labs

frank ly

Re: If I had to make a guess as to it's use..

We already have a 1:1 scale replica of the entire earth updated in _actual_ realtime and it's FOSS. I was exploring parts of it yesterday.

Spent the weekend watching Game of Thrones? You're a FAT LONELY SADDO

frank ly

Re: The Reg RSS feed knows me too well

"... almost as quickly as they can be played ..."

Have you tried watching video files and inctreasing the play speed slightly? I once did that accidentally and didn't notice it was playing at X1.1 speed. At X1.2 it can be barely noticable depending on the speed of the dialogue.

The Pirate Bay clambers back online after cop raid sunk site for 7 weeks

frank ly

@Andy Tunnah Re: Why bother

Blocked by Virgin Media - sighs. It's ok, there are quite a few pebbles on the beach.

#VultureTRENDING: YESS! It's Pantsr, the Sharing Economy super app that delivers on the BOTTOM line

frank ly

I was expecting gnomes at some point ...

... but was disappointed.

Chipotle insider trading: Disproving the efficient markets hypothesis

frank ly

Much complication.

I read the linked article to get more details and it is interesting. As the article points out, they were charged because of the 'misappropriation theory'.

" ...when he misappropriates confidential information for securities trading purposes, in breach of a duty owed to the source of the information ..."

The article goes on to explain that the information belongs to Capital One/Visa/Mastercard but they are looking after it for Chipotle, to whom it ultimately belongs.

But heck, wait a minute. Surely that information really belongs to the people who spent the money in the first place? It was the customers of Chipotle (and other companies that were monitored) who bought goods and had (eventually) to pay for them who created that information in the first place. I'd be in favour of a system whereby any profits of this type of activity were shared with the people who's credit card spending was analysed for that purpose. (Yeah, fat chance, I know).

My point is that the 'creators' of the information (the paying members of the public) are not regarded as the owners. It is the corporations who take ownership of it in the same way that Google etc. take ownership of creative input from their contributors and the NHS in the UK are about to take ownership (and sell) information provided by members of the public who have medical problems - all to the monetary benefit of corporations and those acting as government contractors.

Teen whiz exposes WhatsApp profile pic privacy blunder bug

frank ly

All I can say is ....

... What do you expect? It was probably 'developed' by a bunch of 17-year olds.

'YOUTUBE is EVIL': Somebody had a tape running, Google...

frank ly

@auburnman Re: The new man

"... defect to some new service ..."

What about Vimeo and similar services that I've noticed or read about? I don't keep up with these developments so I'm wondering if they are a viable alternative platform for people who want their work to be noticed and to make money for themselves.

Powering the Internet of Stuff – by sucking electricity from TREES

frank ly

Energy from a nail in a tree

I'm sure that a small array of cheap solar cells, no matter how dusty and dirty they became, would put out more power than the tree would.

Telstra: we don't collect the metadata the government wants now

frank ly

"... it does not retain any IP address assignments ..."

IP address assignments on a mobile network change every time you connect, in the simple tests that I've done. What they probably do is retain the customer ID.

Facebook kills pic of Mohammed weeks after Zuck's Je suis Charlie!

frank ly

How does anyone know ....

.... that it's a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed? When I first saw it, I assumed it was a steroetypical drawing of an 'Arabic type'.

Listen up, AT&T, this could be YOU NEXT: $40m sting for throttling 'unlimited' mobile data

frank ly

@Fluffy Bunny Re: and in the UK ?

" I assume they notified you of these limits in the advertising before you signed up."

No, they didn't. Back when I 'signed up' (when it was still NTL), they had a clause that said they (paraphrasing) "had the right to take technical measures to protect their network from customers who behaved in such a way as to ... blah, blah, blah ....". This seemed to be about hackers and script kiddies and snoopers etc. which would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, of course. The throttling was only revealed when many people noticed distinct throttling characteristics and talked about their experiences on various forums, thus reaching the obvious conclusion. Virgin Media refused to admit that they were throttling and made nebulous comments about 'protecting their network' before finally admitting that they were throtting and writing clear terms into new contracts.

I don't mind the data throttling and would say that the current way in which it is done seems reasonable and is clearly stated in the T&Cs. What I don't like, and do mind, is the lies and obfuscation that went on before they started being honest about it.

frank ly

Re: and in the UK ?

No, that's contention and overselling their overall data capacity. Throttling is when you notice a distinct and sudden drop in speed after you've downloaded a certain amount of data during a period of a day (or whatever). That speed drop can be gradually stepped as you pass various trigger points of data download amount.

Virgin Media used to be very heavy and distinct in that they would halve my speed when I went over 1.5GB in a day. Nowadays they have a more nuanced approach which is explained deep within their website.

Windows 10 heralds the Minecraft-isation of Microsoft

frank ly

" an operating system that crosses the streams ......"

That might not be a good thing to do.

GoDaddy in doghouse over puppy-flogging Super Bowl ad

frank ly

Re: So it's okay to...

"... will now be held hostage by opinions, not facts."

Every company is held hostage to opinion, to some extent, according to their dependence on the good will of the public. That's what marketards are for.

I'll get my coat – there's a dusty one flying off Comet 67P

frank ly

"A gaggle of astroboffins ... "

Shouldn't that be a constellation of astroboffins?