* Posts by frank ly

6077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

CERN team uses GPUs to discover if antimatter falls up, not down

frank ly

Re: Errr, please describe the experimental setup...

I wonder if they will (or have) tried this with a beam of 'normal' hydrogen atoms for comparison.

Dropbox nukes bloke's file share in DMCA brouhaha – then admits it made a 'HASH OF IT'

frank ly

Re: Hope they're using a good hash

I'm sure that hash collisions are not "necessary". They may be possible/probable.

Don't touch my trunk! Intel is $740m lighter after Cloudera cash shot

frank ly

Correction

"The mammoth funding ..."

It's an elephant.

Facebook, you fools! Forget Oculus, you could have bought TRON-type headsets

frank ly

You can't adjust the focus by changing the screen contents. You'd need the appropriate changes to the buillt-in lenses to take account of your own prescription.

P.S. I just had a look at one of their You Tube videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwAD2mMpn_w

Much of it is out of focus. I'm not sure if that is significant.

Silicon Valley wage collusion case will go to court

frank ly

Re: Sympathy? Pah!

Maybe they should outource the justice system to a country with a low wage but skilled workforce and put them on zero-hours contracts? That would get the costs down.

Dutch doctors replace woman's skull with 3D-printed plastic copy

frank ly

Amazing operation

It's a marvellous achievement and I'm wondering if the acrylic had any special surface treatment to make it more 'acceptable' to the reattached scalp or if it's just ordinary acrylic material.

Zuck: Web drones, not balloons (cough, cough Google) are way forward

frank ly

Drones or balloons

You could have a drone with three/four small balloons attached along its fuselage. Has anyone tried this technique?

Microsoft: Let's be clear, WE won't read your email – but the cops will

frank ly

I'm slow to notice things

" ...we started using cloud email in the 1990s ..."

I thought the 'cloud' was a shiny and new thing.

Amazon Workspaces: A dish best served later

frank ly

anti virus

"with Microsoft Office Professional 2010 and Trend antivirus installed and licensed, at $50.00 per month."

That's like hiring a car and then being told that part of the hire cost is the rental fee for extra secure locks and a car alarm. What's wrong with MSE? (rhetorical question).

No, Minister. You CAN'T de-Kindle your eBooks!

frank ly
Happy

Re: Given the amount of practice they've had...

You'd be foolish not to accept and applaud these essential security updates.

Sticky Tahr-fy pudding: Ubuntu 14.04 slickest Linux desktop ever

frank ly

Re: A slice off the top

You can always press F11 to go full screen in Firefox, then cursor to the top and right click the revealed bar to exit full screen.

I know what you mean though, which is why I love to use my 8 year old Acer laptop with 15" 4:3 matte screen (running Linux Mint).

Google 'Transparency Report' shows rise in government groping

frank ly

I'd like to know .....

... the reasons for rejected requests. If a request is agreed, then I assume the matter is a valid law enforcement or security agency query which ought not to be revealed. However, if a request was made then Google shot it down, they should be free to reveal what the request was. e.g. The police wanted to know if (name redacted) had been watching cat videos, etc. This would help use to know the subjects which concern our overlords and hence we can stop doing them.

GNOME 3.12: Pixel perfect ... but homeless

frank ly

Re: I see no mention

MATE, XFCE and LXDE all have multiple desktops/workspaces. I thought this was a standard Linux thing? Or is it because they're all Gnome 2.x derivatives?

Rule of law: Turkish court nixes government Twitter ban ... for now

frank ly

A good result

I think every country should ban Twitter (and/or Facebook) at least once a year. That way, the people will learn how fragile their 'essential service' is and will also learn how to use VPNs, TOR, etc. One way to 'sell' this to government would be to explain that it would increase 'national resilience' (a good thing) in case the country comes under cyber attack (a bad thing).

Original iPhone dev team was 'shockingly small' - Apple engineer

frank ly

@Lord Tennant Re: And this is whats missing today

It's 'Sir Jonathon (call me Jony)'.

Research bods told: Try to ID anonymised data subjects? No more CASH for you

frank ly

@Iglethal

"This legislation is designed ..."

This is not legislation. It's recommendations for possible future action by a recognised set of professional bodies. You may have been influenced by the use of the words, "... sanctions that are proportionate to the nature of the offence ..."; which seems to be about an offence to professional standards, not an offence in law.

Sadly, the law lags behind the development of techniques in many areas of scientific development, especially information technology and data processing. Also, the companies that stand to make lots of money from this have access to politicians and senior civil servants; hence they can influence the law, or lack of it.

Passport PIN tech could have SAVED MH370 ID fraudsters

frank ly

Re: Getting through Airport Security

It would be even worse than my bi-weekly shopping experience.

Three's money man reveals UK mobe firms' dark pricing dealings

frank ly

Re: Three not that good

I think the 'All You Can Eat' specifically does not allow tethering, but the 'One Plan' does allow tethering.

NASA: Vote now to put flashy lights on future spacesuits

frank ly

Re: Sensless!

Maybe the astronauts will use strips of coloured insulation tape to customise them? That's what I'd do :)

No Notch niche: Minecraft man in rift with Oculus after Facebook gobble

frank ly

Re: Now I'm looking forward to VR even more

Don't forget to buy some virtual slug pellets to deal with the razor-toothed slugs or a virtual shotgun for the flocks of pesky birds, or a virtual assault rifle to take care of the ravaging zombie hordes that will stumble towards you muttering, "Straaaaawberries".

frank ly

@AC Re: ..a multimillionaire already ..... can afford to walk away

A Psychopath doesn't WANT to kill everyone, it's just that if they do kill anyone then they have no bad feelings about it. Hence, they find it easy to kill if it makes 'logical' sense to them. On a more everyday level, they treat people very badly and have no qualms about it.

Gr8, it's the new M8! Ideal for that celebrity funeral selfie

frank ly

re. bokeh

" ... the fashionable bokeh that keeps the subject of the picture in focus and blurs the background, or vice versa."

There's more to bokeh than that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

The Reg's desert XP-ocalypse aversion plan revealed

frank ly

EditPad Lite

It's a multi-tabbing text editor with many features and facilities and much better that Notepad. I used it under Windows for a long time before I switched to Linux last year and it's free for non-commercial use.

I assume that you'll have at least a couple of networked colour printers taken care of? For kids especially, it's exciting to see their work on-screen become printed out onto paper they can take home and keep and show to people.

Microsoft issues less-than-helpful tips to XP holdouts

frank ly

Are there any professional organisations, or even informal forums that are discussing and dealing with these situations? Unless your computers are connected to the internet, simple and sensible internal security practices shoud keep them safe, I'd have thought.

frank ly

Re: How much of a challenge is re-installing XP?

I have an 8 year old retail XP-SP2 install disk that's never been activated, that I could sell to you if you want to have a 'retro' experience ....?

Google pulls SCHAFT out of military honeypot, sprays gold at bot team

frank ly

re. Hefty external power source

Has anybody tried using hydraulic motors and fitting the robot with an IC engine/compressor and fluid reservoir, etc? This is totally not my area but I understand that hydraulic motors have a greater power density that electric motors and they are tough and reliable.

Middle England's allotments become metric battlefield

frank ly

Re: So what is the correct unit in the Register's System

Thank you for writing 'nanoWales' and not 'NanoWales'.

Wearable tech for HORNY COWS: Biz slurps £3m for bovine arousal detectors

frank ly

Moo'er

Will GCHQ/NSA have backdoor access so they can keep our herds safe from terrorists?

Interview: Cisco's security supremo on the Internet of Everything

frank ly

I gave up after the first two questions and 'answers'

Did I misread the article or did the first two questions not actually get answered?

Android update process gives malware a leg-up to evil: Indiana U

frank ly

Re: theoretical non-event

Over the past three years, I've had Android updates to an HTC phone and to a Nexus 4. I've never had to reinstall any of my many apps, though a few have insisted on being updated after the update. Is that what you mean by 'reinstall'?

RISE of the LIVING CHAIR: Boffins recruit E coli to build futuristic materials

frank ly

re. Living Chairs

It's been done many times. e.g:

http://inhabitat.com/pooktre%E2%80%99s-living-growing-tree-chair/

Oculus Rift? Tchah, try 'Oculus Thrift' ... You bet your vrAse we tested these bargain VR specs

frank ly
Happy

@LaeMing Re: Might want to re-think the name

Is it a www-arse nowadays?

Facebook hacks out PHP alternative

frank ly

HHVM

I had to use Wikipedia to learn that HHVM stands for Hip Hop Virtual Machine. Even the HHVM.com site doesn't tell you what it means.

According to Wikipedia, it was open-sourced in 2010.

BLUE BIRD DOWN: Turkey wipes out Twitter 'scourge'

frank ly

Governing party interests are an entirely different thing, added to the mix.

Keep your quinoa, hipsters: Boffins back healthy slabs of choc

frank ly

So is it ok to chew coca leaves now?

I get confused by all these scientific words.

Virtual-reality Dev Kit 2 game goggles by Oculus – now with less vomit!

frank ly

960x1080 ?

Is that horizontal x vertical? For each eye or shared between left and right?

Hidden 'Windigo' UNIX ZOMBIES are EVERYWHERE

frank ly

@AC Re: The devil's in the detail @Daniel B.

I see your humour and raise you an upvote.

PAF! MPs go postal over postal location data sell-off by Coalition.gov

frank ly

Take a deep breath ....

""The government must never make a similar mistake. Public access to public sector data must never be sold or given away again."

Start laughing (in a cynical and weary manner).

French novel falls foul of Apple's breast inspectors

frank ly

re. "... jubular cover"

It's lack of jubular cover that's the problem. I wonder when 'jubular' will make it into the Oxford English Dictionary?

Seattle pops a cap in Uber and Lyft: Rideshare bizs get 150-driver limit

frank ly

Re: Shocking! and stealing/pirating

The analogy has a built in assumption that I (as someone looking to get from A to B) am the property of a particular group of taxi drivers and that my money rightfully should be used to buy the services of particular taxi drivers. That is an attitude I strongly disgaree with.

GRAV WAVE TSUNAMI boffinry BONANZA – the aftershock of the universe's Big Bang

frank ly

"detected"

I thought this was an observation of distant possible effects that very closely match theoretical predictions - not a true "detection" as such. The detection would be made (if ever) by those very long interferometers with laser beams at right angles to each other, where the compression of space by a passing gravitational wave would be 'detected'?

Google hit by Monday morning blues: Talk, Hangouts, Sheets crash

frank ly

However ....

All my spreadsheets were fully available to me. They are stored on my domestic local network and automatically backed up twice a day with a 10 day rolling record (on a separate device). I also have a separate copy on an ftp server in a geographically remote location (which I try to remember to update regularly). What is this cloud thing they keep talking about?

Win XP holdouts storm eBay and licence brokers, hiss: Give us all your Windows 7

frank ly

I have an 8 year old XP-SP2 retail disk - never been activated

I wonder what I'd get for it on e-bay?

iPhone 6 FEELS your heat, wetness... and it'll TELL Apple – report

frank ly

Re: I am sure...

"We told the new guy that the next iPhone will have a moisture sensor. Now it's all over that Chinese tech-news blog. Shall we fire him?"

"No, tell him we're developing a Bitcoin wallet. We can have fun for ages."

Wackadoo DIYers scissor-kick beatboxer

frank ly

Since when ...

.. has 'demobilise' been a new word and since when has it been spelled with a '-ize' ending?

Straight to 8: London's Met Police hatches Win XP escape plan

frank ly

How about ....

... "support us and give us a good deal on Win8, or we'll switch to Linux." ?

Europe approves common charger standard for mobe-makers

frank ly
Coat

" ...a single pin sufficing for charging over USB ..."

I'm sure than two pins are required for charging.

Watch the MIT MER-BOT – half droid, half soft 'fish' – swim by itself

frank ly

" ... the robots could be embedded with schools of fish ..."

Wouldn't the other fish think it was a bit .... fishy?

Is no browser safe? Security bods poke holes in Chrome, Safari, IE, Firefox and earn $1m

frank ly

re. "Maybe this happens in the UK."

No. A senior government minister asks the head of GCHQ (or similar), "Have you been breaking the law?". He answers, "No, of course not.". This is then converted into officialese and stated by the minister in parliament. It's a much better system than in the USA because there's not as much fuss and shouting. We hate fuss and shouting.

'Catastrophic' server disk-destroying glitch menaced Google cloud

frank ly

Re: Are these actions commutative?

Apart from the word 'commutative' not really being applicable to copying and deleting data, the answer is "it depends". The simplest answer is that you change a pointer entry in a directory structure, if you're moving a file to be on the same logical hard drive on your home PC. After that, it can get quite complicated.