* Posts by frank ly

6077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Google Glass driver told she CAN wear techno-specs while on the road

frank ly

Re: Next time ...

The 'side bar' or 'arm' of many fashion glasses can be quite big and chunky, so that would be lots of scope for grumpy traffic cops.

Canada says Google broke law by snooping health info to serve ads

frank ly

I'm not sure about this

If I search for information about SUBJECT-X, then I start to see targeted ads about X. This is what happens (if you don't clear cookies etc.) They are saying that if X is personal health related, then my privacy has been violated. The privacy can only have been violated if a person made a decision - 'hey, this man has an interest in X and it's a health thing and lets make a note of who he is by his IP address and other info'.

I thought it was all automated and no 'person' knew about this. The only was to avoid this would be to flag up personal health related searches and actively block them, automatically. The consequence of this would be a definite record of the fact that I had such an interest. The other way would be to ban ads for health products and services.

Am I over thinking this?

Yahooligans! cower! as! COO! was! reportedly! SACKED! by! Mayer!

frank ly

Re: That sweet goodbye

If I had $2 million, I'd have a very comfortable life and never need to work again. What do these people do with all that money?

Microsoft confirms: Staff inboxes hijacked amid 'Syrian army' cyber-blitz

frank ly

translation

"A social engineering cyberattack method known as phishing resulted in a small number of Microsoft employee social media and email accounts being impacted. "

= Some of our employees are not very bright.

Boeing bent over for new probe as 787 batteries vent fluid, start to MELT

frank ly

Not sure about this

"The aircraft uses electrical power from the batteries to run most internal systems and that, coupled with its lightweight composite body, gives fuel savings of up to 20 per cent."

If you have four enormous engines running, in flight, I don't understand how batteries can help you save fuel during flight, since it costs fuel to carry their weight and then there is the battery charge/discharge energy efficiency. On the ground, yes, but I can't imagine ground fuel savings being all that much compared to in-flight fuel costs.

Can someone who knows about this please comment?

Google's Nest gobble: Soon ALL your HOME are BELONG to US

frank ly

@DropBear Re: Beg pardon?

" I sync calendar and tasks with my own server, not Google."

Can you tell me how you do that please. A couple of links would be nice. I've been wondering about syncing to a private ftp server using .ics files to hold different calendars. If i could get my Android calendar away from Google that would be nice.

Plastic iPhone 5Cs? Nah, we'll flog India our OLD iPhone 4 models - report

frank ly

" ... their mobile phone is the ultimate status symbol "

I feel sorry for them.

Mountain bike mishap man suffers SEVEN WEEK stiffie

frank ly

Re: Sometimes

" ... using a 5 French Omni flush catheter ..." - Think of it as a French de-tickler

Modern spying 101: How NSA bugs Chinese PCs with tiny USB radios - NYT

frank ly

I've heard .....

... that the NSA has magnets on its feet and that it has four arses.

ZyXEL router attack: HUNDREDS of Brit biz bods knocked offline

frank ly
Facepalm

Re: This is why

What is "virus code". How will it be defined and who will define it? How would such laws be applied to a foreign government or intelligence agency? What normal jury could be expected to understand what is and what is not 'virus code'?

Apple fails to shake antitrust watchdog loose, receives judge slapdown

frank ly

... hardly surprising that "lawyers get paid a lot of money".

I wish I'd studied law instead of engineering. I'm wondering if it's too late to retrain, since I've now lost the will to do anything good and creative in my life.

Google gobbles Wi-Fi thermostat maker Nest for $3.2 BEEELLION IN CASH

frank ly

Honeywell also claims the smart thermostat is its own idea.

I've had lots of wonderful and blindingly obvious ideas all through my life. I just didn't have the money to develop them or the component technology was too big or expensive at the time.

Iceotope sounds like a kids' superhero – but it's a UK server-cooler maker that just bagged £6.1m

frank ly
Thumb Up

Re: Just wondering

Thank you Peter - it all makes sense now :)

frank ly

Just wondering

Why use a two stage heat transfer construction within the module? If they pumped the Novec fluid through, in direct flowing contact with the motherboard, it would give more effective heat transfer. I realise the fluid is probably not cheap, but you could have a short Novec fluid pipe run to a larger, more easily made and cheaper water linked heat exchanger that served many modules, or an entire cabinet.

Intel and Asus put the dual boot in, offer 2-in-1 lapslab WinDroid

frank ly

@Charlie Clark Re: The mighty have fallen half way

" as soon as Android effectively supports the notebook form factor (keyboard and mouse) .."

That would be the Asus Transformer, with integrated keyboard, released about 2 years ago. I have one, I plug a USB mouse in the side and I have run it with USB mouse, full size USB keyboard and memory stick plugged into a passive USB hub, just to see if it could be done.

Why 2014 might just be the year of the Google Chromebook

frank ly
Happy

Re: +1 for the Eee 701SD :-)

I have an Eee 901SD and it's running MINT 13 MATE quite nicely if a little sluggish sometimes. I know many of you are now shouting at me but it has exactly the same software as my desktop PC and my laptop, same GUI setup etc. Having said that I didn't bother installing Blender or any screen video recording software.

It prints, it scans, it browses over WiFi, it runs Gigolo and Insync and Dropbox all at the same time and Thunderbird works fine, so I'm very happy with it.

Woman whipped gun from vagina in SPACE ALIEN spat, reports Officer Zook

frank ly

" ... started to have inner course [sic] with the gun ..."

That's when it's inside. 'Outercourse' is when it's used externally to provide pleasant stimulation.

Data scrapers used Amazon cloud to reap biz bods' CVs, wails LinkedIn

frank ly

crawling security

"Other security measures the attackers circumvented included “Sentinel”, which limits the number of requests permitted from a single IP address, and the restrictions on crawling that are implemented in its robots.txt file."

I thought that robots.txt was a polite request; hardly a security measure, especially against people who have a tendency to break your rules.

Anatomy of a 22-year-old X Window bug: Get root with newly uncovered flaw

frank ly
Happy

smiles for the 'goto'

You don't see them often nowadays.

Red Hat teams up with community-based RHEL lookalike CentOS

frank ly

@SVV Re: Sounds like a brilliant move

(My knowledge in this area is very low, but here goes:) I thought that RHEL was free to obtain and run but you paid for a support contract? If so, why do you develop using CentOS? Even if RHEL does cost money for a installation license, surely RedHat would let you install and run pure development systems for free under agreed conditions?

I get the bit about Gnome, but why can't you use Firefox etc on RHEL?

Optical Express 'ruined my life' attack site wins Nominet takedown battle

frank ly

So convenient

"Optical Express, which sells ophthalmic treatment services such as laser eye surgery and intraocular lens implants, ..."

I'll ask the nice woman behind the counter at Boots if she can arrange liposuction and a nose job for me.

Samsung snafu at CES causes Michael Bay meltdown

frank ly

" ....let's thank Michael Bay for joining us."

Tim Baxter is a kind and polite man. I'd have said, "That was a waste of time and money. Moving on!"

Seagate's LaCie whips out bonkers posh silver-plated storage ball

frank ly

Re: Photoshopped!

My take: In the centre of the image is a distant wall that has a strange colouring. That would have been a good place to have set up a tripod with a long lens camera to take the picture. Whoever 'shopped the tripod out didn't do a very good job of it in that case.

Looking at the left edge of the ball, I'm sure that's someone holding their arms up high with a flash unit in their hands. If so, that would have been easy to obfuscate, so why didn't they do it? I dunno ......

Time travellers outsmart the NSA

frank ly

Re: Personally I'd of hoped

" ... I'd _have_ hoped ..."

I want people to write: I'd've ... Is anybody with me on this?

Acer cozies up to Google with new 'droid PCs and fondleslab, Chromebook

frank ly

Re: Hmmm

Or Lindows (been done), or Winux ....... dream on.

frank ly

Keyboard?

Will those giant touchscreens be able to accept a USB keyboard being plugged in?

Mars One's certain-death space jolly shortlists 1,000 wannabe explorers

frank ly

This got me thinking

" ... the foundation hasn't managed to ..."

Maybe the Second Foundation will do things better. I hope so.

Coca Cola slurps millions of MAC addresses

frank ly

Technical/Numerical question

Has anyone considered if the world will run out of MAC addresses in the future? With the 'internet of things' almost upon us, lots of unique MAC addresses will be needed and old/dead kit can't reasonably have its MAC address reallocated.

(I'm too lazy to do the research, make some reasonable estimates and do some calculations, so I'm asking.)

Alien SUPER-EARTH: If there is LIFE up there, it'll be moaning about the weather

frank ly

Understatement and Understanding

" ... in this case we are discovering we may not know them as well as we thought ....."

I'm amazed that we can know anything about them and I look forward to us knowing more.

Microsoft tries to trademark 'Mod' in the US

frank ly

Re: A Trademark is not a Patent

I believe there are subtle differences in the use of language, between the English speaking countries and the American speaking countries.

Acer C720 Chromebook with Haswell battery boosting goodness

frank ly
Thumb Up

Re: Up yer bum.

Also, you can print over WiFi to your home network printer, or via cable to any other convenient one.

(Thumb up, but not up yer bum, honest.)

Gay hero super-boffin Turing 'may have been murdered by MI5'

frank ly

What an amazing man!

"... and had been electrocuted several times .."

Not many people could deal with that.

Apple wants sales ban on Samsung smartphones nobody is selling

frank ly

Re: Apple utility patents?

It's a patent that is of great utility in court cases against competitors.

Saucy Snapchat addicts EXPOSED: Exploit code to poke holes goes wild

frank ly

"titillating titbits"

I see what you did there ( and a hacker could see what she did too.)

Just what they've always wanted! ISS 'naut duo unwrap new space fridge

frank ly

Yes, that would result in the loss of some heat.

Ho, ho, HOLY CR*P, ebuyer! Etailer rates staff on returns REJECTED

frank ly

'resolved'

A much more friendly, positive and upbeat word.

British Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing receives Royal pardon

frank ly

Re: At last

That would be hard work and need lots of form filling. The Government has cherry-picked a well known case and given a 'bread and circuses' gift to make it look as if all is well in the UK.

Who's the best-built bot that makes the US military hot? SCHAFT!

frank ly

About waking over rubble

Do they have to walk over rubble in human fashion? Could they crawl over it? With the correct articulation in the knee joints, they could do it doggy-style.

frank ly

Re: That naming!

It all sounds very 'laborious'.

BT tweaks WORDING of sex-ed web block after complaints

frank ly
Facepalm

The very idea!

"... information on subjects such as respect for a partner, ..."

$Deity forbid that children would learn respect for a partner.

Nato, UN, NGOs slug it out with namespace biz bods: IMHO... STFU

frank ly

Don't forget UNIT and WHO

They have a long association. (I might be getting confused here).

The Pirate Bay changes domain again … TWICE!

frank ly

The life aquatic

" Briefly adrift, the site resurfaced ..."

You could have got some submarine references in there too.

How much did NSA pay to put a backdoor in RSA crypto? Try $10m – report

frank ly
Facepalm

@Fill Re: A different era?

I recommed _this_ lock/key system, which I developed, for you to use in your worldwided premises protection system. You have doubts and questions? I'm so convinced that I'll give you $10 million to use it. Oh, I see that you are now convinced that it's the best choice.

Euro satellite to count a billion stars, find origin of Milky Way

frank ly

A pedant writes ...

"Each time, it will plot the position of the sun and its key physical properties, ..."

I thought a star wasn't a 'sun' unless it had planet(s) in orbit?

Wait, that's no moon 21.5-inch monitor, it's an all-in-one LG Chromebase PC

frank ly

On the other hand

"... the first all-in-one PC to run Chrome OS, complete with a built-in widescreen LCD display."

I'd say it's an LCD display with a built in PC.

Sky rapped over PREMATURE SEXY CONDOM ad

frank ly

@JDX

I agree. Those Andrex adverts disgust me, no matter what time they are shown.

Why UK.gov's £1.2bn fibre broadband rollout is a bumbling FLOP

frank ly
Facepalm

Re: Imagine the chaos

Not really. They'd forget to order the ingredients, or order the wrong ones. That would be ok because they'd have forgotten to send out invitations. Many people would have heard that there was going to be a piss up one day, but they'd have heard that rumour for ages and so would ignore it. The CAMRA newsletter would be full of stories similar to this one and comments similar to yours.

South Korea to spend £290 million on 5G land grab

frank ly
Headmaster

Re: Consistency?

The number of 'e's in 'meelion is dependent on how much surprise/amazement the writer/speaker wishes to convey. The use of capitals for emphasis in writing is well known.

James Bond's 'shaken not stirred': Down to trembling boozer's hands, claim boffins

frank ly

I'm waiting for a character update ....

... to a green and teetotal Bond who sips expensive mineral water and shoots lead-free bullets.

GCHQ spooks told: Break Huawei's grip on 'The Cell'

frank ly

Every activity should have an oversight board

"An oversight board staffed by GCHQ spooks, Whitehall civil servants and a a senior member of the National Security Secretariat will closely examine Huawei's activities."

In this way, we will know, to the nearest penny, how much they spend on snacks and drinks, how far they travel to work and how much time they spend on visits to the toilet. Thanks to GCHQ involvement, any attempt to phone or e-mail contacts in China will be detected.