* Posts by frank ly

6077 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

YouView recommends radio hams' pet peeve

frank ly

@JP19 Re: Microwave Oven

With my old microwave oven, I noticed that my Wi-Fi speed dropped noticably when the oven was on. I suspect that this was not microwave radiation leaking out, but mains radiated interference from whatever crappy power supply module they used to drive the magnetron.

Sozzled Americans nagged by talking urinal cake

frank ly

How long will they last ....

before they are taken as souveniers? (Wear gloves and wash them in clean water.)

Google.eggfaced: Chocolate Factory spaffs cash in dot-word bungle

frank ly
Happy

It's The Muppet Show!

.. sort of.

ICANN’s archery contest misses its target

frank ly

Re: Pass the parcel

That's right not-Spartacus, it's the modern way :)

frank ly

re. making it complicated

Maybe there has to be an 'element of skill', otherwise it's an illegal lottery? (Just trying to think like a lawyer here - makes me feel dirty).

Stanford boosts century-old battery tech

frank ly
Stop

Re: Basic electronic theroy class:- week 1.

A capacitor is not a small battery/cell. They work on totally different principles and have very different operating characteristics.

Ethiopia: we are not jailing Skype users

frank ly
Stop

Just a minute ...

Apparently the law was put in place to "regulate cyber-related crimes and telecom-related frauds"

I thought that a sensible government would want to eradicate them, not regulate them...... ? Oh wait... it's a government.... yes, i understand now. (Thinks - UK- banking)

Darwin alarmed by six-legged mutant cane toad

frank ly

Four legs good, ....

.... six legs weird.

Half the team at the heart of the RBS disaster WERE in India

frank ly

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.

Hotelier faces FTC data breach lawsuit

frank ly

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.

frank ly

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).

'Inexperienced' RBS tech operative's blunder led to banking meltdown

frank ly
Headmaster

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)

UK regulators eye up Facebook's $1bn Instagram bid

frank ly
Happy

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.

frank ly

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?

Boffins program peripheral visions for ultra TV immersion

frank ly
Unhappy

Immersiveness ... outpainting .....

Yuk.

Book-scented perfume gives eReaders whiff of authenticity

frank ly

I like the T-shirt ....

.... but you can't buy it on its own.

RBS IT cockup: This sort of thing can destroy a bank, normally

frank ly

Re: A shame....hmmm.....

It's nice to have it written down, for reference.

Blighty laid bare as historic aerial snaps archive goes online

frank ly

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.

Why the Windows Phone 8 digi-wallet is different to the others

frank ly

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.

Renewables good for 80 per cent of US demand by 2050

frank ly

Re: *to accommodate high-penetration renewable energy"

Possibly; but what does it actually mean, in technical terms?

ITU denies plans for global internet power-grab

frank ly

... change was essential to kick-start the "knowledge economy."

Maybe someone should tell them it started a while ago.

Hackers publish payday loan emails after failing to levy 'idiot tax'

frank ly
Headmaster

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.

Are you a hot BABE in heels and a short skirt? SCIENCE is for YOU

frank ly

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.

Nigerian scams are hyper-efficient idiot finders

frank ly

@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.)

frank ly

three hours eh?

Did you consider using Google Maps (or whatever) to show it to him, on the map?

You want the Cloud? You can't have proper copyright, then

frank ly

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.

EU boffins ponder robot copters that carry people but no pilots

frank ly

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.

Google blocks MP3 rippers from YouTube

frank ly

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.

Mad Apple patent: Cloneware to convince trackers you don't like porn

frank ly
Unhappy

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.)

This Old Box. And that Old Box. And that one. All of them, in fact

frank ly
Joke

It's not on the torrents yet .....

... so I'll wait a while.

Mozilla plans multi-engine search results, native iOS browser

frank ly

re. ".. vertical row.."

Many people refer to this as a 'column'.

Habbo Hotel to 'unmute' chat so users can show they love it

frank ly

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?

Want to meddle with IP rights? Use the law, not amended regulations

frank ly

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?

iOS was SO much more valuable to Google than Android - until Maps

frank ly

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?

Voyager ticks one box for interstellar arrival

frank ly

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?

Honour for Queen's IT manager

frank ly

Re: Good for them

Is your real name Sidney?

Tumbleweed-plagued Google+ is minus Bejeweled and Wooga

frank ly

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 eggfaced after publishing dot-word biz overlords' personal info

frank ly

ICANN have invited me .......

.... to a drinks party at a south London brewery. I won't bother going.

Outrageously old galaxy spied birthing new stars at furious rate

frank ly

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.

frank ly

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."?

Apple adds gay and lesbian icons to iOS 6 messaging

frank ly

@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.

£CHING: ICANN bags $357m from 1,930 dot-word domains

frank ly

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.

frank ly

Re: As somebody...

You should have used a disposable Yahoo e-mail address for the application.

Another investor pulls out of Habbo Hotel after grooming claims

frank ly

Re: The plural of 'chaos'

Chaos is a state/condition and is not countable, hence it has no plural. Consider 'happiness', 'loneliness', etc.

Hurry up, EU: CERN boffins need clouds to hunt Higgs boson

frank ly

Re: Cern LHC has become the Augean stables

After reading that, my mind is now in a Perpetual Harmonic Oscillatory state.

frank ly

Re: There must be

I think the sheer amount of data would overload all the public ISP routes across Europe.

Got no idea what Hadoop is, but think you need it? You're not alone

frank ly

Re: So..?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadoop

Here's a starter for you :)

Apple silences mute kids' speech app in patent blowup

frank ly

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.

frank ly

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.)

Nokia eyes private equity buyer for bling-phone firm

frank ly

Re: The allure of luxury

You could have got it for £96 at ukmulberrybagssale.net. haven't you heard of shopping around?