Posts by Mark 65

Re: It's all good

I'd argue that if you're on the run with an international arrest warrant issued for you then, if you've been hiding successfully for 2 years, crossing international borders is probably not a wise move.

I've long been of the opinion that the only way forward is Hackintosh. The attractiveness of the Mini is destroyed by soldered on RAM and no upgrade path. It is unfortunate it is hard to replicate. The Mac Mini + display always seemed a better option than the iMac unless you needed the GPU (which unfortunately I did). The Mac Pro is therefore the only true desktop remaining but the cost is eye-watering and potentially only justified by design houses. The old tower design is certainly easy to replace with something in a much smaller Lian Li or Fractal Design casing. It is definitely what will replace my iMac - the premium is now just insulting.

Re: "... 256GB will soon feel rather small for multimedia projects."

I don't do serious video editing by any stretch of the imagination, but if I'm recording game footage at 1080p/60fps at 50Mbps, space gets eaten very, very quickly - around 375MB per minute.

Yep, but that's the beauty of USB3 and thunderbolt2. Whereas I had no choice but to have the case opened up - I farmed that out so the issues wouldn't be mine - in order to have a 1TB SSD fitted in addition to the HDD going forward Macs now have the necessary connections that you just plug shit in. G.Skill and other 4-6 bay DAS systems are quite popular and offer speed and necessary storage.

Re: To contribute to the network without risk:

Yeah, I was going to say in light of the article that acting as a middleman relay and shuffling already encrypted traffic will likely leave you immune from the door knock as

1. You are receiving from one node and passing to another like pass-the-parcel

2. You cannot know what the nature of said traffic is by design.

3. Caveat, they're arsehats so never say never.

Re: Does it follow

@phuzz: Older research suggests that, yes, having a regular wank does reduce your chances of getting prostate cancer. Hooray!

There you go, proof positive that wankers live longer.

Re: @Mark 65

@JDX: I fail to realise nothing and know exactly how it works. Why make two devices when you can just force everyone onto one that likely has higher profit margins, right? Especially when you make the base version just that bit too small and charge too much for upgrades.

I don't fail to realise anything about most people and cameras and completely realise that most people think their phone camera takes great pictures because all they do is stick them on instagram and facebook and the shitness of the picture doesn't notice when shrunk down.

You may note that I don't really make much note of the iPod just that having one device often results in inadequate battery and the search for a charger - seen it all too often.

In terms of "big enough market" I believe the article mentioned the ipod line brought in $1bn. That's plenty, but reverting to my first response above, why bother when you can rape the customer for more by only offering a phone. You may notice similarities in their line of computers now the Mac Mini has been ruined.

Re: A technology in decline

Agreed. As soon as there are high-speed moving parts there's the potential introduction of issues. Would be good to see some long term MTBF/failure rates for normal SSD although I guess they're still advancing too fast to be of much use.

I was pleased to be able to afford to update my home machine this year with a 1TB SSD giving both speed and capacity for a reasonable price (M550).

Re: Who pays?

Because they're duplicitous arseholes and there's only really two sides to choose from. A bit like bitching about alcohol or food prices before realising just two corporations hold 80% of the market.

Re: If it's any consolation...

TTIP/TPP are just polite terms for a contractual obligation you sign up to whereby you consent to allow the US and all its glorious corporations to fully jam you and your citizens in the ring-gear without even so much as a polite pulling up of your fiscal trousers afterwards.

Err....if I don't want the version from my distro I can add a PPA (or equivalent) and that is also cryptographically signed.

Does that not assume that this process cannot be subverted i.e. the PPA signature? We are talking about people downloading through Tor after all.

Re: Problem with organisations everywhere...

"This isn't because I think the guys who run it are bad people, just that human nature seems to take over in organisations like this and smart people just can't see beyond the limits of their own knowledge and power"

I don't entirely agree. I don't think they're smart guys at all. In fact I believe that most organisations, including the others you mention, have the standard human problem that when asked "who wants to be on the committee?" all the arseholes step forward. All those little wannabe local councilors and politicians. You know the types - can't help themselves and their desire to rule over people and tell others "thou shalt not". The fact they pay themselves, set their remuneration, and want more tells you they're just like politicians.

Re: All change Yet Again...

"If I was to continually adopt the latest shiny shiny techniques and tools from MS My first cost would be in staff training.. The second hit would be in productivity as the new shiny is found to have a few tarnished edges and people get up to speed using it."

Why would you feel the need to *continually* use the latest? Use the latest now by all means if it does the job but never upgrade for upgrade's sake.

Re: Optional Title

It's called the 360 Secure Browser because it spits your information through 360 degrees when publishing it to the World. Seriously, would anyone voluntarily use a "Secure Browser" made by a Chinese biz? Talk about asking for trouble.

Re: Mightier than the sword

I think it is a very sad day when a malicious computer attack (and we all know this law will be abused to its fullest extent) resorts in a more severe punishment than GBH, aggravated assault, armed robbery, rape, and potentially even murder. Certainly leaves me feeling a lot safer knowing thugs, rapists and (potentially) murderers are set free before all those nasty hackers. I guess as far as politicians are concerned hackers can destroy potential directorships whereas murderers just thin the herd.

Re: Very worrying!

I disagree with the author's sentiments.

"The key difference in a soft-SIM world is that you select, via a “ballot screen” which network operator you'll use. Who gets to choose who goes in this list? Apple does, from a pre-approved list chosen by Apple. "

The EU would not allow a device manufacturer to restrict the network on which the device can be used. It simply will not happen without massive fines.

Second, Google and Apple will not be the gatekeepers as if they try to restrict choice for the consumer the consumer will not purchase said device and someone else will step in to fill the void. The void being a tablet you can use on your network of choice. Hell, the someone else could even be disgruntled networks funding an incredibly similar tablet produced on the same Chinese production lines using the same OS (Android). With this much money at stake industry will route around the problem.

Re: Why all the rage? Oh I see.

@DropBear: The thing is, even if they have taken off the shelf cheap as chips hardware and added someone else's OS and are flogging it for an eye-watering markup, they are no different from most other businesses in most other market sectors. It is up to the end customer to discern whether they are willing to pay that price for what they are buying. If they are then I don't see a problem, I also have a bridge to sell them. Caveat emptor as always.

The teacher was just an example. It doesn't have to be a teacher though does it, it could be a banker wrongly accused of fraud and, let's face it, you're not going to go out of your way to defend them but their livelihood could be laid to waste. It could be any type of wrongful accusation: rape, assault, domestic abuse, whatever. The person isn't important, the principle is.

On the OPs original point of

"The European Court judgement was silly, very silly, but nothing like as bad as it was painted. It has the same background in silliness as many other rulings from courts all over the world, it attempts to impose local rules on non-local companies."

I think you'll find Google is a local company (or rather has a local legal entity or two in Europe to avoid tax through) else they'd tell them to piss off.

Re: Minor bump

This ^^^^^, the constant tab reloading is really starting to get on my tits and that's with hardly any apps (Safari and Mail) or tabs (reloads with more than 4) open.

Re: Google has since promised to do something similar with Android smartphones.

"Except that as I understand it the (UK) two years for not handing over the password is recurring - two years inside, and if they're feeling mean, if they ask you again and you refuse, back to court, rinse and repeat ad nauseum."

I'd like to see the rinse-repeat part pass the EU courts, Human Rights etc etc. That clearly counts as persecution.

Re: How easy is it to turn on in the release version?

I'd say that if this instrumentation is left in the final release, especially key-logging and other privacy invading parts, then Microsoft will have signed its own death warrant. There will be no trust and there could be no second chance. If a company with so much history of abuse and poor coding believed that it was acceptible to leave such code in place even "switched off" then that is the end for them.

Re: Competing on taxes

I disagree in part. I believe the EU should set a minimum rate to prevent the intra-block race to the bottom and let countries decide how they wish to levy their taxes. There will always be a trade-off between tax rate, barriers to entry/bureaucratic costs, employment costs, employment pools, access to ancilliary services, etc etc that can then be shopped around for but countries need not fear another block member charging 0.5% corporation tax. Outside the EU it's up for grabs, perhaps there should be a G20 minimum of 10-15% or something. Having one rate for the whole of Europe does not take into account the other factors in each economy and thus provides ever greater inflexibility and likely the demise of the majority of members, as if it isn't bad enough already with 50+% youth unemployment in Spain.

Re: e-bikes keep you fit!

Feeling fitter might be a nice placebo or it may be genuine as you now get out and cycle more in total than previously. What say you?

Re: Open software on these boxes?

Pretty sure I've seen somewhere on the QNAP forums about people having installed some version of Debian or Ubuntu on their boxes.

Re: cynical remark

Just wondering how much software might be parsing the OS name and using OSName.StartsWith("Windows 9") as a Windows 95/98 shortcut?

I expect no less from the piss-weak spineless parasites on both sides of politics. Anyone with a backbone would stand up, especially in light of the Snowden leaks, and call out the blatant bs going on in this rights stripping security theatre. After all the high terror alert supporting sudden raids I think one person was charged. It is nonsense. Nobody gives a toss about Australia. Shorten needs to stand up and call a c*nt a c*nt and Abbott is one of the biggest modern politics the world over has to offer. He is an utter imbecile whose playground theatrics are hilarious if it weren't for the fact he's utterly f*cking the entire country. I cannot even begin to dig through the surface of the contempt and hatred I have for this tosser.

Re: Not available

"Or maybe they will grow up and bless MacPorts or Homebrew as the systems for managing their POSIX stuff and just integrate it with their software update GUI."

Yeah, that'd be nice. Took a whole load of effort for me just to be able to subscribe for UPS outage broadcasts from my NAS because OSX wants to be the first and only listener.

The reason I use FLAC? It's my archive copy. CDs get scratched, lost and broken. They also degrade over time, especially in hot climates. My FLAC copies are backed up in multiple locations. Versus the original CDs: they are searchable; they are streamable; they are shareable en masse. I can also re-encode them quickly to AAC for use on portable devices and when AAC is surpassed by some other format in order to cram yet more music onto small devices I will re-encode to that.

Re: Battery Life?

"f you won't upgrade until you hear zero problem reports, you'll never perform another software upgrade on anything you own ever again."

Yep, but the third OS release in as many weeks isn't exactly going to speed us to the party is it? I think I'll wait a little bit until there's a stable period.

Re: @beep54 So What?

"I wonder how many people would pay $175 a year for a social network."

That's the issue - at the moment there are essentially two models of operation

1. You are the product

2. You pay an annual subscription

The former is in the ascendency because most people are unwilling to pay and prefer "free" whilst not realising that they already paid with their privacy. As for (2) you could pay a subscription and still find there was gradual privacy creep as greed crept into the ownership base.

Re: Streaming wins

"Of my parent's collections I listen to precisely nothing."

"I envy the digital generations who have none of that."

and I pity those whose parent's music collections will expire with them. I first discovered artists such as Led Zepellin, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas (along with a lot of Motown) from listening to the collections of my parents, friend's parents and other relatives. You can keep your poor quality intermittent connectivity based can only listen as long as you keep paying us popularity driven availability cloud nonsense and I'll stay old school with physical media and FLAC rips thanks.

Re: Paying to cut the copper

Nah, just break Telstra into two companies like BT - openreach and retail. It'll fuck their current model and they deserve it with bells on.

I wonder...

...f this may be how the FBI got the silk road server to spit out information?

You forgot SDXC, the one thing it really is missing above all else.