* Posts by Woodgar

131 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jun 2009

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Sofa-jockeys given crack at virtual Formula 1 world championship

Woodgar

Re: I'd pay good money ...

"If something can be done by proxy, an expert guiding a player by phone for example, it is a game. If the skill has to lie with the player present it is a sport"

Sounds like a good definition, but the lines seem a bit blurred when it comes to real-time, fast action sports/games, where waiting to be instructed rather than acting on instinct and experience will be the difference between winning and losing.

Peccant pwners post 670,000 Pokémon punter MD5 passwords

Woodgar

All fine advice, and pretty much what I do, but this comes back and stings you when one of the sites you use gets hacked, or forces you to change your password for some reason.

At this point you need to come up with another formula, and either go back and change your password on every other site to match, or try to remember which site uses which one.

There's never an easy answer to this.

400 million Foxit users need to catch up with patched-up reader

Woodgar

Re: That's a huge download!!!

"Foxit Reader 8.0 rolls out ConnectedPDF with a set of document tracking and sharing features, and adds new features and enhancements including integration with Dropbox, Touch Mode support, and more."

I went with Foxit as it *didn't* have all sorts of irrelevant crap rolled up into it. It used to be a simple PDF viewer that did just what it was supposed to do and nothing more. Time to ditch it.

Marketing by opt-in, opt-out, consent or legitimate interest?

Woodgar

Re: Complete nonsense

My thoughts exactly.

The author appears to have absolutely no understanding of basic set theory, and the pseudo maths bollocks is just there to try to make them look clever. The whole thing is absolute tosh.

Reminder: How to get a grip on your files, data that Windows 10 phones home to Microsoft

Woodgar

Re: "Change your network settings to metered and the power source to battery."

You can set this yourself in your internet connection settings. I forget where, and I can't check right now, but it's something you control rather than MS working it out for themselves.

Ransomware slinging exploit kit targets Flash remote code execution

Woodgar

Re: It's gone (speed test without Flash)

http://speedof.me/

Doesn't use flash or java, and is fully html5 based.

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

Woodgar

Re: Facebook, mwah. BBC, huh ?

I don't recall them actually showing the pictures directly, more that there was a film sequence of the magazine being printed which contained a brief shot where you could see the cover of the magazine as it sped along the conveyor belts.

Brit smut slingers shafted by UK censors' stiff new stance

Woodgar

Nothing To Hide, Nothing To Fear

When the Government starts down the slippery slope of criminalising pornography, it's pretty obvious that we all have something to hide and plenty to fear.

Webcam hacker pervs in MASS HOME INVASION

Woodgar

Re: And this is a new thing??

Used to be callled gooledorks I believe. Also used to be able to find all sorts of other interesting stuff, but I believe Google tightened up on this.

Adobe spies on reading habits over unencrypted web because your 'privacy is important'

Woodgar

Re: So ... thinking on this again...

Maybe not...

Maybe it'll only let you read it in the country you purchased it in, so no holiday reading for the likes of you.

Microsoft: You NEED bad passwords and should re-use them a lot

Woodgar

Re: cheap trick...

All fine and dandy until the website gets hacked and you have to change your password, at which point you can't use your standard rule to make one up.

Good advice, and I use something similar myself, but it does occasionally come unstuck.

EBay, you keep using the word 'SECURITY'. I do not think it means what you think it means

Woodgar

Re: I'm beyond fed up with this

Interesting point on the "construct password based on site name" concept.

This is all fine and good until you have to change it, and which point you become stuck.

Google staggers toward BEEELLION-dollar Twitch gobble - report

Woodgar

Re: Because videos of games on youtube worked so well

The anonymous one is correct.

Google flags up scads of accounts with their auto content matching. It's not so much the actual game content that gets matched, but snippets of music playing, sometimes just music playing in the background of a game.

One example I saw, someone had their let's play of GTA5 flagged as they turned on the in-car radio and a tune it was playing got caught by the auto content matching tool and the vid got flagged for copyright violation.

As the anonymous guy said, often the games makers themselves had no idea this was going on or why the take down notices were being sent out, and they agreed the videos being taken down were actually good for them in driving sales.

Microsoft: You know we said NO MORE XP PATCHES? Well ...

Woodgar

Re: Well ...

"Surely these big corporates expect to get IE / XP patched (whichever one it is) so that means the patch still needs to be written, and therefore releasing it to all and sundry costs MS precisely nothing."

Actually, it sort of does.

If everyone sees that a patch will be released even for those not paying for support, then what's the point in paying for support? Why pay to have the patch when you can just mooch of the freebies?

Of course, if everyone stopped paying, then there would be no patches, but that's a different issue.

Windows XP still has 27 per cent market share on its deathbed

Woodgar

Re: Underlying meanng of the data ...

"Only 10 down votes ... people are starting to warm to jake's opinions."

Not really.

Clicking the down vote is still feeding the troll.

Microsoft spells out new rules for exiling .EXEs

Woodgar

Re: Your Computer is Running Slow...

I once had to field a help desk call from a new PC user who had barely got his brand new computer on line before getting pop-ups telling him his machine was low on memory and he should buy some more.

It took me ages to convince him it was just an advertisement, and that there was nothing wrong with what we'd just sold him.

China confirms Jade Rabbit lunar rover has conked out

Woodgar

Re: Commies are out in full force today...

I believe it was the "Commies" who first put satellites into orbit and men into space. America just came along and copied all their hard work.

UK.gov to warn tweeting twits, celebs 'n' pals on court case comments

Woodgar

Re: Lets test this "law" thing @Martin

I believe Martin has the gist of it here, in that the aim is to raise awareness of the law.

Getting on a plane to another country or using a VPN will not make you immune to prosecution if it can be shown that you did those things with the sole purpose of circumventing the legislation.

Google, Microsoft to drop child sex abuse from basic web search

Woodgar

Leaving alone freedom of speech, what's illegal in one country is not automatically illegal in another, so I can't even see this working in principal unless Google use a different filter list for each country.

Woodgar

Collating Search Terms In Reverse

I can sort of see how this could be done.

Once Google have been notified that an image contains illegal content, they could see what search terms different users typed in to find the link, and if they do this enough times they might discover a pattern of phrases or keywords.

They then just ensure that the link never appears in future searches irrespective of the search terms used, and flag up any new searches using the previously established phrases.

Who here needs to explain things to ELEPHANTS?

Woodgar

@ John H Woods - Trained Dogs

I think that was the point of the article, that the elephants knew what pointing was without needing to be trained, whilst most other animals, including dogs, have no idea what it means and will look at your finger rather than what you want them to look at.

Adobe hit by 'sophisticated' mega hack ransack

Woodgar

Re: At first

You use a payment provider, and let them sort it out.

We handle thousands of transactions a day, many of them recurring payments, and yet we don't store a single credit card number, encrypted or otherwise.

What we do store is a token that we pass to our payment provider that lets them know who to charge etc. Even if you got hold of the tokens it would do you no good, as the tokens are unique to our account, can only be used in conjunction with out account details, and will only be processed if the transaction originates on our IP.

Apple tops target list for litigious patent trolls

Woodgar

Re: Bloody hell

Maybe the patent trolls are upset at a new line of attire (Apple's tops) that Apple are coming out with?

Tor usage up by more than 100% in August

Woodgar

Streisand Effect?

I imagine there are a lot of people who had never heard of TOR until just lately.

Gov: Smart TV bods must protect users from smut-riddled badness

Woodgar

Is There Any Point To This?

Surely any decent citizen will have already instructed their ISP to block this filth-laden smut at source, won't they?

Jailed LulzSec hacker Cleary coughs to child porn images, will be freed soon

Woodgar

Re: @Steven Roper

Why did he plead guilty? Simply because he was guilty.

As was pointed out by AC above, the very act of unzipping an archive file means you are guilty of making an indecent image. Further, if you then view the files you've just unzipped, you end up creating a new image in your PC's graphics memory, which again means you are guilty of creating an indecent image.

The whole possessing and creating laws were originally to do with physical items, such as photographs, where there is a clear physical distinction between possessing a photo that someone else made, and going out and taking your own photos. The extension to digital media makes little sense, but does have the "bonus" effect of making the act of possession sound as bad as the act of creation of original material.

Google to Glass devs: 'Duh! Go ahead, hack your headset'

Woodgar

Joo Janta 200

(the rest of the post writes itself)

Branson's SpaceShipTwo succeeds in first rocket-powered flight

Woodgar

Re: Kids should NOT be allowed.

I agree.

Kids shouldn't be allowed to travel on planes, trains, or in cars until they are old enough to fully appreciate the risks and make an informed decision about the risk of death for themselves.

Inuit all along: Pirate Bay flees Sweden for Greenland

Woodgar

That's why it'd be better off on Freenet.

Crack Bombe squad dismantles Reg encryption in an hour

Woodgar

Re: To keep in the spirit of things...

You are AManFromMars, and I claim my £5

Ask Google this impossible question, get web filth as a reward

Woodgar

Can't believe....

... that no one has mentioned that this was originally posted on Sophos' Naked Security blog.

Microsoft: Old Internet Explorer is terrible and 'we want to help'

Woodgar

Re: Create A Fake Account

Whilst obviously good advice to create a fake account just for the purpose of signing up to these schemes, in the same way many of us use throwaway email accounts for a similar purpose, doing so only increases the likelihood of this type of sign-up method becoming more and more prominent.

Better to ignore them, or maybe even better to let them know why you're *not* going to be signing up, rather than inflating their usage statistics.

All your audio, video kit is about to become OBSOLETE

Woodgar

I got the impression that the sound cancelling could be done for the passengers separately from the driver, so you get to hear the road noise whilst they get to hear each other.

Facebook fixes 'Peeping Tom' webcam bug - AFTER 5 MONTHS

Woodgar

Re: Not really sure why a web browser

If it's in a browser then it'll be platform agnostic, or at least hopefully so, whilst an individual app/program will have to be developed for each platform with all the usual comparabilities that throws up.

Facebook to debut auto-play video ads in 2013

Woodgar

@David W.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

Internet Explorer tracks cursor even when minimised

Woodgar

Re: Faecebook Next?

Faecebook? iexploDer?

Seriously?

Russian Christians boosted by Pussy Riot law spank 'sinful' Apple logo

Woodgar

Re: There's nothing wrong with cultural sensitivity

The difference here is that people from Africa actually exist, and it can be demonstrated that the soft toys you mention are an offensive racial stereotype, whereas the offensive nature of the bitten apple only exists inside the heads of a few people who chose to find the image offensive, and as such has no basis in reality.

Google widens search net and takes on Siri with iOS app

Woodgar

Re: How things change

Sounds similar to a vocaloid http://www.vocaloid.com/ (page in Japanese), only more sophisticated.

Vocaloids use the same technique, but for singing rather than speaking, but the principle is the same, in that they use a voice bank of phonemes to construct a full singing voice.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Blu-ray

Woodgar

Re: Tell me... (Alistair Dabbs)

>Funny you should say that. Did you read the review?

I think that was the whole point.

Most of the review was spent telling us how bad everything was, and that you'd be better off buying the DVD, but it still gave it score of 80%

Proview fears fanbois will derail iPad export ban bid

Woodgar

Re: Re: Que?

So... pretty much the same way Apple stamped all over every iThing on the planet, even though all the other iThings had nothing to do with computing.

EU: Time running out for web companies on 'do not track' system

Woodgar

Exactly.

Any cookie based solution is doomed to failure.

HUD's up! Ubuntu creates menu-free GUI

Woodgar

My thoughts exactly.

This is supposed to an LTS release, not some experimental thing that can be replaced six months later.

World's biggest music streaming service launches - for tech idiots

Woodgar

@AC16.01

"it's surprising how many incompetent idiots there are in the working world"

So says the Anonymous Wanker who hasn't even managed to work out how to sign up for an account.

YaCy takes on Google with open source search engine

Woodgar

RE: 1984

Absolutely.

Surely this is one of the major benefits of such a system. It's distributed with no single point of control so can not be censored.

Google flings Bing into search engine bin

Woodgar

"As I do a lot of SEO, and rely heavily on Google for my business to succeed"

You, sir, are part of the problem, not the solution.

US anti-hacking law turns computer users into criminals

Woodgar

If only we could make it a crime to write such pitiful drivel as farcebook, crapple and micro$oft.

Such things may have been funny the first time they were used, but only in the head of the halfwit writing them.

Shock movie upset - Daniel Craig still James Bond 007

Woodgar

Are any of the modern ones based on the books, other than just ripping off the title?

Father of Lisp and AI John McCarthy has died

Woodgar

Isn't EMACS written in LISP?

UK Cops 'duped' into arresting wrong LulzSec suspect

Woodgar

@He who LOLZ last ....

.... is still using dial-up.

Or living in the Shetland Isles.

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