* Posts by CaptainHook

279 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Aug 2010

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Nuke support in UK hits record high

CaptainHook
Stop

Nuke Support

"Nuke support in UK hits record high"

Thats not what the graph says, both 2010 and the 2011 (Dec) have 40% approval, but the 2011 (Dec) data point has a higher disapproval rating.

So although those in favour of Nuclear has recovered to the level it enjoyed before Fukushima, there are now more people who are against it.

Phages: The powerful new bio-ammo in superbug war

CaptainHook

I remember seeing a Panorama (or something similar) report in the late 80s/early 90's about Phages use as an anti-biotic in the USSR. I honestly thought they would have been in use for decades by now.

Not exactly 'New' bio-ammo.

Wikipedia to shut down Wednesday in SOPA protest

CaptainHook
WTF?

Genuine Pirate Site?

What are you talking about?

The only site BristolBachelor has listed which I can see in this thread is thetvdb.com which clearly isn't a pirate site, it doesn't seem to be offer any downloads or even links to online videos or external downloads.

It's purely a listing of characters and events from TV Shows, if that site falls foul of fair use then talking about a TV show over the water cooler at the office the next day does as well.

Have I missed something, I feel I have not got a joke or something because there is no way anyone is that brainwashed?

Using phone-tracking tech? 'Fess up now, urges expert

CaptainHook

"If you are wandering about in public, people can see you. If they want to track you, they can."

The problem is one of scale, tracking people used to be expensive, and therefore only done with people who were already of interest.

These days, it's become so cheap that people are collecting the information without even having any idea what they want to do with later.

I'm not just talking about Footpath here; ANPR, Face Recognition from CCTV, everything you've ever brought from any of the big supermarkets and the credit card companies. The information is being collected and it's never going to go away.

The old system was effectively anonymity via being lost in the crowd, it was under that environment that the laws regarding privacy were created and evolved but technology has changed that environment and the law hasn't kept pace.

Doomsday Clock ticks one minute closer to annihilation

CaptainHook
WTF?

So the current situation is exactly the same as last week, i.e. no treaty, but this week that lack of treaty is more dangerous?

Bit-part actress slings sueball at IMDb over age gripe

CaptainHook

How old was she passing herself for, 25 ?

Actually, Yes.

In reports I read in other places, she used to play a lot of 20s and 30s characters and to be fair her photos don't make her look 40.

I bet now the age is listed, the agents don't even look at her profile (or at least weren't, as mentioned above I bet her phone is ringing off the hook now) because it'll be filtered at the search box.

Facebook VERY SLOWLY rolls out Timeline

CaptainHook

Custom List

"personally I find it a PITA as I am looking to see what's new with friends and any new photos (like the majority of people) still I suppose they have to keep trying to 'innovate'."

I've got around it by creating a group with all my contacts in it, and then view the timeline of that group, which is (at least at the moment) in the old chronological order. No posts elavated above others based on what Facebook thinks you will find interesting or what Facebook wants to promote for its own benefits.

It works for me because my friends list is pretty static, but obviously if you add a friend and don't add them to the group you never see an update from them.

Parasites spark swarm of zombie bees

CaptainHook

Sarah Bee

come back....

Gamers grumble over Steam outage

CaptainHook

Steam Offline Mode

Steam Offline Mode was always stupid because you needed to be online to set it.

E.g. In a situation where the service suddenly goes offline, you can't then set it to work offline to continue playing even single player games.

Weak Sony PS Vita sales prompt price-cuts

CaptainHook
WTF?

Muppet

X-Men Origins: Wolverine pirate caged

CaptainHook

RE: I'm actually surprised

"I never expected them to actually pursue criminal prosecutions for the leak because the trail would probably lead back to the studio."

Note that they haven't prosecuted the leak. Someone attached to the production team had to have let what they had of the film out into the public, but they have never found that person (he must be a master of disguise to avoid being found out from the relatively small group of people who would have access to that material at that time).

All they have done is prosecuted random joe public who uploaded it.

Plastic semiconductor makes solar cells more efficient

CaptainHook
Coat

"Quantum Leap" Indeed!

Please, some sometimes Sam would jump into a different sex, race, or occasionally even a different species.

those are pretty big jumps.

UltraViolet: Hollywood's giant digital gamble is here

CaptainHook

Download Once

Lets say for example, I brought Final Destination 5 DVD (*see Note 1), if I want to watch that film on a tablet at the moment I would rip the DVD to a local NAS box and then stream it across WiFi.

Am I going to be able to do that with UV protected disks? or am I going to have to stream the movie from the cloud everytime, burning through my bandwidth limit?

Note 1 - I wouldn't, ever, but this is just for example.

Plans for wave-pay Tube tickets don't convince pols

CaptainHook
Happy

DIY Disabling

I've cut a 0.5mm slot about 2 mm above the Chip, as viewed when holding the card to read the numbers, to sever the RFID induction loop/ariel running the lenght of the chip.

I know the chip and pin still works but haven't yet had a chance to test whether the PayWave functionality has been completely disabled although I've definately severed copper wires so I can't see how it could unless there 2 seperate coils entering the chip in different places.

My biggest concern about this 'mod' is that I've structurally weakened the card, although Chip and Pin still works sometimes (1% of attempts) I have to reinsert the card to get the machine to communicate with the chip properly. I think this is caused because the chip can now bend slightly out of place because some of the plastic surrounding it is missing. I never had this problems before modding the card.

Apart from that it's all good.

Bishop to bless road salt supplies for added winter safety

CaptainHook
Flame

Homeopathy

Are blessings like Homeopathy?

Bless the salt bunker once.

The salt in the bunker gets used and you have bring more salt in, but you don't need to bless each truck load coming in because so long as 1 grain of salt that has been blessed remains in the salt bunker it passes the blessing on to all the other grains of salt, with the blessing becoming stronger each time you dilute the supply.

Religion is an extremely efficent method of protection.

PSP owners must pay to port games to PS Vita

CaptainHook

Sony

I'm still amazed people even buy Sony entertainment gadgets.

Pay-by-wave: At least it's better than being mugged

CaptainHook

£15

Per transaction, until the card company decides to challenge with a PIN request.

I don't really fear organised crime with this technology, I fear chav's just picking a pocket or just out right mugging people so they can go get a crate of beer and a MacDonalds immediately after getting the card/phone and then just dumping them down a drain straight away.

Its low level, opportunistic crime which I think this system will encourage.

CaptainHook
Unhappy

As soon as reported

How long before someone can report a credit card or phone missing?

Especially if it's your mobile phone hosting the secure element which has been nicked.

I've never really been afraid for a wireless attack on NFC, i am worried than after years of decline street theft simply because no one carries cash any more, it's sudden becomes worth mugging someone in a low end crime sort of way.

e.g. mug someone, buy a crate of beer, dump the card straight afterwards. *see note #1

Note 1: Or keep the card until it stops working allowing you multiple dips into that £15 limit etc.

Nokia: The first year of the Elopcalypse

CaptainHook
Stop

The Right One

"bet the future on historical enemy Microsoft, now seems a right one."

I think you are right about the need to move to away from the in house OS, if only because Smart Phones are about the apps and for a wide range of apps you need external developers and no one is going to develop for the 4th most popular platform.

Having said that, I'm still not sure WP was the right one to choose, and I don't see how you have come to that conclusion, Nokia have managed to get 2 models from a single series out, it's far too early to get any reliable sales figures so we can't tell how many people are willing to actually pay to get one.

WHSmith Kobo Touch wireless e-book reader

CaptainHook

Loading Books On

How do you load books onto the device? Is it only though an online service like the kindle or can you use that usb port it has paired with Calibre?

What affect does turning the WiFi/3G radios on have on the battery life?

Ubuntu's Oneiric Ocelot: Nice, but necessary?

CaptainHook

Lists in Launcher Items

If its got to the point where people are having to do stupid hacks like that to work around the UI, maybe it's time to switch.

CaptainHook
Thumb Down

Give me back my system menu

Seriously, why search for applications when with 3 clicks you can navigate a hierarchical menu of all the applications installed?

If the developers want to create a Dash feature, great, do that but keep the menu structure in place at the same time and give people the choice to use either.

Facebook accused of violating US wiretap law

CaptainHook

They will use it for their gain

Which is why application of the law is needed to restrain their behaviour.

Win 8 haters are just scared of change, say MS bosses

CaptainHook

Touch Screen, not Mac

I think this is more about preparing for the rise of touch screens as the primary means of interacting with a computer, they are trying to find a common UI which will work across all their products without keyboard shortcuts or being able to use a mouse to point with a very high degree of precision.

Whether it works or not will depend on whether tablets become the primary computer for people in the future or whether people will always have a PC/Laptop type of device.

High-frequency traders attract regulator’s interest

CaptainHook
FAIL

High Standards and Most Professional

Trouble is, not about "In my personal view, on the technological scene, they are the most professional and have the highest standards that exist.". I'm sure the guys designing and building them are very professional.

It's the effect they have on the market as a whole which is the problem, siphoning off money from the system while only contributing instability.

Microsoft staff savage Ballmer at company confab

CaptainHook

are there any decent CEOs?

I think that the success of a company is more to do with luck than skill when talking about the really successful companies. Thats not to say CEOs don't have influence, a bad CEO can certainly drive a business into the ground, but those companies that reach monopoly status get there because they were in the right place at the right time to ride an expanding market into a dominant position.

In the context of Microsoft, people keep say Ballamer is not Gates (for what ever reason) but I don't believe Gates would be doing any better right now because the problem isn't that Ballamer is bad its because the position Microsoft is in right now doesn't allow for any better performance.

Veggies tricked into dating meat-gobbling escorts

CaptainHook

not if there is no user.veggie field

the common pool of dating profiles which the Veggie Dating site was using to bulk out its own membership list didn't have a field for food preferences therefore there was nothing to filter on for anyone who didn't register directly with the Veggie Dating site.

Red Hat engineer renews attack on Windows 8-certified secure boot

CaptainHook
Thumb Up

Linux at purchase

In the past, I've brought PC's with Windows and just resigned myself to paying the windows tax because I know that I can get Linux running later once Windows has succumbed to registry bloat etc and needs to be wiped clean.

In future, I'm going to insist on Linux being installed at the time of purchase because it will be the only to be sure the hardware is usable in the long term and not have any Windows OS on the hardware at the time of purchase, thus saving me the tax - thanks MS.

Laptops en route to Europe by rail for first time

CaptainHook

Confucius says

man with hot laptop gets roasted balls.

Why do these traders get billions to play with, unchecked?

CaptainHook

Or in the case of shorting

Sell High, then buy low

Sixty-seven WIMPs spotted in the wild, maybe

CaptainHook
WTF?

eh?

do you understand what you are talking about?

The search for Dark Matter is an attempt to resolve the difference between how much gravity we calculate is needed to hold galaxies together and how much we can actual account for in observations.

It's fundamental to the science to find out if our models of gravity are right or wrong.

Contraction or continued expansion is something we maybe able to learn from resolving that conflict but it's not the point of the experiment.

Brit men descend from mammoth hunters, not farmers

CaptainHook

They would think

Wow, these guys have a lot of food, and spare time, and toys.

Maybe we should have given up all these year of dangerous not massively efficent hunting earlier.

Facebook flashplodder to appeal against 4-yr cooler stint

CaptainHook

did he turn up

thats the first I've heard that anyone, including the "organisers" actually turned up. well, if you exclude the coppers of course.

Serial Web2.0 investor pumps Twitter valuation to $8bn

CaptainHook
Trollface

$57M per Character

That $57M per character valution is simply a reflection on the superior writing skills of twitter contributors compared to professional writers, authors and reporters.

NotW 'targeted' phone of Sarah Payne's mum

CaptainHook

yes

but I wonder if even they realised how easy it would be when they first started.

CaptainHook

Why Hack It

Given what we now know about NotW, I would suspect that the all the services for that phone such as voicemail would have been setup by NotW employees before the phone ever reached Sara Payne, they already had the passwords, would Sara Payne have changed the PINs?

In fact given the time frame, is it possible Sara Payne was one of the first victims and giving the phone was necessary because the voicemail interception technique hadn't been perfected yet?

I wonder if that phone/logs from the service provide still exists, probably not.

ICO won't investigate Tory minister

CaptainHook
Stop

Staff not Consituents

Jonathon Djanogly didn't set the PI's on his constituents, he set them on his own office staff.

Paypal chums with City cops against naughty music sites

CaptainHook
Stop

Police Consider The Evidence

So at no point is there any judical review of the evidense before a company has its payment processing blocked and presumably even have existing funds held. Nice

Yates of the Yard quits Met over phone-hacking scandal

CaptainHook

Cressida Dick

Just to tie all the lose ends together.

Cressida Dick, who was in charge of the operation when De Menezes was killed is taking over Yates role in the Met, at least temporarily.

Brings it all into a nice neat circle doesn't it, and I for one certainly feel safer for it.

MS to WinXP diehards: Just under 3 more years' support

CaptainHook

Faster

they mean the hardware gets faster allowing MS to bloat the OS even more in ways which just don't actually help the end user in anyway.

NotW accused of hacking Milly Dowler's voicemail

CaptainHook

Public Replusion

Brooks has friends in high places and so far the phone hacking scandal keeps sliding off her teflon shoulders but this is far too public and I doubt her contacts in Government or the Police are going to want to help her if there is the slightest possibility of that help becoming public.

Scotland Yard still have no idea why their network fell over

CaptainHook
Facepalm

Have they tried

switching it off and on again?

German chemical giant depending on biscuit-based security

CaptainHook
Big Brother

Agreed

With the Micro SD Card capacity these days, the phone could recorded everything it's mic picked up for days at a time, and since it's not transmitting the battery would last a good long while as well.

If the company are really that paranoid what do they do about spy gear embedded into pens and buttons etc. Pens they could provide but I think supplying approved clothing before each meeting might be viewed as a bit weird.

Councils and police to publish speed camera data

CaptainHook
FAIL

rubbish

B-Roads have long been more dangerous per mile driven on them, even before speed cameras.

B-Roads are physically more dangerous because they are generally narrower, leaving less room for correction, aren't maintained as well as A-Roads, don't require the same sight lines and have number side roads and hidden enterances/exits.

Just to top it all off, the lower level of traffic on B-Roads means the surface doesn't get swept clean of debris as quickly.

Royston's ANPR surveillo-plan goes to ICO

CaptainHook
FAIL

Royston - Crime Capital of the whole of britian

Piper said: "We use ANPR to target criminals and unsafe drivers, not law-abiding motorists, and have caught thousands of burglars, robbers, uninsured drivers, drug dealers and other serious criminals."

I hadn't realised that Royston (pop: ~17000) was such a hot bed of crimal activity. In fact given this new information, maybe we should just build a big wall around the whole place to protect the rest of us.

Fail: for using National Statistics to justify ANPR in a small, statistically safer than average town (especially regarding motoring offences).

Japan seeks unheard-of new uses for cell location data

CaptainHook

Future Planning Uses

It's an interesting and potentially useful idea for getting statistics hour by hour in near real-time and so could be very useful for the Natural Disaster response, prehaps event planning based on past events, but I don't see how data helps with planning future infrastructure.

It's not like 100 people go to an empty field at the end of the day and then developers can go "ah ha, we should build houses there".

People (or rather crowds) go to where the infrastructure already exists, but surely you already know people use that infrastructure otherwise why did you build it in the first place?

Stealth hovercraft armada poised to invade South Korea

CaptainHook
Meh

damn, prior art

but I should still get a share of the savings because I didn't know about the the previous use

CaptainHook
Facepalm

Helicopters and Aircraft

Just place a bunch of pointy sticks (*1) in the ground with the points facing upwards and sticking out of the mud by 3 inches.

Hovercraft comes over and tears the skirt to ribbons, you now have 3000 commandos stuck in the middle of a mud flat without having fired a single shot or killed anyone where they can all be taken prisoner.

I just saved the allies a fortune in operating costs, I think I should get a share of that saving.

*1: Might need more than just sticks, but the principal is the same. something cheap to make and that will tear a skirt when ridden over, skirt is likely to be kevlar these days so you are probably going to need something very pointy and very strong.

Boffins tail bees with tiny radio tags

CaptainHook
Gimp

Bee Flight

I've just completed a bee keeping course, who knew it would actually bee useful (see what I did there?)

Optimal flight temperate is low to mid 20s C, and they don't tend to fly at all at temperatures much below 10 C, fog forms in air cooler than that so I guess the bees aren't out in those conditions anyway.

Google slips open source JPEG killer into Gmail, Picasa

CaptainHook

Apache

Possibly for on the fly conversion?

I can see Apache looking at look the user agent string or measuring communication bandwidth for the session and deciding you might be behind a low-bandwidth connection and auto-converting images to a lower quality/smaller sized image.

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