Posts by User McUser
105 posts • joined Friday 6th May 2011 15:44 GMT
Posted in UK.gov squatting on £1bn IPv4 motherlode
Re: Already answered
Why not use this as an opportunity to migrate to IPv6 and sell the IPv4 address block while it's still worth something?
At least then you can off-set the cost of the migration in whole or in part. If they wait much longer they'll have migrated to IPv6 anyway and the IPv4 block will be worthless.
"If we wanted to do illegal activities, we could pretend to be one of those networks"
Unencrypted WiFi, such as you would find at Starbucks etc, is already insecure so being able to trick my phone into joining their AP seems like merely a factor of convenience for the would-be eavesdropper.
Also this seems like it would only apply to networks that hide their SSID since you don't need to probe blindly for networks that aren't hidden. Or do I not understand how this exploit works?
Posted in Chinese man's six-ton balls save lives
Re: Prior Art
Surely you mean "Raiders of the Lost Ark"...
Trivia Fact
"When it comes to rowing, the taller the better – ideally six feet and more. Also considered is wing span – the distance from hand tip to hand tip"
Trivia fact: Your height is the same as your wingspan. Try it yourself; lie down flat on your back and have someone mark the relative positions of your head and feet. Then turn sideways 90° and you'll find your outstretched arms fit nicely between the marks.
No no no no no...
"[...] bundle tokens you can spend on the music and movie services of your choice. You could top up anywhere at any time."
We already have this; it's called MONEY. Money is accepted world-wide for all manner of goods and services including entertainment. I give 99¢ to Apple and they give me a song. I give $1.99 to Amazon, they give me a TV show. Why in the world would you need to abstract currency any further than it already is? This obfuscates the true cost of the content being purchased, complicates the purchasing process by adding an intermediate step of obtaining the tokens, and provides absolutely **no benefit** to the consumer.
Conversely it provides a tremendous benefit to the content providers. Casinos make you use chips when you gamble (in part) because psychologically gamblers don't treat chips the same way they treat hard currency. They are more likely to make impulsive decisions with chips than they would with hard currency. Add to this the fact that many/most of the existing services that abstract money (eg: XBox Live Points) will only sell you blocks of tokens (usually multiples of five) and then rig the "prices" so you can't ever actually spend all of it. The remainder just sits there like an 80's arcade token; it cost you money but you'll never be able to use it. (http://pvponline.com/comic/2009/03/12/match-points)
Furthermore, tokenizing money allows the companies to play currency exchange rates to their benefit and your detriment. If 500 points is $5.00 in the US, it might be £5.00 in the UK. In that scenario Brits pay more for the same exact product merely due to the exchange rate. (This last bit, of course, has been going on for years with actual money; I presume abstraction would serve only to embolden the practice.)
I'm reminded of the Simpsons episode where they go to Itchy and Scratchy Land and Homer buys "Itchy and Scratchy Fun Money" after being told it's "money that's made just for the park. It works just like regular money, but it's, er... 'fun' " Then none of the vendors inside accept I&S money and oh, there's no refunds. (http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F01.html)
"There's really no open, interoperable standard for taking songs on a mobile phone and playing them wirelessly on any speaker [...]"
This also exists, though it isn't widely implemented. The Bluetooth A2DP profile lets me stream music from my iOS device to my car stereo and then take that same device with me and stream to my Bluetooth headphones. Add the appropriate chips to your stereo receiver and you have exactly what you describe. Bluetooth probably doesn't qualify as an "open" standard, but it exists now and it works cross-platform.
"[...] housing a multitouch keyboard [...]"
When have keyboards ever *not* been "multitouch"?
Re: Its worse than that
"Want to take your camera to the Olympics - nope - the rights have been sold to the big boys."
Really? I find this unbelievably unbelievable. The biggest tourist draw to London since last week's river festival and nobody is allowed to bring cameras without prior approval? (Or have I committed "reductio ad absurdum?")
Re: $9000/day storage cost?
"How do they work that out then?"
Easy, it's the same method they used to arrive at the $22,500 per song damages in lawsuits.
Posted in TiVo takes on Cisco in patent knock down
Re: Paging all Tivo owners!
I've owned two TiVo units since August of 2000 (a Series 1 and a TiVo HD). There are two ways to buy it: You can month-to-month it for (I think) $15/mo or pay an up-front "lifetime subscription" fee of (again I think) $350. This is on top of the $50-$200 price for the unit itself. The service is required to operate the device as it provides all the TV schedule info.
It works like a VCR in the same way that a laser printer works like Gutenberg's movable-type press.
Posted in Will Nvidia 'n' pals pwn future gaming?
Paying for it
"providers would institute some pay-per-use scheme where consumers are micro-charged for every game minute"
Ummmmm, no. Either sell/license the titles individually or sell me an all encompassing "unlimited subscription" package. Charging per-unit is rarely designed to be in the best interests of the customer.
Reading is Fundamental
@BillG - Did you not read the article?
"[Under the proposed new law] any expatriate with either a net worth of $2m or an average income tax liability of at least [$148,000] over the last five years, will be presumed to have renounced their citizenship to get out of paying taxes. [...] the government will tax their future investment gains no matter where they live."
So there you go, not singling out anyone. Mr. Eduardo is just the most visible and recent example (even though he apparently isn't actually trying to skip out on paying income tax.) He's the proverbial final straw.
A small point I'd like to make
"... limited hot water: so dirtier clothes ..."
Actually most modern clothes washing detergents actually work perfectly well in cold water. And in any case, the bulk of the actual cleaning of your clothes comes from the physical agitation, with the detergent aiding by dislodging the more stubborn dirt and stains and then sequestering it in the rinse water.
"[being] injured playing cards in her hotel room [...] and being hurt while having sex is no different."
Then you're doing it wrong...
Re: Star Trek Voyager already did this
Also Dr. McNinja: http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/20p17/
A self defeating law?
"Under the terms of the bill, a customer would be said to have opted-in to the material if they tell 'the service provider of his or her consent to subscribe to a service that includes pornographic images'."
Since the Internet is "a service that includes pornographic images*," wouldn't signing up for Internet service mean that you are consenting to subscribe to a service that includes pornographic images?
*Clearly it must be, or else what is it that ISPs are supposed to be blocking?
In defense of nobody...
In defense of nobody, a one year warranty is pretty much the de facto standard for "consumer" computers in the US. I don't believe I've seen a consumer oriented unit from any manufacturer that included a warranty period longer than 1 year by default.
Besides, if the manufacture warrants the device for much longer, stores couldn't sell them those highly profitable^H^H^H^H^H valuable "extended service plans."
Siri's lack of context is annoying
Here is why I don't like Siri: no context. Everything works great if you get it right in the first go, but if you mess up you have to start the whole dumb command over. "She" appears to have the memory capacity of a gnat as evidenced by the following exchange (paraphrased):
Me: Siri, create a new meeting with Bill tomorrow at 4PM.
Siri: Here's your new meeting: [Meeting, Bill, 4PM tomorrow] OK?
Me: Wait, change that to 3PM.
Siri: Sorry, I don't understand "Wait, change that to 3PM."
Me: *sigh*
Bad logic
To rephrase Apple's legal argument (at least as I understand it):
You can't convict me for this particular wrong thing I did because I *could have been* doing much worse things but I didn't.
Re: "Let's make that mandatory"
"Apple (American company)
Apple spends American dollars from American people on foreign labour"
You mean Apple pays Foxconn for the iPads they build; Apple doesn't own Foxconn nor do they control wages at the factories. Could they? Maybe, it would depend on what sort of contract exists between Apple and Foxconn.
"American goverment checks to see if labour payment is in appropriate range
American goverment fines American company for not paying appropriate pay rate"
Except Apple doesn't own Foxconn and Foxconn is NOT an American company. All of ->APPLE'S<- employees are paid wages consistent with the law; The US cannot directly control the wages at Foxconn.
What *could* the US do? They could ban imports of products made in sub-standard conditions (wages, safety, etc) but I'm pretty sure that our modern world would grind to a halt at that point.
As 1st world residents our lives are built on the backs of some of the poorest paid workers on the planet. The result is cheap shoes, cheap electronics, and especially record profits for all of the companies doing it. Corporations will find a way around any legislation that increases their production costs like water encountering a stone. It may take time, but it will happen.
In fact they've already done so numerous times in history. The US used to manufacture a lot of things, and those jobs went to places with cheaper labor costs. Not because the products weren't profitable but because there is slightly more profit to be had by having 2nd/3rd world wage-slaves assemble them rather than 1st worlders (who want living wages, health insurance, safe working conditions, and all those other things that eat into the profit margins.)
This problem will not be fixed unless people either refuse to purchase these products (which seems unlikely) or if there are globally enforced laws requiring safe and fair working conditions (which sadly seems to be equally unlikely.) Well I suppose the workers might unionize and fight back, but in a lot of places that's illegal (China for example) so employees run the risk of arrest or worse.
Re: "Let's make that mandatory"
"I fail to see how you need a global government in order to regulate how industries obtain labour."
Because if the law isn't global (or isn't a law), then manufacturers will just move on to a different country.
For example, say labor costs went up in China by 16%, a company might move their operations to the Philippines instead. I think I saw an article online somewhere that was talking about this.
"Paramount promises [...] a few new surprises."
I'm hoping that when you open the box for "Crystal Skull" it's just empty, save for a short written apology.
Posted in Google Goggle glasses ARE WATCHING YOU
"What matters [to people at advertising agencies] most is simple demographics (gender, age, newspaper-buying habits) which they've had for ages."
I take it that Mr. Orlowski missed the recent article in the NY Times Magazine about Target stores using behavioral analysis to, among other things, determine when their customers were pregnant? [1] And quite successfully too it seems.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html
Posted in Labour targets Tories' Google problem
"No-one could imagine how we would survive without Google..."
You, sir, have a very limited imagination.
This is why I hate hyperbole... And politicians...
Buffering Title... Please wait...
A great purchase I'm sure. Because when you hear the name "RealNetworks" the first thing you think of is "next-gen video codec" rather than "late 90's also-ran."</sarcasm>
Point taken
"Kodak didn't make awful digital cameras"
OK, so they made *mediocre* cameras; people still didn't buy them.
Losing money? Hardly!
Let's math, shall we?
$45.30/mo * 36mo = $1,630.80
MSRP* for factory unlocked GSM iPhone 4s (32GB) = $749.00
Profit: $881.80
*I doubt they're paying that much per unit.
Couldn't run it on two coconuts tied together with string either. What's your point?
Misleading...
"That means the sun is not powering the data centre for over 80 per cent of the year:"
That means the Sun is not powering **100%** of the center 80% of the year. But from dawn to dusk you'd actually have a sort of bell-curve of power production as the solar component ramps up towards 100% while the grid ramps down to 0%, flattens out when the sun reaches optimal position, and then down again on the other side as the solar array ramps down and the grid draw goes up.
The way the article is written implies that if the sun is providing anything less than 100% of the power used that this is somehow a failure. Frankly even if the array provides only 30% of the power on a given day, that's 30% less energy used and while perhaps not cost effective it is reducing power demand for the facility.
IMHO Firefox does a really great job of ordering sites in the URL auto-complete list; it's sorted by frequency of access.
For example when I type "the" into the URL bar the first thing it offers is "theregister.com" because I visit the site frequently (and use the URL auto-complete to do so.) If you want it sorted in a particular way you have to keep at it though by always typing in the full address for the first dozen times you go there. Then make sure you keep choosing what you want to be the top result when you do a partial match.
If I may...
If I might suggest, you could shed fewer crocodile tears mourning the loss of a few polygons and refocus those impulses towards some of the *real* problems out there like real abuses against real children in many parts of the world such as in Sudan, Chad, and Columbia.
Fuck the users, what about reducing sysadmins' frustrations?
"fully committed" to an open internet
Which is why they're suing to prevent rules establishing it as such...
Makes perfect sense to me.
He means that they don't have to track their users since said users happily hand over all their personal information directly.
Exactly what do FB users *think* those little "Like" buttons do?
Posted in Netflix: How to completely screw up
Of course by email!
They just send the 8GiB .iso file in 20MiB chunks, like the old days and the .binary newsgroups.
Posted in Netflix: How to completely screw up
Handled in the *worst* way possible
They really screwed the pooch on this one; a perfect example of the "frog in the pot" scenario. If they had raised the prices on existing customers over the course of the next few years, then people would have begrudgingly accepted it. Now maybe their business model doesn't quite work that way, but I doubt a million lost subscribers is helping the bottom line either.
The icing on this fail cake was added on Sunday when they sent a condescending "We're so sorry you weren't happy with us increasing our prices, but we're not backing down so thanks for your business or piss off" letter.
You missed one of the scenarios in the video...
The last scenario in the video isn't the guy buying the hibachi, it's the lady shop lifting all that stuff she pretended to scan before waving her phone at the busy checkout clerk from 20 feet away.
Not quite sure how PayPal's new service helped her steal those groceries, but I'm probably just not seeing the bigger picture.
@Mr. Biscuit Barrel
They just use a really fast and effective encryption. I believe it's called "ROT13".
It's super effective.
Where's the ROTM angle?
Surely giving the enemy our collected medical histories is only going to make it easier for them to conquer us.
Posted in Diebold demos cloud-based ATM
Removes the what now?
"Virtualisation removes the onboard computer from the ATM..."
No, it doesn't. You still need to relay user input, manage the network connection, and relay program output. And since LCD screens aren't made of magic, you'll need a thin-client style computer in there to handle that.
So they've gone from a low-power computer in a box in the bank that talks over the network to other bank computers to perform transactions to a low-power computer in a box in the bank that talks to a *specific* bank computer which then relays the same exact request to the other bank computers.
How is this not just adding a needless layer of potential problems?
Backups?
Surely one of these idiots thought to make a backup copy of these things somewhere.
I mean what kind of buffoon has that sort of important information and doesn't make an encrypted copy to an external HDD or whatever?
Posted in Gamer claims complete console collection
No Vectrex either
The Vectrex had a vector graphics engine and supported a light pen. Does anyone under 30 remember those?
(With apologies to the entire human race.)
<-- HAMR time.
In all "seriousness", I am *so* looking forward to explaining to our customers why their "12TB" drives only have 10.9TiB of free space.
How is this any different than desktops?
If I have a PC and buy a Mac I have to repurchase all my apps there too.
I'm not sure what app stores have to do with this or why anyone would ever assume that an app written for one platform should be transferable to another (competing) platform.
Plus there's no incentive for developers to bother doing it. Half the money and twice the development and support costs? Gosh, where do I sign up for that?
Posted in Bluetooth goes 3D with Apple
Why remote controls still use IR
Bluetooth Controller Chip - $7
InfraRed LED - 28¢
Hmmm...
Posted in World braces for domain name EXPLOSION
Death of Internet, etc...
The only winners here will be scammers/phishers (who I guarantee will find a way to abuse this), typo-squatters and other dubious name registry companies (GoDaddy springs to mind), and precisely *no one else*.
ICANN - Solving the problems that nobody has since 1998.
Also...
Shouldn't roughly half of it be dark?
Addons often do work
If you edit the "install.rdf" file in the XPI bundle (which is just a ZIP archive) with any text editor you can change the "maxVersion" to whatever you please. Though you might want to test it first before wide-scale deployment. Sometimes those version limits are there for a reason.
Lawyers? Ethicists? Technologists?
Is this ship going to be called the "B Ark" perchance?
Mental Note: Keep a look out for enormous mutant Star Goats, just in case.
I have some questions...
So what if two people split the subscription cost?
What if they do the above, but don't use it simultaneously?
What if someone gives it to their spouse or children?
What if *I* type the password in but someone else actually watches the video?
What if I do the above and the other person's Browser remembers the password?
Does it matter if I didn't know it would/could store the password?
What if someone outside of Tennessee's jurisdiction gives their password someone *in* Tennessee's jurisdiction?
What if you choose a weak password and someone guesses it?
My Prediction:
Not a single person will ever be convicted under this law. Eventually it will end up in a list of "Crazy Old Laws" alongside turn-of the last century laws forbidding baths on Tuesdays or what-not.
@Goat Jam
"It should be open and shut.."
But patent trolls and their lawyers are involved so naturally it will take hundreds and hundreds of billable hours to come to the final solution.
