Posts by bobdobbs
37 posts • joined Tuesday 13th September 2011 13:56 GMT
thank you, El Reg...
It's ever so satisfying to hear Jobs referred to in passing as "Apple co-founder". :)
Posted in Archaeologists uncover 'Unicorn's lair'
Re: For the headline,
True enough.
I have to admit, I didn't even read the article before laying out that quip.
Posted in Archaeologists uncover 'Unicorn's lair'
For the headline,
I think I would consider putting "archaeologists" in quotes as well, el reg.
too lazy to read the actual paper, but...
I hope they randomized the "yellow triangle == math, blue square == words" association across their subjects, as it is common knowledge that the colour yellow, and yellow triangles in particular, mean *warning* for many people, which could skew the results if consistently used for one or the other.
Re: Guess the fairness of it depends on the situation
To take a "theory" a bit further: Jobs knew deep down that a megalomaniac like himself was a threat to the well-being of the entire human race, but couldn't help himself from grooming Forstall as a replacement in his own image.
On his deathbed, though, he had a change of heart, (and in an attempt at salvation before meeting his maker) he decided to instead christen Cook as the new leader, knowing full-well that he would seek out and destroy elements resembling Jobsian traits, ensuring the happy future of humanity.
Thanks Reg!
"However, it is not known whether his connection to the fossil fuel industry that prompted his alleged ire at a would-be car-pooler."
It's these little gems that keep me coming back. :)
Posted in Facebook open sources production code
Re: Let me correct that for you ...
they haven't been making many shareholders happy of late...
article fail
"That’s the meat of the prosecution’s copyright case."
Hah, sums the article up for me too: seeing as how there's no prosecutor in a civil proceeding, methinks this article is somewhat under-researched, or at least there's a lack of understanding of the prceedings on show.
Don't even get me on to the quoting of dear Florian as some sort of impartial pundit...
or...
this could also mean that the "cyber-criminals" that _get caught_ are mostly middle-aged with mediocre computer skills. Kinda makes sense that the l33t haxzors would not be part of these statistics, cause they don't end up getting caught.
Re: another poor offering from wacom
hmm, just did some searching, it appears their patent has expired. Or, well, at least their main patent covering the pen sensing technology...
now were's the effing competition for display-pen-tablet thingies?
another poor offering from wacom
1920 x 1200 is a total dealbreaker... I know the wacom tablet-screens have always been low-res, but that is ridiculous for a 24 inch screen!
It's like they don't want my money:
I almost bought a 12WX, i mistakenly thought it might be somewhat portable, then I noticed when I saw it in person the giant power/control block they hide in all the photos that happens to have a million cables coming out of it.
So then I took a look at the 21UX, but the screen was horribly underspecced, a measly 1600x1200 on a 21 inch screen!
Now the 24HD comes out and they giant sized the screen, but kept the super crappy resolution??!
Plus on both the 21 and 24 a crappy 550:1 contrast ratio -- half of what you'd expect from, oh, let's say, an apple desktop display?
Seriously, I would have laid out all kinds of cash for this type of equipment over the years IF IT DIDN'T SUCK SO BAD. I can't wait for their patents to run out so that there can be some competition using similar pen technology.
sorry, rant over...
Re: The only difference between the Florida and Colorado cases...
My understanding of the Colorado case is that the accused freely admitted (to a jailhouse informant) that there were incriminating files on her encrypted drive.
Because of this (underreported) feature of the case, the judge has taken the stance that her 5th amendment rights do not apply because she has _already_ self-incriminated, and now she's merely being compelled to metaphorically open the door to the room she herself said the incriminating evidence is in.
Not sure I agree with the interpretation myself: if they feel the "evidence" of self-incrimination was already strong enough, would they even need the encrypted files? Kinda feels like they know they have some crappy evidence, but they really really want a silver bullet, and they think she's the best person to provide it, i.e. she should self-incriminate. Mind you, I'm not a sitting US judge, only a bepipetacled armchair detective.
a perfectly constructed ruse
Toews is being intentionally outrageous, getting everybody riled-up and focused on the absurdity of the kiddy pron and pedo accusations.
All this to deflect attention from the real and true aim of this law: laying the groundwork for one-stop copyright infringement enforcement. When the Cons introduce their planned copyright reform bill later on, they want to already have the laws in place allowing forceful and quick application of the new copyright penalties. The last thing they want is to be arguing why these powers are necessary when it's obvious what they actually want to use them for.
(oh, and don't think I'm implying that Toews himself is somehow the mastermind behind this, he's much to thick)
Posted in Life at Googleplex REVEALED in hot pics
the chubby embearded fellow...
...is clearly not working on a macbook.
el reg, el reg.... where are your journalistic standards headed?! No longer even looking at the photos you're writing about?
Even with a salt, there are still only 10,000 possible hashes of a PIN. The problem is that a four digit numeric password is just too friggin' short for modern cryptanalysis when an attacker has access to the hashed values; it's too easy to brute force.
Fyi, a salt only makes it hard to tell if two PIN hashes represent the same clear-text PIN.
@Fatman, i think the GP post meant they see the possibility of civil suits _against_ Dotcom as being reasonable, not against the government.
If I understood correctly, they were hinting that treating this as a criminal matter was a bit over the top, and it only really meets the standard for some civil proceedings, at best, not a 70-man army storming a mansion compound with black choppers and sniper rifles. (i made that last part up, btw. but it's fun to think about)
Re: Workstation vs Gamer graphics
Reading all that makes me so sad. So if I want to play games and do 3D graphics/modelling/etc I have to sodding buy two gfx cards, and/or two separate computers to go with them? bloody hell!
hey El Reg,
you forgot the future tense in your headline. Ubuntu has yet to lift said skirt.
my major take home form this
was much simpler... it pros don't read dr dobbs.
silent brick wall
Older versions of Windows are being limited to outdated versions of IE? Even when they're ripping something off they can't get it right!
Expecting users to shell out and upgrade their OS just so they can break through the IE upgrade glass ceiling will push even more of them into the arms of Google and their ilk.
With stupid (Windows-cash-cow protecting) restrictions like this, they'll never stop the user-base bleed to Chrome.
"and visions of sugar-plums danced in his head"
would have been a more appropriate sub-heading... this guy is effin' dreaming!
umm...
don't really see how this is any kind of "nod" to google's restructuring efforts, or for that matter, why google is even mentioned in this article... they are facebook's archnemesis and all, but really nothing to do with this news snip.
family crypt?
I picture Jobsian remains buried at the very center of the ring, or at least that's what the sun-sprinkled renditions forced me to think of.
not quite
Steggo doesn't require images, only hiding information in an unrelated stream of info.
If I send a love letter to my wife from jail, whereby taking the first letter of each word forms a sentence instructing her where the evidence is located that i wish her to destroy, that is also steganography.
I don't have any familiarity with the GCHQ puzzle, so I don't actually know what you mean by "meta data", but the error in your post stands regardless.
failed for me
any site you have blocked via adblocker or similar will appear as "recently visited" in this test, since blocking is akin to "loading really fast" as far as your local cache is concerned.
Actually, i take back what i said. I misread the part where you mention it's a "comment" in the image file. I do agree with you that it actually has to be somehow encoded in the image data to qualify as steggo, not using a data field defined in the image spec to store the message.
ah, thx.
oh wow, that really is a kick in the nuts after the hard work of solving the code and all..
salary?
I don't understand. Where are you guys getting the salary figures from?
...or does it give you that little letdown after you break the code.
i feel like we're all missing something...
Every time i read one of these stories where it seems like the movie execs are pushing people to pirate more by making the non-pirated version/experience suck, all i can think is that they _want_ the piracy stats to continue rising. That way, they have justification for pushing legislation that will really fucking suck for everybody (except them) and won't be as easy to get around as hitting up the pirate bay. In an Orwellian world like that, they can just sit back and let the bucks roll in.
Sherlock 'cause, well, I hope I sound deductionary, not tinfoil-hatty...
re: It would seem...
you had me up until "secured environment": the systems that were compromised were just random servers strewn across the net, running outdated versions of openssh and such... hardly a secured environment.
If they can't be bothered to keep their main system packages up to date, i'd hardly imagine them setting up the whiz-bangery you describe, or for that matter caring about terms like "secured environment".
IT?
She probably sent out a tweet or something to her friends that her dog was missing... that's the technology angle, right?
umm....
shouldn't the title read:
"boffins hope, pray, and speculate that their dreams of robot ostriches will sometime in the far future be realised"
I don't see any evidence that this this is anywhere close to existing, or in fact that they have anything "done" besides a computer model and animation of two funny looking legs "running" while suspended in mid air.
Posted in Nokia Lumia 800
nice looking hardware, iphone-y enough to pass for "cool", but different enough to not be one of the many android-ish clones. I can't fucking stand the interface designers' seeming obsession with oversized header text that purposefully clips the edge of the screen. +1 nokia, -1 microsoft.
paris--will she ditch her iphone for this?
Posted in Microsoft milks Casio for using Linux
real news...
This is just expected behaviour from microsoft; the real news here (for me) is that casio is using linux enough for microsoft to bother. What products are they using it in? Can i have linux in my watch now, please?
paris, cause she would buy a linux watch if she could.
sorry. I shouldn't have been "looking at you, reg".
don't believe the hype
Roombas are garbage. Take it from a guy who was sold on them by all this internet hype and paid "reviews" (i'm looking at you, reg) and laid out >$2000 to outfit himself with a bunch of Roombas and Scoobas. They've all, _all_, bit the dust now (~1.5 years later), and I'm back to pushing the Dyson around by hand. :(
I'd love to live the dream of a Jetsons world where robots do our cleaning for us just as much as the next guy, but that's all iRobot is doing, selling us a dream, not an actual useful robot vacuum.
