Posts by silent_count
109 posts • joined Monday 21st November 2011 01:09 GMT
Yay for open standards!
Good to see an Australian government department promoting the use of open standards so their output is available to all citizens. Oh wait, it's iOS only. :/
Re: Meanwhile, back on Capital Hill.....
That's about it Mr Hack. As much as I dislike some of what Apple does, Mr Cook is right - the pollies should either put up (change the laws) or shut up (whining about companies who obey it).
Re: So many complaints all about the same thing
You're right. The the Win8 operating system itself is pretty solid but non-developers don't interact with the OS, they use the shell. Most of the complaints I've heard and seen are about the UI, as distinct from the OS it runs on.
If MS wants to turn this story around it'd take them about 10 minutes. Create a registry value called "FuckOffMetro". When this value is set to 1: all calls to the metro API return EUNKNOWN, and the Window 7 shell is used in favour of the one from Win8.
That alone would lower the volume of complaints about Win8 by an order of magnitude. Of course, it will never happen because that would involve MS admitting that they made a mistake.
I can top that
From the article: "[VTOL] which *could* be in production by 2025."
Yeah, well then. My drug induced hallucination erm.. consumer grade VTOL *could* be in production by 2024. Get the headlines ready.
In news just in
Crap study, using crap methodology produces crap results.
Who'd have thought that a group of people who are computer-competent enough to install windows on a mac would have less computer related problems than the general, windows using populace?
Betcha if you limited the same study to apple machines, you'd find that those competent enough to install windows on a mac would have less problems than the general, mac using populace. OMG! *Proof* that Windows is more stable than IOS.
Waiting for answers
My questions are thus:
a) What will it cost? Maybe I phrased that badly. How much will it REALLY cost?
b) What will be delivered for that price tag?
c) Why is spending that amount on networking infrastructure better than:
c-1) letting the tax payers keep their share of (a)
c-2) improving our hospital or education systems.
c-3) housing the homeless.
I've yet to hear adequate answers from either side of politics. And I suspect that neither side can.
The Labour party threw it out there at the last election to demonstrate that they've got vision beyond, "vote for us 'cause we're not the Liberals". The Liberals bought into the game to show they've got just as much of this nation-building, "vision" stuff as the other guys. Neither party gives a shit about nation building, or broadband - they both care about winning elections. Now it's just another political football, with both sides saying they've got the best strategy to win the NBN game. Apparently nobody's asking if we should be playing the game at all.
Re: Indeed
I know it's not what this policy update is aimed at but I'd love to see Google kill the practice of: you buy an app then it spends 15+ mins downloading data so, by the time you discover that the app doesn't work, you can't get a refund any more.
Bog standard economics
1) Employers whine about lack of people who are skilled at producing $WIGITs
2) Government imports/schools educate more $WIGIT creators.
3) Larger pool of employees allows employers to drive down wages.
4) Less money spent on employing $WIGIT creators allows management to pocket excess...
5) profit!
If there really is a skills shortage, show me the corresponding increase in $WIGIT creators' wages. If you can't, then shut up about about the damn skills shortage.
One comment with no snark.
Well done them for giving their time to benefit a charity.
Just no
Sorry but, well meaning though they are, the ACLU is barking up the wrong tree with this one. The phone's owner should decides which ROM/OS version they run. The problem the ACLU should be attacking is impediments to the user (a) switching ROMs, and (b) switching carriers.
If the phone's owner could switch ROMs without fear of invalidating their warranty then issue of updating the OS gets taken away from the carriers - who have a vested interest in dragging their heels. As has been pointed out, why provide updates for free when you can make people buy a new phone to get the latest OS?
And if carrier lock-ins were made illegal, then the carriers would have to "differentiate" by providing timely updates rather than by shovelling crapware upon a captive audience.
Re: What about the testing ?
PayPal must have had their system independently tested.
Why would they do that? These waste-of-time exercises cost money, don'cher know.
Re: I don't see the point in removing it
I'm with Paul135. If we're going to vote HTML tags off the island, BLINK doesn't even make my top three. I'd like to nominate: SCRIPT (the source of most evil on the interwebs), IFRAME (same reason) and STRONG (just use B[old] because it's less typing).
Back to the future
OBVIOUSLY faked! They shoulda hired the yanks who faked the moon landing - at least their fakery is harder to detect.
PS: I'm mildly amused by the notion of Adobe sending lawyers to Pyongyang and trying to prosecute the government for using an unlicensed copy of Photoshop. What could possibly go wrong?
lose-lose
However much the RIAA gains from "winning" this case, they lose in good will amongst their customers (assuming they had any to begin with).
I have no affiliation with ReDigi but it seems like they were trying to do the right thing by all concerned.
Encryption
Doesn't breaking even trivial encryption violate the DCMA? For example, the encryption used to send data to and from the mobile phone towers, and that protecting any data stored on the phone.
IANAL. I honestly don't know the answer but it seems they trot that line about breaking encryption out every time someone mods their console.
Re: Free investment advice from a recruitment consultant
Ah but the professionals lose it for you... professionally! It takes years of specialised training to think it's a good idea to flush piles of cash down the toilet, don'cher know.
Re: Right... Anonymous studios...
@Andreas Koch: Upvoted for being both funny and right.
"[...] and that the anonymous studios providing the sales data had no editorial control "
Right! Other than completely fabricating the sales data, that is.
Re: Keelhaul them.
" I hope they are stung with the full 10% fine"
... then 'accidentally' fined a further 10% every month for the next sixteen months.
Re: Facebook?
"your Facebook profile"
" protect your privacy"
"your Facebook profile"
" protect your privacy"
"your Facebook profile"
" protect your privacy"
Please carefully study the above until you spot the problem.
Re: The law is an attempt to return to a bygone age
The internet does exist. Bandwidth and storage space permitting, you, me or, for example, Google could archive the publicly accessible portion of the internet as frequently as our heart's desire. No amount of laws from Spain or the EU will change that.
I like legislators who think that creating laws in defiance of reality will somehow change it. And if they are going to descend into insanity, at least let it be for a good purpose. Bring on the EU law that forbids rain on Fridays - 'cause nobody likes getting wet on the way to the pub.
Re: 5 guys
The purpose of price fixing is to financially benefit the price fixers at the expense of everyone else. The purpose of bank robbing is to financially benefit the bank robbers at the expense of everyone else. So feel free to explain it slowly for the hard of thinking, and using crayoned diagrams if necessary, is there any difference in the net result? In both cases, the victims are financially worse off as a result of the criminals' behaviour.
I'll concede that they are legally speaking, two different crimes but, for the life of me, I can't understand the rationale behind imprisonment for one but not the other. If people should go to jail for (for example) "theft" then the amount stolen is irrelevant - put all thieves in jail. If the punishment should be related to the amount of damage done by the criminal activity, then price fixing to rob people of (quoting from the article) "millions of dollars" should be more harshly punished than robbing a bank for $100k.
Re: May I be the first...
Oh God! Contrary to popular belief, the RIAA were right all along - copying is stealing. TPB doesn't have a CSS file any more!
Applying a little simple-to-follow math, this outrageous crime has cost TBP... 6 (pages linked to the CSS) x 427 (lines in the CSS file) x 68,000 (users per day who would have seen said CSS file) = $1 zillion in lost revenue
Re: Its not merely Australia...
While I appreciate your sentiment, Stratman, I think what we'll discover is that the gummint's idea of "doing something" and "holding an enquiry" are the same thing.
Welcome to OZ
We welcome your patient lawyers
for ours is a vast, sunburnt country,
with friendly people and sparkling shores,
and plenty of crocodiles, sharks, jellyfish, snakes and spiders,
which haven't been fed recently.
5 guys
If a prosecutor had sufficient evidence that you, me and three others conspired to rob a bank for $100k, we'd be in jail by now. Apple and their publisher buddies conspired to rob people of millions. So why aren't the respective CEOs in the dock facing jail time?
Betcha there'd be lots of bank robbers who, if they get caught, would be happy to "settle" their case for a fraction the cash they stole before going on their merry way.
Re: "Wanted: a Do Not Track for mobile"
They already have a DNT for mobiles. It's called "airplane mode" !
But to control "what data gets sent to whom" it would require OS level support and enforcement. (Would you trust every developer of every app to voluntarily implement DNT correctly when it in their vested interest to 'accidentally' get it wrong?)
So far as I can tell, neither major mobile OS vendor has even considered something like DNT - Android because Google has a vested interest in add revenue, and Apple because they have a vested interest the revenue derived from their closed shop/walled garden.
A city called "petabyte"
A petabyte of data has got to be predominatly "media" (audio/video) because there's no way average joe takes up that much space with, for example, emails, or source code or holiday snaps, or anything other than "media". So lets call it like it is: 0.95 petabytes of porn and 5 terabytes consisting of every thing they've ever written AND every picture or video they've ever taken AND every email they've either sent or received AND every program they've ever installed. And the thing about "media" is that it's essentially write-once - you're not going to be making changes to your "Terminator.avi", or "Billie Jean.mp3".
So my solution is to store your petabyte of data on tablets. Not the kind you buy from Dell or Apple. The kind make out of clay.
Build houses out of your wall-sized tablets. Arrange your kilobytes and megabytes into city blocks. Then offer them as free housing to the homeless, who then have a vested interest in making sure your data centre is secure. Sure, the read/write speeds would be terrible and it would be hideously expensive. On the plus side though, your data centre would end the world's homelessness problem. And you could use one house in that city to store a PC with a couple of 3TB HDDs to store all of the re-writeable/personal storage you'd actually use.
Is this for real?
Sandbox or not, I still can't believe they're serious about wanting browsers to download and execute arbitrary code. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop, like maybe Google is getting their April Fools Day gag out of the way early this year.
Either that or this is going to wind up being the poster child for the phrase, "what could possibly go wrong?"
Posted in Google pulls 'racist' Make Me Asian app
It's ironic that Mr China (oh how aptly named) avails himself of the American right to 'freedom of expression' to call for someone else's to be curtailed. He and his followers are entitled to their opinion but screw Google for caving to these clowns rather than pointing them towards the first amendment.
Re: Trialing as we speak.
"Oh, and they do make clear in their T&Cs that you are responsible for keeping copies of your data in case the service fails."
You know, that comes across as (because it actually is) imminently sensible advice. It's rather surprising in these days of content-free, marketing babble.
Re: @silent_count
@ Mr Preece.
I don't know where you got the idea that I blame a gun when there's "gun violence." I do however think that when there's "gun violence", there's a fairly good chance that there's a gun involved.
It's amusing that Mr Obama wants to study a link between video games and gun violence. I'd submit that it would be a fait de compli to find a link between guns and gun violence, but that Mr Obama doesn't have the balls to call for such a study.
@ Mr AC (09:59/17-Jan-2013)
I'm curious. You state that "banning them [guns] is unthinkable". Can you explain to me - I'm not American, so maybe I just don't get it - what benefit is to brought to society by "Joe Average being able to have a gun" that out-weights disadvantage of the number of people who are killed by other people with guns?
Re: Pardon?
Yeah, I wondered about that too. Perhaps the "online harassment" took the form of someone posting "nicky-nicky, na-na! <minor celebrity> is a poo head!" which just happened to be the right string to make the universe align in such a way to make the celebrity's computer spontaneously combust.
@Jason Bloomberg: Re: Being "insulting" should not be illegal in its own right
Despite of your presumably benign intent, I find myself greatly insulted by your suggestion that "being insulting" should be illegal. When can I expect you to turn yourself in to your local police station?
The problem with making laws under which people get prosecuted on the basis of entirely subjective evidences is thus: If this were really brought to court, there would be no way for the defendant, J Bloomberg to demonstrate that the complainant, S Count was being facetious.
Follow the chain of logic.
The problem is that GUNS are far to easy to acquire.
Its subsequently GUNS that are being used to kill people.
So instead of banning GUNS,
let's ban VIDEO GAMES.
There's a problem in there somewhere but I, along with politicians too piss-weak to stand up to the NRA, can't quite spot it.
Re: Go right ahead...
[quote] "These companies are doing nothing against the law" - in some cases it's debatable but also, we are aware, and it's for the government to make it illegal. [/quote]
If what they're doing is against the law, then whatever government body is responsible should prosecute them. As that hasn't happened, I think it's fair to assume that what these companies are doing is not illegal.
And yes, it is "for the government to make it illegal," which is what drives me insane about politicians bleating about XYZ company not paying 'appropriate', 'moral', whatever... levels of tax. It's the government who makes the laws. If companies following the law produces results which the people who made the laws don't like, whose fault is it?
Does. Not. Work
Ain't it funny how the same politicians who espouse the virtues of the "do not call" register conveniently make themselves exempt from having to follow it.
I don't have a fixed-line phone. I have a mobile phone with a white list. If you are not on the list, I will never know you called (but you will get to talk to the voicemail I never check, so you get to pay for cold-calling my phone) or you can text me and I'll never know you did and certainly never see the text. I appreciate that this solution isn't for everyone - what if $LOVED_ONE calls from a payphone in an emergency - but I have more faith in my solution than any "do not call", "do not track"... "please don't hurt me, bad people" lists.
I'm sure it's been done but, if not, there should be an app which checks incoming SMS messages and allows through ones which contain $USER_DEFINED_STRING or those from people on your contact list and silently dumps the rest. That'd fix the "loved one calling in an emergency" problem.
Re: Read the Local Leaks web site, it's enough to sicken any parent
If the facts are as reported on the link JaitcH posted then I wonder if the whole bunch of them (the rapists, their direct accomplices, and the alleged 'adults' who conspired to bury this case) could be prosecuted under the RICO act. IANAL but it does seem to fit the purpose for which the act was created.
Yes, I'd personally like to see all involved, dangling by the neck, from a stout tree branch. However, as that's not going to happen, seeing *all* of those involved rotting in jail for a long, long time is the next best option.
Re: Just PROOF that criminals have BAD TASTE
"If the Fanbois wouldn't waltz around the streets with their latest Apple bling, th thefts might decrease"
I'm sorry, JaitcH but that's terrible logic. It's the "if she didn't go around looking so pretty, she wouldn't have been raped [so it was really her own fault]" argument. Nobody 'deserves' to be a victim of crime.
Posted in Oz R18+ game rating goes live
Re: States' rights?
You'll hear no argument from me, Magani but there's the problem of honour among thieves. It would take a referendum to eliminate a tier of government and, regardless of who is in charge at federal level, they wouldn't call such a referendum because, in the unlikely event that it's successful, it would put either their state or local-level labour/liberal mates out of a job. Furthermore, whichever party called the referendum would have internal fighting as a result of the federal members trying to 'knife' either the state or local members. And, as we all know, "the party" (doesn't matter which one you prefer) is far more important than doing the right thing by the people of Australia.
Re: RICO
Not gonna happen. If any yankee politician had the nerve to call for RICO [anti-corruption] proceedings against any of these corporations people might ask who'se getting pay-offs (sorry, "campaign contributions") from said corporations. What politician would want to get that ball rolling?
A tale of two leaders.
Tim Cook is a good CEO but he's not the messiah of iLand that Steve Jobs was. Steve Balmer is a messiah-type but, unfortunately for both him and MS, not the sort that anyone wants to follow.
I've had the pleasure of having a brief chat with Steve Sinofsky. He came across as the rare kind of guy who can firmly grasp both the "big picture" stuff and the "fine detail", and foresee how the two levels interact. Whatever the reasons were, his departure is a substantial loss for Microsoft.
You just can't buy advertising like that.
Re: Steganography
You want something which is hard for them to filter easily (ie. using software) but painful to block outright.
So send videos back and forth by email. A few hundred megs a pop, who cares what they are: corporate promo material, safety or training videos, staff doing touristy things, whatever. Replace the video data, for a few seconds in each video file with the encrypted file(s) you actually want to send.
The idea being that to selectively filter videos, they'd have to employ real people to watch them which, even in China, is more expensive than software filtering. And outright blocking any video sent to/from China would hurt their tourism industry.
Not as convenient as, for example HTTPS which is all but invisible to the end user, but I imagine it'd work.
Why is it
that all of the pro-Apple posts are from an AC?
The cycle which produces crap code
So long as the upper management have their shiny iPads and colourful Power Points to play with they don't want to get "bogged down" in the 'requires more than a 20 second attention span'... I mean, "trivial" details of how their computer systems work. They're busy people and have important work to... ooh look! The picture rotates if I turn my iPad around.
So the middle managers get paid for delivering projected on budget. If it costs $1k to write and $1 million per year to maintain, the manager has already gotten their bonus and gone on their merry way. If it costs a $1 million to write and $1k per year to maintain, they're out of a job because a "better" middle-manager could have delivered the 'exact same' project for a mere $1k.
Sure, the numbers are exaggerated but the phenomenon isn't. Oh yeah, and the middle-managers who deliver the cheapest results percolate towards the top and become the upper-management, and the cycle continues.
Posted in Vodafone India appoints SECRET SNITCHES
If it's good enough for the plebs.
I wonder if it's good enough for the management too. Does anyone wanna give me odds on ever seeing, "CEO of Vodafone sacked after getting a speeding ticket / being caught driving while using his/her Voda-phone" ?
Re: Nagging
"They need to learn that carrots are a better incentive than sticks. Give people a real reason to buy legitimate media rather then just trying to scare them off the pirate stuff."
You're right mate. But they don't get it. With the torrented copies, you don't get the director's commentary, interviews with the cast, trailers or "behind the scenes" type stuff.. Surely that's some incentive to buy a legit copy.... but wait... when you buy a legit copy you don't get that stuff either because they're keeping the goodies for the "special, director's cut, gold, super edition" which they'll release in a couple of years' time in a cynical attempt to get people to buy the same movie twice.
The studios don't get any sympathy from me. They're cutting their throats with their own greed.
Regarding extradition
Unless I've misunderstood... the Home Secretary withdrew the extradition order on human rights grounds because he *might* commit suicide rather than be extradited. Given that there's always a possibility that someone *might* commit suicide, wouldn't it logically follow that the UK will henceforth refuse to extradite anyone?
Interesting
Google sees a "fat finger" problem.
I see a "fat add" problem.
