Posts by Ru
1728 posts • joined Wednesday 20th June 2007 09:00 GMT
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I don't want my tax money spent on generating useless PDFs
And seeing as they have already spent my tax money on generating the data in the first place, they can do me the courtesy of providing it to me in a form in which I can make use of it.
The fact you dislike the guardian has no bearing on this at all.
"Disposable cigarette lighter with built-in digital clock, anyone?"
I was thinking more along the lines of the Wii. Sure, it's pretty cool, but the initial enthusiasm wears out and you don't have to go far down the line to find that most of the purchasers aren't interested anymore.
Businesses with an actual use case for a tablet will no doubt be terribly happy. And much like Windows in the past, they'll tie themselves to the platform by using applications which can't be trivially ported. Consumers though? Fashion comes and goes.
OMG PANIC
Each and every human being is equipped with a complex biological warfare system that has been honed over millions of years to defend them against chemical and biological threats, is capable of keeping its host alive in incredibly hostile circumstances and has the innate capability to learn and adapt to new threats. Its called an Immune System.
Given that I can't just breathe over someone and laugh evilly as my army of killer T cells reduces them to a pool of pus and bones, why do people seem to think that a man-made technological solution is going to immediately go rogue and become an unstoppable civilisation eating nightmare?
Just as Inefficiency saves us from the Bureaucrats,
Incompetence will save us from the Machines. Seriously. A self replicating swarm of death robots sounds like the end of the world, but it'll have been designed and built by Capita or EDS or the like. Any damage it wreaks will be purely upon those paying for the inevitable vast budget overruns, and the end product will be total crap.
No standard library means we need a new language?
I think its fair to say that if you feel that the only way to solve a problem is to create an entirely new programming language, the odds are good that you have failed to understand the problem.
There are all sorts of reasons to dislike javascript, but the proliferation of third party frameworks is a fairly trivial one.
Posted in Got a non-iPad tablet? Weirdo
Dumbphone and Streak 5 here
I guess that wins me a few weirdo points, but I feel quietly smug for having a phone with a 10+ day battery life and a tablet that is (coat)pocketable. None of this 'screen too big to be convenienetly portable' or 'screen irritatingly small' for me.
There's no evidence it is atheistic
It could easily have been some other Christian sect.
Have a look at Jack Chick's tract on Catholicism. Oh you wacky protestants, what will you think of next?
Point: Missed!
x86/x64 is great for desktop systems, the sort of high power big box workstations that will run content creation software that requires hefty resources. It sucks for the sort of small, low power, easily portable devices that content *consumers* are more interested in. Who the hell wants to run an IDE or a CAD package on a pocketable tablet?
This single-entity 'industry' you're grumbling about doesn't exist. And even if it were to pop into existence, it wouldn't care. You seem to be searching for some sort of 'WinARM' conspiracy here. There isn't one.
As for hosing consumers, that's a little tricker. Most people use remarkably few bits of software, and the bits of software they do use are generally under current or recent development, pretty far from the sort of legacy software that is at risk here. If you want to continue running all your old crap, feel free to keep running it on your desktop. MS can't afford to simply abandon intel/amd; the platform will be around for years.
Mostly
Any mixed assemblies (eg, native C or C++ and C++/CLR in the same binary) would need to be recompiled, and any assemblies performing unsafe operations might well fall over because programmers suck.
Pure CLI stuff should be freely portable.
Presumably, you also believe
that the terrorist attacks on the US are by people who hate and fear your freedom, right?
Hmm, sounds familiar.
Program in whatever high-level language you like, compile it to portable bytecode, have it run on a suitable interpreter written for a target architecture in a nice sandboxed environment. Add some open-source, standards-enthusing whitewash to complete the picture.
You could do that with silverlight, if you wanted.
That's been an absolute runaway success for Microsoft, hasn't it?
Frankly, I'm more interested in their ability to support sandboxing of actual native applications in general; that sounds like a massively useful feature for any OS.
What sourcecode problem?
I'm not entirely sure ywho you're thinking about when you say "[this] makes it a lot harder for the user of web applications". Web app users don't care about the source. They probably don't care about the platform, or the company badge on it either. They just want it to work and get out of their way.
Rewriting chunks of it is about as far removed from this ideal as physically possible.
What's the point?
People might care when it can be used as a general display; something like an Oyster card that could display its own remaining balance would be nice. If we all use NFC enabled phones then no-one will be interested in this at all.
Greens... seem to have lost their Kryptonite
I don't think this is really true, but it doesn't seem to matter much either way.
Their principle strength these days seems to be pushing governments to make questionable economic decisions, and that particular trick doesn't seem to be wearing out just yet.
Three words: "Blind Taste Test"
Its all about the branding. Just ask Apple...
Yay hysteria
Doesn't seem like a whole lot of evidence linking aspartame and cancer, just hysteria and lousy science. But congratulations for linking it into a Beverage-Pharmaceutical Complex conspiracy.
Don't be silly.
Google is unhappy because it represents privacy violation by *other people*, not Google. Google can be trusted with knowing about all your secure site access. Google is your friend. All those other guys though?
This is the cost of doing business in the US...
...supporting their IP regime.
I wonder at what point it will make more economic sense for large companies to simply sell their products elsewhere and save themselves the time, hassle and expense of dealing with the US.
Still, it is a step up from Google's behaviour
Which appears to be all demands and no protection.
Like any other currency, if enough people believe that Microsoft's claims have merit (and therefore value) then they do.
Posted in Windows 8 to boot in 8 seconds
This isn't about your desktop
Its about tablets, because manufacturers seem to feel that they're the future.
Er, what?
Are you saying Mozilla should distribute all CA root certificates sent to it? Or that they should distribute none at all?
Seems to me that Firefox is their product, and therefore they can feel free to restrict what gets shipped with it.
"I've been expecting that that'd be the next law case against Linux"
Lawsuit against whom? What makes so many people feel that 'Linux' is some kind of legal entity?
"don't they have to release that beta version to everybody?"
Not really. If you distribute a binary built from GPL source, you have to make that source available to people you distribute it to. You don't have to share it with the world until you distribute those binaries worldwide.
Google also can't stop their partners redistributing that source, so in theory they could simply release it all to the public. But that rather stops them getting any nice deals from Google in future, so they don't.
IANAL, or a GPL weenie. I've always advocated the ISC or 2 or 3 clause BSD licenses myself. This would all have been much less of an issue if they'd just used NetBSD from the get-go ;-)
Posted in Early Earth’s ‘golden shower’
Re: "one can only date using carbon ??????"
Not at all. There are various colours and flavours of radiometric dating, suitable for different ages and levels of accuracy. Have a peek at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating if you're bored.
"Land of the complicit co-conspirator."
Right, right... government intelligence agencies not very nice. Super.
Only in the UK there is disapproval. Doesn't seem like Brits really want state supported torture, whereas it seems a lot more popular on the other side of the Atlantic. That's what the complaint is about, chief.
"Do you support doubleplus thorough interrogation, or are you in favour of terrorist atrocities?"
U-S-A, U-S-A!
Re: Why does it have to be a "Tablet PC"?
The article, and the devices mentioned, are quite oriented towards the smartphone/tablet market... they talk about low power chips combining a processor, graphics core and radio hardware into one package. There's no need to use quite the same kit for desktop hardware, which has a much more generous space and power budget. Furthermore, neither nvidia nor qualcomm are likely to care very much about the desktop processor market, at least not any time soon.
I see your point, though I can't muster any enthusiasm at the drive to use small screen, handheld device interfaces on large-screen, self-supporting displays. I too gag at the thought ;-)
The evidence is indeed clear, but the conclusions are tenuous
The way to deal with piracy is to give everything away for free.
(Or ensure everyone in the world is on an even economic footing, of course. But lets be reasonable here)
Any other suggestion is merely discouragement.
Posted in Why modern music sounds rubbish
Not quite
This trend also affects older music (that may or may not be crap) that is remastered and rereleased, only with less dynamic range.
"Windows is declared unfit for purpose"
Ahh, so this is definitely a software issue rather than a user issue?
Well, I expect it'll be banned from sale just about as soon as all software developers are required to guarantee the merchantability and fitness for purpose of their products. I can recommend holding your breath til then; I'm sure it'll be Real Soon Now.
"time lost dealing with the crime"
Well, were I particularly cynical, I might equate that with the good old 'street value' associated with drug busts, eg a work of almost total fiction.
I wonder when it will be standard practise to make your websites resistant against the most trivial SQL injection or XSS or XSRF attacks. These guys seem to think there's a multi-hundred-billion dollar market out there for people who write software that isn't intrinsically shit, but for some reason no-one is trying to profit from it. Quelle surprise.
Re: https access
Of course. I'm sure you'd never have to worry about someone doing anything like ensuring that all workplace computers trust their own CA issued certificates and then running an SSL proxy so that encrypted traffic to certain sites could be inspected as if it were in plain text.
But what sort of a person would want to do that? Why, they'd have to exhibit a fair bit of malice, contempt for facebook users and have some sort of easy justification for management approval (it increases employee productivity!).
Yay for solutions without problems
Sounds like management are all enthused over clouds, but the reality is that they're simply not useful for a huge number of businesses, and downright inappropriate for many more.
Still, lets not let boring old engineering practicalities get in the way of hyping funky new technology.
Hrm
Don't most of the other smartphones run TI's OMAP processor? Maybe the percentage is low enough that we've already got a duopoly; I'm too lazy to look.
It is interesting to note that a future where Qualcomm dominates is not necessarily good news for ARM. I believe that the Snapdragons are mere ARM *compatible*, but the actually cores are all Qualcomm's own work. One way or another, Qualcomm are looking to cough up far fewer royalties in the future.
Not that it really matters; this crystal ball bullshit won't come true until high quality tablet PCs are sold at bargain basement prices like the touchpad, and I don't see that happening any time soon. The price of smartphones has stayed more or less static; given that no-one in the industry (bar, perhaps, Apple) get the tablet market, the chances of decent kit getting cheaper seem slim.
"lying in good faith"
Would be the Politician's approach to the issue.
"It is not killing people"
It caused panicy parents to end up in traffic accidents. This is a bit beyond the usual trolling, no?
That said, it isn't terrorism. It isn't just a prank deserving of a slap on the wrist though.
SSL cert problems first exposed by the Comodo hack?
I'd say it goes back a bit further than that. The invention of 'Extended Validation' certificates, perhaps. And it isn't like it is particularly hard to pass the Webtrust audit...
Who cares about unity?
Just grab a copy of Xubuntu, or Lubuntu or whatever other letter of the alphabet and desktop environment strikes your fancy. All the benefits of Ubuntu (if you care about such things) with none of the silly tablet fetish.
Posted in Sweden rolls out invisible infrared tank
We don't need no stinking EMCON
Or, you know, the ability to see our oponents when it is raining. Or they're in vegetation. Or its a bit dusty out.
There's only one thing that should be measured in cups
And it isn't an ingredient of pizza.
"It will be cost effective when the oil starts to run out"
Nuclear power will be cost effective then. To be honest, it could be cost effective now but for the amount of hysteria associated with it.
'Green' power sources have been, are, and likely will always be a terrible, terrible idea in much of the world. The most effective 'renewable' source is Hydro, and that causes colossal ecological damage. Does that count as green? If you're outside of a low-latitude desert or area of active vulcanism, you're stuck with using wind or wave, one of which simply cannot cope with the power demands of a first world country and the other of which probably couldn't either even if anybody could get it to work. Which they can't.
Outside of some sort of solar-powered-hunter-gatherer society (which would require depopulation on an impressively genocidal scale) this sort of system isn't ever going to work. When the oil runs out, people will be screaming for nuclear to heat their houses, power their transport networks, make their TV go. The nuclear NIMBYs will be the first up against the wall when that day comes, and I for one will not be sad if a load of ignorant 'wind will save the world' types are lined up with them.
So you don't actually know what quantum computing is?
Hint: if you mention 'supersymmetry' then you clearly have no idea about particle physics either.
Posted in Sea eagles menace Scottish children
Have you considered
contracting your services out to the El Reg Strapline Bureau?
Quantum cracking not all it is cracked up to be
Whilst Shor's algorithm and the like rather put paid to discrete logarithm and elliptic curve based public key encryption, there are all sorts of designs for new key distribution mechanisms that are not amenable to quantum cracking. With any luck they'll actually be ready by the time anyone actually implements a quantum computer.
Grover's algorithm that allows a brute force search in O(sqrt(N)) time instead of O(N) is a significant speedup, but not to the same degree. A symmetric key cipher of suitable key length will still be impractical to brute force.
djb has written a bit about this at pqcrypto.org, if you were feeling bored.
Not this tired old bullshit.
If you take a piece of copyright work and either illegally duplicate and sell it, or illegally distribute it for free to the point where the copyright holder's business is impacted, you are breaking the law.
The police have every right to confiscate the copies you've made of the work, the equipment you used to copy it, any money you made from it, they can arrest you and you can be prosecuted. You would be a criminal.
There are other situations where copyright infringement becomes a criminal matter too. Go read a summary of the relevant acts.
"James Murdoch correctly pointed out..."
There's a phrase you don't hear too often.
Posted in Samsung unveils 20Mp EVIL shooter
APS-C not necessarily the best here
Sony have shown you can make a camera with this sensor size pretty darn small... but the optics still have to be of a minimum size. The 4/3 sensor used by the Panasonic and Olympus micro 4/3 cameras is in theory slightly inferior (small sensor means more susceptibility to noise for the same photosite density and larger DOF) but the lenses are just that little bit smaller and more pocketable.
Whilst I don't doubt Canon and Nikon will enter this market segment in due course and provide lens adaptors for their usual range, it will be daft using such great big slabs of glass.
Good to see the format isn't dead
My Streak 5 won't last forever. Maybe I can pick up one of these cheap when Samsung abandon them, or when Apple fire up the lawyers again.
Is the stylus internal? One of the things I didn't like about the HTC Flyer was that the pen had no storage space, thuogh it does look like the Samsung pen is nowhere near as sophisticated.
It matters because nobody benefits but ICANN
Like the last bloody stupid wave of tlds... mobi, aero, museum anyone? Everyone who doesn't want to be cybersquatted is obliged to pay up, again and again. Consumers don't benefit or care, and the companies at best gain no benefit.
