Posts by Grikath
287 posts • joined Thursday 9th February 2012 10:45 GMT
Re: A Controvertial Topic (for a change) @imsimil
His general Angry-Young-Man-Upon-The-Barricades-of-Life Forumwarrior attitude towards all things Microsoft/non-Linux may have something to do with that.
His physical age may be a tad higher, but mentally he never made it past the puberal ranting stage, which has ...soured... his reception amongst us Commentards a bit over the past months.
Re: out of proportion?
As opposed to random banner ads on any other webpage?
Clickthrough is piss poor on any web-based campaign. You aim for Big Numbers, unless you're very careful with your placement. Which Facebook is not for, as advertising there is simply a spam-stream on a sidebar.
Which the average hardened internet consumer simply ignores anyway.
@ vytas
except that at the time you're referring to there were no "scientists", only a "philosophy of the natural world" of which most practitioners were clergy or associated with clergymen.
No-one in their right mind, or any occupation remotely dealing with travelling the globe in general, actually thought that the earth was flat at the time you're referring to. This is a nice myth that started roughly in the Victorian age, which is based on the simple fact that the old maps are indeed flat, simply because the projections used to create accurate-ish maps simply hadn't been invented yet, and generally used jerusalem as the "centre of the world".
Then again, the Victorians/Romantics are to blame for a hell of a lot of misconceptions people now regard as "historic truth".
People at the time did believe the sun revolved around the earth, as did every other civilisation before that. Which explains why this is explicitly stated in the bible, at the time the Authorative Book on Everything, since religion at the time was entirely Literalist, even for the newfangled "protestant movement".
Not that the bible was the only source, since quite a few of the extant Greek and Roman sources assume the same thing.
Guys like Copernicus ran into trouble not because they claimed the universe was arranged a bit differently than everyone though until then ( quite a few peeps were perfectly happy to accept that the sun was the centre of the universe, after all God created light first, right?) , but because their theories refuted passages of the bible, a book that was declared the True and immutable word of God Ex Officio. Which caused some major headaches since accepting Copernicus' theory would open up the floodgates of Doubt about the veracity of the bible, the infallibility of the pope as Gods' Voice on Earth, and several other political and social issues playing across Europe at the time.
quite a bit like being a climate-sceptic nowadays...
Re: Neanderthal DNA
If you take the high count, we actually share something like 99% of our DNA with our expired cousins, which follows from their proper name: Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. ( the fact that there is genetic evidence of successful interbreeding makes the case for Neanderthals being a subspecies instead of a separate species.)
Part of the 1% difference still lives on in our genome in certain genetic lines to the point of 1-4% of those specific traits still surviving, although there's precious little to be found on those genes actually being expressed at one stage or another, and what those genes actually do.
Re: p < 0.05 ???
What dr. Potatohead said...
Physics does not equate to biochemistry does not equate to "neuroscience".
The LHC cost a fair bundle, but it got the scientists working with it millions upon millions of collisions observed by multiple experiments. That's a fair bang for your buck. Now imagine stripping and replacing the LHC after every single shot, for each and every experiment, then you'd find a way to do with smaller samples rather quickly..
the 2-sigma criterion in biology is , if correctly applied, sufficient to get valid results. The statistical techniques assume, and require, a stable equilibrium state, which in itself is representative for the biological process studied in an organism, and in which only one variable is changed. Even then you're running into the usual random mutations, unexpected interference from other processes, and a host of other things that make biological experiments both complex and frustrating, so getting 2-sigma is about as good as you can get given the level of control you have over the experiment.
Re: isn't there enough trash in space already?
There is a helluva lot of difference between the space debris in earth orbit, and the exhaust products of a rocket engine, including this one.
- If they manage to get this thing going the exhaust product is the result of nuclear fusion , which tends to be rather ...hot. The pellets leave the exhaust as a plasma, so any "debris" would be near indistinguishable from the local micro-stuff naturally present.
- Simple ballistics shows that any exhaust product for a trajectory away from earth will not have the correct vector for an earth orbit. Even more so, as the vessel picks up speed eventually the net vector of the exhaust products will be *away* from earth.
Re: Space elevator
At 0.028g surface gravity, and considering the energy/equipment requirement for even a modest "settlement" on Ceres, why on earth would you even consider a space elevator?
You can damn well literally toss a rock off the asteroid, and risk launching yourself into space as well if you're not careful.
The only reason why you *maybe* might construct one is to show why the things do not work as imagined, and are a lot more troublesome than most people realise, because you can scale down enough to use conventional materials to actually construct one.
Re: Spamhous must really be hurting those parasites @ LarsG
let's see....
A DDOS attack this size takes time, effort and $$.
Spamhaus provides a service which hurts a rather infamous sector of the intarwebs, and seriously helps quite a number of operators to keep the headache down to a minimum.
This sector, by all accounts over the last two decades, has proven to be very profitable for people with the proper mercenary attitude.
Even the Big Ten of monopolists bad guys nowadays have not garnered enough ärger to get the fanatics up upon the Barricades for something this size. If Anonymous, or any other activist society could ever agree on [something] they might take a shot, but at the moment it simply isn't there.
If it isn't the "Good Guys" , then it's the Opposition. Occam's Razor, a close shave every time.
Posted in Revealed: Vendors’ worst sales fluff
the Reg Hack is too kind...
"labelling them over-priced prognosticators with tenuous ties to reality."
Is about the most politically-correct, gender-neutral, polite description of the real sentiment to "Sales" , and for that matter "Anal-ists" you see here.
Re: USA USA USA
Yeah...
It would, of course, after years of indoctrination and propaganda, work in the US.
Rest of the world it just reads : Expensive Piece of Crap, even before ideology cuts in.
Re: The mystery of the mysterious operatives
More intriguing:
Even though there are plenty of Idorts in Need of Undorking in the more fanatic [#diety] segment who would believe simply cutting a cable would cure the Evil of the Internet, and would be quite happy to give their lives to have a go at it...
You. Just. Do. Not. Cut. A. Major. Cable. With. Your. Bare. Hands.
Given the power and traction you have underwater you need some serious equipment to get the job done. There's nothing in the pictures, or the other reports about this that shows:
-highly specialised equipment to do a clean cut.
-acetylene burners to do a rough job.
-explosives ( of the rather sophisticated variety, but it would look like a packaged turkey to most punters.)
YMMV regarding fanaticism, but this sounds like either a red herring, or a truly botched job.
Posted in Boffins brew eyes on bugs' wings
"While it only works on bacteria with the right level of membrane rigidity, it's the first time a surface has been found that can destroy bacteria solely through its physical structure. "
It also doesn't work on molds and other stuff...
Look.. Cicadas make their typical noise with their wings. To do that those wings must be *DRY*. They have evolved a surface that does exactly that..
Bacteria do not grow if there is no (free) water around. Humans have figured this out, and have been using salt as dessiccant since the early stone age. ( again, molds yes, bacteria no, which explains the large amount of regional variety in sausages.)
Put A + B together.... Nanotubes suck moisture, with great efficiency. El Reg has had a couple of articles about that. nanotubes on a bugs' wing? Land on that as a bacterium, and you literally get sucked the life right out of you. ( plus another host of reasons , but all they amount to is : no free water = no growth)
Of course this is overly simplified, but I for one do not have an "atomic microscope" in my budget. Just a decades old degree in biology. But hey... it's got "nano" in the title, so it must be actual science...
Yes, I'm a grumpy b'tard. Downvote at will.
Right...
The mind... It is blown...
Even the extremely mercenary attitude of Oz entrepeneurs to "All the Traffic Will Bear" pales by comparison..
Re: Commercial Nonsense, @ heyrick
Not really.. The clickbait would shift to the likes on the comments that fits the particular sentiment of the commentard that hits the button. If you want to offer a contrary opinion, you could actually sit down and spend a couple of minutes writing up a comment, instead of doing a drive-by clickety-action.
Besides that, a forum does not compare to Facebook. The mode of operation and intent of purpose are completely different. Apples and pears come to mind.
Re: Dirty Laundry and Empty Packaging?!
Makes sense.. Ever packed boxes for moving? All those old newspapers/folders/plastic bags sure come in handy to secure the fragile stuff.
That ride down is rough. It makes perfect sense to use laundry and empty packaging to fill up the holes to secure and protect the real (valuable!) cargo.
Re: Your science is rubbish, slugs/m³
Well a high number of slugs per cubic meter would make the air quite dense, and quite unhealthy if their vector is in your general direction..
Re: Standard days method
"The scientific term for women who solely rely on their period for contraception is "mother". "
Re: Commercial Nonsense
Ridiculous? Tell that to the growing number of small/local entrepeneurs who manage to use Facebook effectively for marketing and networking. The Like-system works quite well for them.
Or the local clubs who use their facebook page to create a multi-platform information outlet to inform interested people of their activities? Without too much hassle and the need for l33t coding skills/bandwidth/time-intensive page maintenance
Bottom line is that whether you love or hate Facebook, the Like-system is at least properly OPT-IN , and offers a "free" method of product marketing and/or publicity that would otherwise be a too costly affair for most small busineses/organisations.
Yes, there are ways to abuse the system, but if you apply the same rules to your friends list and likes as you would as if you were a forum admin ( which amounts to "common sense"), and unfriend/unlike pages and people where necessary, Facebook is a useful tool that for a free service has less intrusive commercial/dodgy/malicious spam than at least half of the ad-driven commercial or "free" webpages.
promotion/demotion
Any tool can be used constructively or destructively. There'll always be people who will use a feature to fluff the numbers.
As a feature it makes sense for Facebook-as-advertising-agent. And not really that invasive, since by the description it simply influences trending for display, not outright censure. Which is why the "Free Speech? " subtitle has me puzzled.
Re: Re:30% chance of pregnancy after 50 'perfect uses'
And you're still getting your Maths wrong... Each and every time you use a condom the chance of failure due to [list of circumstances] is simply 2%. It's a die-toss, not compound chance.
Even so, the main reason to use condoms, especially when you sleep around a bit ( or if you're lucky, a lot) , is not contraception, but the prevention of attracting/transmitting an STD. There's a reason Chlamydia and Gonorrhea are on the rise again.... And the former can be carried by males, the latter by females without any serious symptoms, if at all in the early stages, even when they are infectuous right from the start..
But hey...the things are "inconvenient".
Posted in Sony joins iWear face-off
Re: Where's Mario?
you mean a Viewmaster?
I still have one stashed in a box somewhere.
Re: Idiocy
Besides that Polly Princess got her panties in a bunch over an overheard conversation not even aimed at her, and chose to throw a tantrum over twitter, and seems to like to play the Race Card, and is by all available evidence (gotta love the intarwebs for that..) your typical hypocritical militant bitch..
What on earth makes her think she even remotely classes as a "Nerd" , and why hasn't anyone made it clear to Her Highness she doesn't even come close to classing as one, given her obvious ( lack of ) social traits, let alone intelligence?
Prosecution would be proof of idiocy..
Yes, there is a question of ethics here, but going by the description in the article the researcher in question did everything By The Book when it comes to Gentleman Hacking.
Hell, he even left his contact details right there in the code....
Even so, besides a pretty map the whole project has proven a number of things:
- Linux devices are as secure as their admins. Come on... standard passwords?
- There are other people actively using the same vector for not-so-friendly purposes.
- You cannot stop, nor deter a dedicater Nerd.
The guy should get a medal for this, really.
Re: in short..
I abase myself for blatant and abrasive use of an americanism, Oh mighty AC.
My english teacher shall be brought from retirement and flogged unto death for teaching me this phrase all those decades ago, and the school shall be burned down, and the grounds sown with salt to appease the mighty hordes of affronted grammar nazis.
Meanwhile I shall refrain from posting in the majestic language of the British Isles, and post in my native language, which will doubtlessly be flawlessly translated into proper Queens' English by such worthies as Google and Bing.
Posted in Outages plague Hotmail and Outlook users
Re: hotmail/outlook.com works fine to me
El Reg is not necessarily anti-Microsoft, but rather anti-Establishment, as their motto makes quite clear.
Commentards come in several flavours of Fanboi-ism depending on the subject, ranging from level-headed to outright pitchfork-and-torches fanatics.
On occasion we get shocked to the core when someone is actually knowledgeable in the field an article is about, and we all have to get out of our basements to take a cold shower ( which incidentally, according to our Mum, does not count towards our monthly shower quotum.. NOT FAIR!!)
/tongueincheek
in short..
You require a belt, suspenders, and preferably a nail-gun to be absolutely "safe" .
Re: same old story ...
You're actually sorely mistaken there..
Up until now all the evidence we had pro/con water on ancient Mars was close up pics of geologically interesting looking rocks which indicated that they *may* have been formed in the presence of water. The result of this experiment shows that the sample was indeed from a piece of fossil clay. Note the term "clay" , which only forms in the presence of water.
Since this is fossil clay, any complex hydrocarbons will have broken down a long, long time ago. Besides, this particular experiment does not test for complex hydrocarbons, but elementary composition, so it would never find them to begin with. You'd need some form of HPLC to detect and classify hydrocarbon chains.
What is encouraging, is that the elements found are the ones that are essential for life as we understand it. As more drillings are performed, and a baseline of the presence of those elements in various rocks can be made, we may be able to see if the clay-samples hold more of those particular elements than can be expected from barren clay, which in turn would be an indication that Something in there was hoarding those elements. Not exactly proof of "life", but another step in the right direction.
Not "same old story" but in fact a decent leap in the really difficult chain of evidence that our neighbour may have once harboured life.
apex predator.
Tell that to the Hippies who consider our sheer existence a Blight Onto Creation.
Part of the problem of there being so many deer is that the necessary culling to avoid plague-like numbers has been fought tooth and nail by every bunny-cuddler for years, if not decades now.
And Apple would get their precious components where, exactly?
The way I see it, Apple is tossing its' cash towards "IP" litigation, while Samsung is buying up production capacity and (minority) control of production companies. Sooner or later Apples' opinion on the matter is moot, because "Samsung" will control all the relevant production capacity available, directly or indirectly, and dictate the hoops Apple has to jump through to produce *anything*.
Never forget that asians have a different social structure and are very good at playing Corporate Games.
Re: printer ports?
Yup.. They may be obsolete in the IT world, but the good old connectors still do a stellar job whenever you want to hack/hook up stuff quickly.
And depending on your locale, that kind of kit is illegal to own and/or operate. There's plenty of laws already regarding spy/surveillance kit, and EU-wise GG trips quite a few of them.
The technology may be here, but as they are the things would most likely be illegal for actual use in public here in the Netherlands.
Re: ... nervous system extended beyond the head.
Not really. Although the expression is very awkward, this fossil points to the start of the specialisation of the anterior segments of the basic copy/paste worm shape into something other than locomotion.
Very crudely put, it's the start of the development of an actual "head" on the front end of an animal, starting what is now the basic body plan of every single vertebrate, insect and arthropod alive today.
English, or Engrish?
Because it's got to be said.....
Re: James Bond..
[ubiquitous Sir Terry Quote]
What do you think the ducks in the pond were, eating the crumbs.... etc.
And yes, even the one that sank.
mine's the slightly oversized old-fashioned one that screams "subterfuge" .
Re: I have to admire his honesty
Really? All I can see is a fat "battletoad" that has sponged off investors with somthing that turned out to be a Really, really bad idea just around the 70's, and is ultimately walking off with a serious profit on his personal bank account.
I'd damn well be smiling and joking too..
Flash?
block it in your browser of choice, remove any residuals from your harddrive. Enjoy the silence.
Kill Flash = kill >50% of failed page loads on a slow connection.
Re: Cookie Size @oninoshoko
The label says "cookie". That is plaintext whichever way you look at it. That's ten friggin' MB of plaintext we're talking here. The old adagio "If you can't do it in 64kb, it's not worth doing." comes to mind.
The mind boggles.
Useless...
Serious filesharers and downloaders laugh at such blockades. The more casual downloader will use Google and find any of the hundred ways to circumvent these blockades quickly enough.
And if all else fails for the computer illiterates (of hwich there are still plenty) , almost everyone has a friend/family member who is versed in the above, and who will usually happily provide a copy of whatever you need.
James Bond..
would use a Sony mobile..hesitantly... after it's been "improved" by Q.
The whole idea of proper spy equipment is that it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and in reality is something else entirely.
good one....
"Technology needs to be limited to situations where it won't cause death or injury to the user or others around them."
Then we should have stopped at using pointy rocks all those millennia ago?
Glad to see the old 19th C. sensitivities are still alive in the former and current "Leaders of the Free World".
nd people wonder why there are factions in europe that would very much like the UK gov to grow a set and really secede from the EU. It would really, really save us a lot of pain.
and the opinions of a bunch of neo-emo's is relevant, why?
Simple question:
If anyone in a physical shop would insist on conditions of sale like this, what would be your answer? MS better install revolving doors.
Re: ...terms mere mortals can get their heads round...
All I know is that that many beans would produce one mighty fart....
Icon, because need need to was it down properly.
Re: good riddance to an early 'hacking tool'?
If by 300 million active users, you mean to include all the people who use hotmail and get logged into messenger willy-nilly because the damn thing resets every once in a while and no-one hardly notices, then yes, I'll take your number. Actually using messenger as a IM client? I don't think so.
World + dog has moved on to more current offerings such as (standalone) Skype, which was why they were bought in the first place, Teamspeak or equivalent for gaming/group purposes, and if all else fails even FB chat.
As far as community and use is concerned, messenger has become a desert, and as such is slated for the ax-man.
It's Clarkson...
That means that statements will be illogical, "masculine", improbable, or even downright impossible. But they *will* be flamboyant.
Re: good riddance to an early 'hacking tool'?
Someone forgot to unbunch her panties this morning...
It's simply obsolete, and was hardly used anymore, so it's being killed off. No Black Hats needed.
Re: What lax security?
Do you want your medical data, or for that fact any personal data, stored in a place/situation where login creds are shared?
I didn't think so.....
And the Chinese..
Will simply smile politely, and nod.
Actually Heinlein was known for warnings about the destructiveness of religion, and quite a few of his works are easily recogniseable as a warning against unbridled fundamentalism, usually centering on bible-belt type Literalism, but not failing to take a poke or two on just about anything else related to the Great Hoax.
