Posts by NRT
73 posts • joined Friday 6th July 2007 12:12 GMT
Long term, it may be worse.
Once .music is established and is the main place to go to buy music, expect to hear the licensing groups start pressing the labels to stop selling on any of the other domains.
This will, of course, be done to avoid "confusing the poor consumers". However look at what may happen if they succeed.
1. All "legal" music is now on .music
2. Any music not there must be "Illegal".
3. Threaten to take down any site with music on it that is not on the gTLD. No need for any nasty expensive court hearings the site is, by definition, a pirate one.
Am I being unduly cynical here?
Nick.
One problem with making the inner tube from perspex / polycarb for the camera is that it is an insulator and will slow the rate of cooling.
Why not make the lower part of the tube i.e. from the top of the CO2 level down, from metal & the upper part from plastic.
This would provide maximum heat transfer for the cooling & insulate the top part which is exposed to the ambient temperature.
The drawback to this is that you will have introduced another, potentially leaky, joint to reduce the obtainable vacuum.
Incidentally, will you need to top up the CO2 whilst it is cooling down?
Nick.
It may be de rigueur.
But it isn't fungi.
Nick.
Posted in Commons hit by rash of laptop thefts
"...cases of theft .............. for the benefit of MP Keith Vaz."
I think I may have solved it! ;-)
Nick.
The Lobster Pot of theology
When viewed from the outside creationists & young earthers appear incomprehensible. However when you remember two items of their faith, 1 The only way to heaven is through faith & 2 Every word of the Bible is true then you can see why they twist around desperatly trying to make the facts fit their theory.
Failure to do so (and indeed believe their strange theories) means that they no longer have faith & will therefore go to hell.
So, like a lobster pot, it's easy to get in but very difficult to get out of again.
Nick.
Why would I need a licence to call a function?
When I use a function within a programme all I do is something along the lines of
FunctionName(Par1,Par2,.....Parn) {
I neither know nor care how the function works, that is the job of the company that provided me with the function for use within that enironment.
In effect none of my code executes the technique that is licenced, this is done by code that the providing company has written (& I assume has a licence for).
Nick.
Posted in Dixons warns it's getting worse
Ah, the small print.
Unfortunatly for PC World their receipt does not take precedence over the law. Your mouse is under warranty for one year whatever the T & Cs on the receipt say (I believe its the Sale of Goods Act).
If necessary mention 'Trading Standards Officer' & 'Small Claims Court' this often persuades shops to see things your way :-)
Nick.
A problem I came accross.
A few months ago my neighbors bought their children a new (second hand) laptop and an internet connection. They found it impossible to set up themselves.
They spent many hours on the helpline which did not resolve the problem. When I got home that day they asked me to help.
After a quick look the 'problem' turned out to be that the router defaulted to WPA2 & that their PC could only use WEP. It was easy to go back to my machine, armed with the relevant passwords, and drop the wireless encryption back to WEP. Problem solved.
The problem is, I now know their passwords and the ISP spent a lot of time (failing) to help.
What is the ISP to do? Push the default security settings as high as possible and accept that this will increase their call centre costs or keep default security low and get crucified for that?
Nick.
"will remove the right of employees"
If it is a 'Right' how can it be removed?
It would appear that we have a temporary license, until a politician, changes it's mind.
In despair, Nick.
Is anyone else reminded
of the 1950s "Duck & Cover" campaign used to show children how to survive a nuclear weapon?
This looks just as silly.
Nick.
Posted in Apple adds Ping kill switch to iTunes
Wrong generation?
No not really, just think of AMFM. Yoko was a sort of 60's precursor.
Nick.
Given my state of mind in the early moning,
I prefer a wake up that (quietly) goes "beep beep beep....".
Nick.
(I could tolerate Also sprach Zarathustra). :-)
I sugest you use realy heavy boots
Lewis is quite heavy & kicking him under a desk.....
Nick.
Posted in London Tube app adds Augmented Reality
Why Metres / Miles?
Surely, if you wish to cater for people as ancient as I, you would use yards.
Nick.
Um....
The supermarket?
Nick.
This should be easy to break.
There are a number of add-ons that fire off random search requests to stop profiling (TrackMeNot on Firefox). A change to the programme to follow one of the returned urls in the background should swamp the collected data with noise.
A Question.
QKE relies on the fact that the state of a particle changes if someone looks at it.
What happens if, rather than just examining the data stream, I intercepted the data stream? At that point I know the quantum key (and the intended recipient does not). I can now reconstruct the QK and send a good copy to the victim as easily as the original sender did to me.
At this point all three of us know the key and can read any subsequent data.
So; what is wrong with this method?
Nick.
@Mr Sceptical
Unfortunately, it wasn't just the wildlife that got hit.
Nick.
You, sir or madam, are a fool.
You do not need to learn how to drive a car to get a (provisional) driving license.
You do not need to carry a passport with you normally, it is occasionally useful, when you know that you will need to identify yourself.
The ID card however was, while 'voluntary', likely to become essential. Want to prove that you can buy a drink? Show me your card.
Get stopped whilst driving? Today you are told to produce the relevant documents at a police station within a reasonable time. With the 'convenient' ID card. You would be asked why you were not carrying one.
Finally, some of us ancients on this site remember the abominations 'ID' has perpetrated in the past. I do not wish to see this repeated here!
Rant over (and only one exclamation mark).
Nick.
The problem is defining 'Reasonable'
What is reasonable to a large commercial company is not necessarily so to a single programmer working alone. This does not even start to address the problems faced by FOSS, where the license to use/redistribute does not normally involve payment (except in kind (if possible)).
In 1994 the previously free use of the GIF format was changed (software patents). This lead to a switch away from GIF to JPG formats on the internet. With far fewer numbers of people on the web then, it was possible. I am not sure it would be as easy now!
I would agree with 'RAND' if it really was reasonable, it so often isn't.
Nick.
Posted in Apple sued over iPhone aqua sensors
Clean water does not cause damage
My wife dropped her phone into the toilet (fortunately before use). We removed the battery & then washed the phone thoroughly with de-ionised water.
After the phone was dried out (24hrs on a radiator) it worked correctly.
That being the case, why does immersion invalidate the warranty?
Nick.
I almost feel sorry for Meg
Imagine the scene. You are waiting by the phone for the call that tells you that you have reached the peak of your career... You have been promoted to minister!
Then you discover that it's "Minister of going around sounding like a fool". What a crushing anticlimax it must have been.
Nick.
Trust me
That thing will never fly, the propeller is too small.
Nick.
You are all over reacting
Lord Mandelson will never allow this to happen, he will protect us......
Sorry, I just wanted to see if I could type that with a straight face.
Nick.
To be honest
I'm perfectly happy to watch them suffer.
Nick.
Another way to switch it off
Goto Settings
Filters tab
There in small type you will find, "turn off chat" & "Turn off buzz".
What I don't know yet is if these settings are cookie based, do I need to keep on turning the wretched things off?
Nick.
True
Anyone who drives a Toyota Camry........
Nick,
Posted in They said what? Quotes of the Year
A 'phone book'?
Ha!
I can remember a time when it was called a 'Telephone Directory'
Now I'm showing my age.
Nick.
@ AC
I believe Macdonalds, the bland burger company, has a habit of sueing anybody who uses that name. It doesn't matter how long the name has been in use by the smaller co.
Nick.
Why are MS blocking at such a high level?
If MS spotted a machine spewing spam from smallfactory.co.uk I suspect many people would be a little surprised if they responded by blocking the .co.uk domain.
Here they spotted spam from smallhospital.nhs.uk and promptly blocked the higher level, why?
Can you imagine the screams of outrage from Westminster if they tried that on .gov.uk?
(I suspect it's just a way of persuading the holdouts to move to .nhs.net).
Nick.
The sixteenth century called:
They would like their fruit cake back.
Nick.
Posted in Power grid takedown: A new how-to
A self-limiting, high-temperature superconductor technology
Nice! I want one of those, and it will be ready (for testing) by 2010.
So they are going to rip out the existing grid and install a high temperature superconducting grid all by next year.
I think my technobabble detector has hit a severe overload.
Nick.
Does anyone else remember......
...a company called Stac Electronics?
They also had a "partnership" deal with MS.
There are, of course, no similarities between the two cases.
Nick.
Posted in Investigators blind on P2P child abuse
"....implement the Internet Watch Foundation blocklist of abuse websites."
How will this help?
If P2P is being used then the source of the material is multiple small comuters not big file servers that can be blocked.
Nick.
An odd (though increasingly common) use of "addiction"
It seems to work like this:
1) I do not understand/disaprove of activity X
2) You enjoy and engage in activity X
3) I tell you to "Stop that, it's very silly"
4) You tell me to "Go away"
5) As it is (obviously) not possible that I may be wrong.....
You are ADDICTED!!!
Nick
If they go the microwave route,
they can harvest the crop ready cooked.
Nick.
Posted in Palm slams Apple, hoodwinks iTunes
This is standard practice.
Years ago Digital Research discovered that DRDos ran better if it identified itself as MSDos. When I wish to see an I.E. only web site I tell my browser to lie, this is widely done and often works.
Now Palm does the same thing & there is an outcry from some people. Why?
Nick.
@ Chrisopher Rogers
"how did you do your headline upside down?"
It's easy, you turn the monitor over before you type it. :-)
Nick.
Standards bodys
That took a long time. They should have known that if they had submitted it to ISO via ECMA they could have rammed it through the process in a couple of months.
OK, the result may not have been usable.
Nick
One simple change.
It would be nice if MS changed the behaiviour of their installer, at the moment a Windows install will nuke a dual boot MBR & boot straight into Windows.
It would be polite of them to do what the other OS installers do. I.E. check to see what else is there &, if necessary, ask!
Nick.
Survey Bias?
If they surveyed all G rated films this must bias the selection towards heterosexual content because anything overtly homosexual will not get a G rating.
Nick.
Interrupt Hooking.
The people who wrote the software really should have considered that.
It's such a new technique I can remember playing around with it back in the days of CPM!
Mine's the one hung over the Zimmer frame.
Nick.
An appointment that's doomed to failure....
Sir Tim doesn't have his own TV programme!
Nick.
Posted in Telstra bins UK support staff
@ Roger Jenkins
I suspect that the reason PR / Marketing people pepper their conversations with phrases like 'moving forward' is because they are brain dead.
On the other hand, moving forward, they will probably have a new phrase next year :-)
Nick.
"Surely that would be distribution of an indecent image..."
No!!! Don't you realise that the internet has "magical" powers!
It's ok, if tasteless, when used on printed media.
On the Internet: It will corrupt you beyond redemption!
Nick.
Posted in Biz travelers howl over US gov RFIDs
@AC 2049hrs
An old chip & pin bank card showed blistering on the surface after 3 seconds in a 650W microwave oven.
An RFID card with an arial would absorb more power so less than a second would probably kill the chip but someone would have to experiment to see when the card showed obvious signs of dammage.
Nick.
Posted in NASA goes for Hubble back-up boot-up
According to the BBC....
"The failed box will be replaced by astronauts" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7670412.stm
I do hope NASA have some nice small astronauts.
Nick.
So the next one should be called
The Terafly!
It would certainly frighten me.
Nick.
