* Posts by Jonathan Richards

140 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jan 2007

Phoenix beams back Martian postcards

Jonathan Richards
Coat

A sense of perspective

Jeez, the human race does something as totally extraordinary as putting a functioning robot laboratory into the polar regions of another PLANET, and all we can do is whinge on about the MEASUREMENTS??!!!11!!

Yep. So here goes. The real WTF is not that the robot arm length is quoted in feet, it's that it's quoted in decimal feet. 7.7 feet is 7' 8 13/32". Near enough.

Mine's the one with the imperial micrometer in the breast pocket. Ta.

Sarin quits Vodafone

Jonathan Richards
Joke

Simple explanation

It's impossible to travel internationally internationally these days with a name like Sarin, which must be a handicap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin

I don't need a coat while I've got this respirator on, now do I?

A reading from the second book of Codh

Jonathan Richards
Go

@The Dyslexic Druid

If you don't get it, son, you can just go on your way shaking your head, and chalking your leet graffitti elsewhere.

Ms Stob: excellent stuff. I particularly like the M'andee Rice-Davies allusion, without explanation. Keep it up.

First public Firefox 3 candidate shoots out the door

Jonathan Richards
Thumb Up

Don't ever lose a bookmark again

I recommend the Foxmarks add-in and service to store and synchronize your Firefox bookmarks between machines. Also has a web interface for when you're away from home. A1. And, O Reg Beertards, free, as in beer!

http://www.foxmarks.com/

BBC's Today Programme shutters message board

Jonathan Richards
Thumb Up

All is not lost

> Sadly no messageboard is safe

Some people will be familiar with Groklaw [www.groklaw.net]. It is a blog with a relatively limited scope, but addressing pretty inflammatory issues around technology and the law. It's a haven for considered comment and polite discussion, not that the trolls don't try to drag it down from time to time. So I don't despair of the Internet entirely.

Legal experts wary of MySpace hacking charges

Jonathan Richards
Go

It's a wookiee...

You've heard of the wookiee defence [1]; well, this smacks of a wookiee prosecution.

You'll notice that the indictment (which I haven't read, what do you take me for?) is supposed to allege computer misuse and conspiracy. The latter of those will ensure enough punishment if this despicable behaviour [2] is proven.

In the UK, conspiracy is a common law offence [3] and so has no statutory penalty. Conspiracy to drop a fag [4] end can attract life imprisonment if the judiciary is so inclined. I don't know how it works in the USA.

Translation notes:

[1] OK, defense, I suppose.

[2] OK, behavior. Will it never end?

[3] No, not this time. Offence.

[4] Look it up. If you're reading significantly to the west of Greenwich, it doesn't mean what you think it means.

UK Carriers safe: Other war-tech ripe for the chopper

Jonathan Richards
Joke

Wars

> It was seen as possibly worthwhile for the Soviets to grab off West Germany, Belgium et al in a sudden conventionally armed assault...

Indeed, that was the definition of war, at least in those years. Anything else, at all, was by military definition, a conflict. Everyone old enough to remember will realise that the Falklands War wasn't, at the time.

I also know that there was a plan for the defeat of the Red Army swarming out of Poland across the North German Plain. It didn't involve neutron bombs (remember those?), but rather a strategic withdrawal, leaving cases of Johnnie Walker (tm) beside the roads. It was calculated that this would bring the Red Army to a halt within a hundred miles, and then they could be bought off with air-dropped alka-seltzer.

The Moderatrix: Exclusive boudoir snap

Jonathan Richards
Happy

Ooo!

That was really painful. Do it again.

> The opinionated hoi polloi

Ow Ow. hoi polloi already means 'the multitude', so the first The is redundant.

Go on, one more time...

MySpace fraudster indicted in teen's suicide

Jonathan Richards

@Martin

> It is now a criminal offense to violate a company's terms of service?

Well, it is if the T's&C's say that you have no authority to access an account set up fraudulently, for then you put yourself in the path of the federal law, as the prosecutors here seem to believe is the case.

Personally, I blame EULAs (hold on, I haven't finished...)

For years and years we've been used to being presented with reams of legal stuff headed with "IMPORTANT Please read the following yadda yadda", and a button labelled [I agree]. It should be labelled [Yeah, whatever, just get on with the setup] because hardly anyone ever reads the damn things. If Drew read (and was capable of understanding) the T's&C's, she should have seen that what she was contemplating was illegal. Whether she did or not, she clicked on [Yeah, whatever] and that makes her actions premeditated and illegal. That the outcome was a death doesn't alter the facts.

HP leaves Dell with an EDS-shaped hole

Jonathan Richards
Thumb Up

@John Savard

Oh yes, I knew what he *meant*. However, I'm old-fashioned enough to have a higher regard for comments using proper words; there are better sites if I want to pick the meaning out of half-baked alphabet soup. Umm, hold on. I might have to think that one through...

Jonathan Richards
Stop

@George

> jet black - like a monolisk

What's that? A cross between a monorail and a basilisk? If you don't know the word you're reaching for, it's best to leave it alone.

jet black - like a large black thing.

Fixed it for you.

Life a mess? The Moderatrix can help

Jonathan Richards
Happy

What the dickens...

...am I doing reading this nonsense at nearly four in the morning?

I shall now retire, and wonder why so few Reg readers have real life problems that they are keen to share with a community of smutty, showerless and very occasionally witty people, few of whom know the function of the shift key, and who may indeed only have three fingers, given that they can't reach far enough left to find the apostrophe.

Good morning :)

Scientists discover galaxy's youngest supernova

Jonathan Richards

@Flocke Kroes

> The sun will supernova in about 3.5e9 years

I'm sure that quoting numbers in exponential format makes you sound plausible, but this statement is wrong. The sun is too small to end its life in a supernova by about a factor of ten.

MSI card-cooler 'inspired by weed'

Jonathan Richards

@Eddie

s/Reynaulds/Reynolds

My pleasure; don't mention it.

Babbage's Difference Engine hits Silicon Valley

Jonathan Richards
Boffin

@Tony - gunnery accuracy

<quote>A hundred years earlier, the 32 pounder (firing round shot from an unrifled barrel) could hit a 3 yard target at a distance of 3 miles 90% of the time</quote>

That sounds wrong; I call for a URL. 3 yards in 3 miles is clearly one part in 1,760 which would have to be the combined precision of the mass of the shot and the impulse from the cartridge, even without atmospheric disturbance. I don't think even a shore battery could have got the target accuracy you quote.

Stamping on the spam or wading through it?

Jonathan Richards
IT Angle

It's messy, slippery and gets everywhere

Seconded.

I once saw the aftermath of a burglary, in which a safe had been prised from its fixings on the floor, which happened to be in a school kitchen store room. The clown with the crowbar had attempted to use a large can of Spam (tm) for a fulcrum, which of course had merely crushed the can, causing an explosion of dead pig product in all directions.

Police go slow with encryption key terror powers

Jonathan Richards

Increased use jeopardizes the push for 42 days

One of the reasons punted around to justify the Government's ambition to increase maximum holding time without charge to six weeks is that it gives them time to crack encrypted hard drives (USB sticks, floppy disks, punched tape, whatever).

However, S.49 destroys that argument.

Plod: I see you have an *encrypted* partition, sir, care to tell me what it contains?

Scally: Not really.

Plod: I fear that I must charge you with failing to disclose encryption keys, tsk, what a nuisance. Nevertheless, I shall have no difficulty in knowing just where you are for the next five years, as our enquiries progress. Good morning.

Astroboffins moot massive Moon-mirror heliograph

Jonathan Richards

Naval ships trivia

There's only one warship in commission in the whole world that has shot down an enemy aircraft in combat. That's the venerable HMS Exeter, during Operation Corporate, as it was called then since at the time we definitely did NOT want to call it a war for the Falklands.

Note that this achievement is not related to shooting down friendly and/or civilian aircraft, whether in combat or otherwise. Yes, you know who you are.

UK elections vulnerable to fraud - e-voting no solution

Jonathan Richards
Stop

Disenfranchise NOW

> Because, no one can't be as bas ad comrade Ken

Oh FFS, please tell me you don't have a vote.

Spy regs used against dogs, litterbugs

Jonathan Richards
Thumb Down

Hey, Mr Tally Man...

<quote>PA contacted 97 councils and got replies from 46. 16 councils said they did not use the Act, 16 did not respond and 19 said they would only release the information if they received a formal Freedom of Information request</quote>.

Since 16+16+19 = 51 = 97-46, I guess that breakdown is meant to describe *non*-replies. However, I think "We don't use RIPA powers", and "Come back with a proper FoI request, sucker" are perfectly proper replies, so is it in fact the case that PA got replies from 81 councils?

On a separate note, I think public bodies are obligated to treat *any* information request as if it was an FoI request, even if it doesn't contain the right magic incantation to make it formal. That's the case in this Department of State, anyway.

Border Agency plans Olympic identity card

Jonathan Richards
Stop

Why bother, indeed.

Allows me to clear passport control more quickly...

That's good. I can sit on the plane for longer, waiting for the folk with less photogenic eyeballs to clear *their* passport controls. Doesn't anybody ever model these things to quantify the benefits?

You don't need to answer that.

Sydney skies menaced by deadly raygun disco-ball

Jonathan Richards

Eel-traps

@Hans-Peter

Yep, that certainly does look like a half a load of eel-traps caught up in an ELF antenna. I was deeply moved and affected, but not as deeply as the bloke with an eyeful of coherent photons.

Korean astronaut recounts 'ballistic' Soyuz re-entry

Jonathan Richards

Gender error at line 51

Ishkandar wrote:

He probably looked and felt as gob-smacked as this poor little bird

The Korean person in question was female. Or were you referring to her as a poor little bird?

Bond - Fleming expo opens at Imperial War Museum

Jonathan Richards
Go

Cover stories

Never mind the fictional Cdr Bond's career, I'm interested in Fleming's. Departed Sandhurst under a blackmailable cloud, tried to get into the Foreign Office and failed, and then "landed on his feet" with a Naval Intelligence Division job that let him have a "finger in every pie". Hmmm.

I wonder just how "failed" that failure to join the FO was. Perhaps Fleming had spent his apparently rudderless years working for them after all (voluntarily or otherwise), and his contacts became useful on the outbreak of war?

</unwarranted speculation>

<justify>It's a slow news Sunday morning :)</justify>

US law makers seek ban on in-flight calls

Jonathan Richards
Boffin

I don't think that word means...

...what you think it means.

noisome : 1382, "harmful, noxious," from noye "harm, misfortune," shortened form of anoi "annoyance" (from O.Fr. anoier, see annoy) + -some. Meaning "bad-smelling" first recorded 1577. [1]

It's got nothing to do with *noisy*, and everything to do with *foul*. Just about fits, any way you look at it.

[1] Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/noisome (accessed: April 17, 2008).

A week in the life of Open XML

Jonathan Richards
Unhappy

Oh, jeez

I just read more about OOXML^W OXML elsewhere and realised that I made an arse of myself. If that previous comment gets moderated to oblivion, I wouldn't much care. Sorry.

I still think that dropping the word Office is a crap way of trying to convince us all that Microsoft gives a toss about interoperability.

DHS ponders microwave raygun missile defences at airports

Jonathan Richards

A veering off-course rocket...

...that sounds "safe as houses" to me. Yup. What could possibly go wrong?

Ohio man cuffed for shagging picnic table

Jonathan Richards

SQL

INSERT TOJR INTO TABLE; DROP TABLE

EXPLAIN PLAN...

Boffins battle over oldest European woman

Jonathan Richards

Naming the old bird

Since this creature was not human (Homo sapiens) is it correct to call her a woman at all? Or is this a courtesy extended to all species in our genus? We certainly don't talk about bonobo women.

Adobe to remove Photoshop pic pimping clause

Jonathan Richards
Thumb Down

As a fully-unpaid-up freetard...

... such a clause was the first thing I thought about when you announced Photoshop online. I'm not a bit surprised it's there, and that my snaps are staying where they are.

Google red cards Privila for gaming search engine

Jonathan Richards

Blog name

It's Light Blue Touchpaper, which neatly combines the Cambridge colour and the imperative for igniting a firework. Light The Blue Touchpaper doesn't work half as well!

'Magnet boy' freezes Xbox

Jonathan Richards

@How would his supposed magnetism affect his typing?

I can shed some light. I used to have a PC that would lock up when I discharged a static charge by touching the metal-framed desk upon which it sat. It was not necessary to touch any part of the PC, and experiment showed that if one lifted the keyboard away from the steel frame of the desk, the lockup didn't happen. I concluded that the keyboard circuitry was acting as an antenna, picking up the pulse from the discharge and channelling it into the PS/2 socket, causing the lockup (but no permanent damage).

NetApp changes name to NetApp

Jonathan Richards
Joke

Like a stool?

If your stools look like this, you should urgently seek medical advice.

El Reg decimates English language

Jonathan Richards
Black Helicopters

@jim parker

> could you arrange to severely chastise all those who mean nothing but say nothink.

I regret that all the Official Chastisement Officers are engaged in hunting down splitters of infinitives. Helicopter, to remind you to listen for one. :)

CERN completes 'world’s largest jigsaw puzzle'

Jonathan Richards
Boffin

How long to get sucked in

The answer, as someone points out, is different if you're doing it or watching it. If you're being sucked into a black hole, time dilates for you as you approach the event horizon, so that it may feel like a *very* long time. This is likely to be more unpleasant than boring; due to tidal forces your feet will weigh vastly more than your head (supposing you fall feet first, YMMV).

I was going to contrast how different this would be to being sucked in by a Dan Brown novel, but I changed my mind.

Confidential Home Office data turns up in laptop on eBay

Jonathan Richards
Pirate

Hiding place

Actually, hiding a confidential disk under the keyboard of a laptop would be a really good way of getting it off site. At the guard house you solemnly present the laptop and the associated paperwork that lets you take it out, and the guard searches the bag, finds no CDs and lets you out. Then, before you can sell the juicy data to your buyer, you lose the laptop on the train, and some light-fingered git flogs it on ebay.

The laptop should be traceable from its serial number, back to the HO unit that lost it, if it's an HO machine. Maybe it belonged to a bent contractor? What, wait! Surely there's no such thing.

Secret printer ID codes may breach EU privacy laws

Jonathan Richards
Boffin

@Ole - probably not a discrete chip

I don't expect that one can remove/replace a chip in these printers in order to change the tracking output, it's much more likely to be code within the firmware that reads the serial no., date and time, and inserts the necessary Postscript into the stream going to the rendering engine. Just when you thought your software was getting free, you find that your hardware is going all squeally on you!

I find, however, that I can telnet into the printers in my establishment, since nobody has bothered to set access passwords. If it was *really* necessary, my printouts wouldn't have the right date, at least!

Or maybe I'll prepare a few sheets of paper covered with tiny yellow dot patterns. Even I can write a bit of Postscript to do that.

Exploding Flash catalogue rocks Dutch e-commerce site

Jonathan Richards
Happy

Deeply satisfying

Here's the total experience for me:

> You need to upgrade your Flash Player

Ummm... I think not!

US Army struggles with Windows to Linux overhaul

Jonathan Richards
Thumb Down

@Nigee - Linux licensing

Nigee posted

> "IIRC a few years ago the French MoD if not the entire govt announced they were going to develop a secure version of Linux. Licensing presumably means this is/will be in the public domain."

I'm astonished that nobody has pointed out that Linux is NOT in the public domain. Neither the kernel, nor the GNU utililities that make up the GNU/Linux distributions, are PD. Those components are copyrighted, and licensed under the GPL, version 2 for the kernel, at least.

Bastille Linux and the NSA-hardened kernel are already available, of course, licensed under the GPL as you would expect.

IPS leak suggests ID card fingerprint chop

Jonathan Richards
Stop

Parse error

> the one single factor that makes it entirely certain (in their view) that you are who you say you are.

Whereas an infallible biometric measure (supposing there was such a thing) would merely make it entirely certain that you are the biological entity which said it was you when it applied to be registered with your identity.

How do you prove infallibly who you are at the point in time that you apply for one of these things? Certainty can't be spirited out of thin air!

HP gets an ology for FOSS

Jonathan Richards
Gates Horns

Nice to see the guy is in touch with enterprise distros

> And we redistribute it through Red Hat SuSE

Real Nice

3M develops mini projector

Jonathan Richards

Energy usage?

Somebody better with the mathematics than I am will be able to calculate just for how long a mobile phone battery would be able to shine a projected image of sufficient brightness over a 300 sq in. surface. Not very long, is my guess.

PC scuppers NYE fireworks in Seattle

Jonathan Richards
Black Helicopters

@Ian Ferguson

Re: Better than London

You might have been herded farther along the Embankment because "directly across from the Eye" is the Ministry of Defence HQ?

New Red Hat CEO checks open source claims

Jonathan Richards
Stop

You plank

<quote>It is worth re-iterating here that open source software is not always "free". Indeed, some of the more recognized and successful open source packages such as Red Hat's Linux while not free are less expensive than proprietary equivalents - no names mentioned.</quote>

You link from the word "free" to GNU's page about philosophy of free-as-in-freedom software, and then willfully misinterpret it to discuss why some open source is not free-as-in-beer.

If you don't get it any better than this, why are you writing about FOSS in the first place?

HMRC mislays 1.5kg of Bolivian marching powder

Jonathan Richards
Joke

Count the people!

Less than ten people knew the password to a cageful of dangerous drugs? What an outrage! I am apoplectic! Less than ten people? It's FEWER! FEWER than ten people! Can we get nothing right?

Ethernet dances the light fantastic

Jonathan Richards

jonathan.richards@dfdp.mod.uk

The Welcome message at Open-FCoE is dated November 25th, so this news has been some time in reaching us.

Germans debut kitesurf-powered autonomous windjammer

Jonathan Richards
Pirate

@John - jet stream spinnakers

The only reason that a stratocruiser (remember them?) stays airborne is because of its relative motion to the air; air needs to be flowing over and under the wings to generate the lift. You will notice that if your airliner has a tailwind, you'll get to your destination sooner. The pilot can't reduce the engines to idle and coast along on the airstream: if he slows down to the same speed as the air, you'll fall out of the sky. So being towed along at altitude by a kite is not feasible.

The skull and crossbones, not for the piracy angle, but for its danger connotation.

Sun accused of hardball open source project tactics

Jonathan Richards

You either care, or you don't

And if you do, Use The Fork, Luke.

Random number bug blights FreeBSD

Jonathan Richards
Go

Hardware RNG

The circuitry of a computer is an electrically noisy place. It wouldn't be difficult to put into place a chip which is tuned to the noise and outputs n-bits of randomness. This would be immune to memory-reading attacks, and could be used to re-seed software RNGs frequently if that gave better resilience. I want this on my next motherboard, please, with the drivers for all the operating systems. Thank you.

Qinetiq Q-branch and Area 51 tech sell-off due a roasting

Jonathan Richards
Thumb Down

Fails the Turing Test

@Rob: Seconded. It's been rumbled now, so the joke's over. I imagine the bizarre capitalization in the martian posts is to make it easy for subsequent bot runs to pick up and use the stuff over and over. Ignore it and maybe it'll go away.

@AC: Lucid and insightful? I'll have a lungful of whatever you're smoking, please.