@First sign of madness...
is Suggs coming up the garden path...
Posts by Parax
624 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Jul 2007
Your phone is winding me up
iPhone and Windows Mobile get the (Gmail) Push
Dual-screen Microsoft 'booklet' uncovered
Orbital skydives to follow inflatable heatshield success?
LG's watchphone priced
Endeavour heads for ISS on sixth try
Thursday 16th July 2009 12:42 GMT
NASA TV
the NASA TV Live feed runs about 60 seconds behind spaceflightnows live feed from NASA..... shame that FSN has such poor quality Jerky and unwatchable...
Missed the shuttle transit from the UK was a thin layer of cloud but saw the ISS following up at about 11:40 crossed about half the sky before it passed into shadow.
Was thinking if they had to abort (due to say a main engine failure) and had to land in spain would they get the world record for fastest Atlantic crossing??
So does anyopne know where they dropped the Main Tank last night??
Schneier says he was 'probably wrong' on masked passwords
Wednesday 8th July 2009 11:33 GMT 
Mask Password Option
I would prefer a Mask/Unmask tickbox
then if I'm in private I can unmask and if im in public I can Mask.. (mask should always be the default)
I do not want a character preview, shoulder surfers have memories/video cameras also. This is not a solution except in the mobile market where a key is for multiple characters, and the screen is so small shoulder surfing is not feasible.
Nikon Coolpix S630
Researcher barred from demoing ATM security vuln
Wednesday 1st July 2009 10:04 GMT
@Goat Jam
Surely only they [the ATM operators] stand to loose money...And its a cost they are willing to risk, balanced against the cost [cost to customer] of shutting down every ATM. I think they are right!
cost to world of turning off atms = Trillions [in inconvienience, delays, lost sales etc]
cost of loses to un-known vuln = Thousands maybe?
its not like every ATM in the WORLD is suddenly going to discharge ALL its notes.. hmm.. what? a film?
NASA reacquires original Moon landing footage
Rogue knob could ground space shuttle Atlantis
Is your cameraphone an oxymoron?
Thursday 25th June 2009 09:52 GMT
Its a shame...
that this is just an iphone review...its a good article! but it would have been nice to have seen a phone that claims to be a good camera something like a sony cybershot phone (k850?) and a real camera of phone size.. your generic point and shoot say a canon ixus..
comparing a phone to an SLR is a little silly, as everyone knows that a $1000 camera is better than a $300 one... but is a $300 one better than a specific camera phone? That remains unanswered. as does 'is there a difference between a camera phone and a phone with a camerra'???
Spanish court in favour of topless celebs
Intel goes to ultraviolet extremes
Monday 22nd June 2009 13:08 GMT 
Soft X-Rays
Yes soft xrays - I'm told the name change was because the public doesn't like things that sound like radiation (ie why the NMR machine in your hospital is called an MRI)
Silly really, I would have thought that a public looking at bleeding edge tech would understand, said tech..(proof from point being raised on tech website!).... I guess the marketing guys did a weekday highstreet survey outside poundstretcher and found people who still refuse to have microwaves in thier houses due to the nucular praticles....
Steve Jobs had liver transplant
Bing 'better' than Google for advertisers
Junk email volumes hit high
Buddy unveils Metro e-car
European 'standard' e-car power connector details emerge
Thursday 21st May 2009 19:32 GMT
@@WFF
Did you not read the last line... here it is again more succinctly:
if the flap is open the car won't go!
and wtf is wrong with the existing standard connectors?? oh yeah you cant meter&tax the outlet...
any smart meter could check for connection before ramping up the juice...likewise auto disconnecting the power when the connection's resistance increases or connection is severed. ie as the plug is drawn from the socket, the conductor area decreases increasing the resistance and tripping the power.
Anyway there are even ways to measure the capacitance of a cable even with no connection at the other end.. you dont need an extra pin for the job, but as I have suggested theres already a much simpler way.
Taking a first bite out of Wolfram Alpha
General Atomics unwraps new, Stealth(y) robot war-jet
UFO fleet menaces east London
Monday 30th March 2009 12:18 GMT 
Proof! - a Flypast
Found more conclusive evidence...
Another craft in precession
http://tinyurl.com/SVFlyPast1
and possible the same 9 from another angle:
http://tinyurl.com/SVFlyPast2
Seems the street view vehicle drove this street 3 times these images are from a run that was kind of out of position....
Monday 30th March 2009 11:53 GMT
People opposite can see it too!!
Theres a whole crowd of up lookers... some with cameras..
My vote is for a fly past from the RAF... if it were UFO's we'd havwe seen those pictures in the papers already.
I seriously doubt that many people would look up for a carrier bag...
as for the blurred lampost that is a result of merging the horizontal and vertical camera images there are multiple images stiched together not always sucessfully..
NYC 'Top Model' stampede: The truth revealed
Sick of that crap office laptop? IBM can help You*
Friday 20th March 2009 13:25 GMT
Let me get this straight..
I lease the machine for two years then I buy a two year old 'second hand' machine at market value?
SO basically I have to lease my own work machine and find a buyer myself if I want biannual upgrades... doesn't sound like a very good deal to me....
I would have expected IBM to buy a machine and allow replacement at any time I wish to pay market value for the box.
Foxtrot Oscar.
Google Street View hits UK streets
ISS crew flees flying space junk
Friday 13th March 2009 13:27 GMT
Relative?
The 5-inch chunk of metal is estimated to have passed by the station at nearly 5.5 miles per second (20,000mph).
Is that speed relative to the earth or the station? its not such a concern if its velocity is only say 5mph difference from that of the ISS...
Bear in mind that the Shuttle docks with the ISS In excess of 17,200 miles per hour (with respect to the earth). and this is normal!
BBC botnet investigation turns hacks into hackers
Thursday 12th March 2009 15:58 GMT 
Line Overstepped..
Ok I'm on the fence about one issue - alerting the user...Its in thier interest!
BUT using those machines to ddos a site (no matter which) and to send mail (no matter where)was clearly NOT in the INTEREST of the computer OWNER.
This is deffinatly a breach of the misuse act... There is no way of painting that...
Phorm CEO clashes with Berners-Lee at Parliament
Sexy Namir sportster to rewrite fuel economy rulebook?
Nude Apple iMac pics leaked to web
Western Digital My Book World Edition 1TB NAS box
Brit, French nuke subs collide - fail to 'see' each other
Wanna see how to use Win 7 UAC to pwn a PC?
Monday 16th February 2009 11:26 GMT
You Cant Fix Stupid
But Microsoft will give it a damn good go...
TBF the whole UAC exists because of stupid. so this issue relies on a dose of stupid. therefore is legit.
Now MS whitelisting apps is also stupid but 'might' just be for the Beta - so they work - then again it could be just an enormous dose of stupid.
Stupid [Developer] + [Catering for] Stupid [User] = Perfect Microsoft Product.
Personally I dont think it'll be long before MS virtualise the User space totally... And It probably wouldn't be a stupid Idea either...
Samsung flies flagship phone
NASA births cliff-hanging yo-yo bot
GM talks up EV battery longevity tech
Thursday 5th February 2009 15:32 GMT
Next...
I dont want a friggin engine and transmission what I want is in wheel motors and a phat battery pack. GM is right to 'get into' batteries this is crucial. but so is efficent drive and KERS.
PS its never -10 or +60 in the UK? so why the fuss?? If it was -10 I dont mind it not running.. seriously I can stay at home one day in 5000.
Now I would want emergency service vehicles to run though!
Now why am I thinking two cars? one for commuting shopping etc and one for driving longer distances?
Yes! It's the cardboard PC!
Thursday 5th February 2009 15:27 GMT
Duffer...
Nice Idea to use cardboard but a bad design! It looks to me like whole concept evolved around soemone realising theres holes in corrugated card! and then trying to use that principle as little chimineys hence you get a massive stack of cardboard about 500 layers thick with a tonne of glue. and a tonne of waste cut outs from each internal sheet.
Just use a NORMAL folderd box with some holes in.. Just remember to take the tortoise out first!
Iranian rocket puts satellite into orbit
Tuesday 3rd February 2009 15:37 GMT
@Tom Cooke..
'complete with handlebar moustaches. They don't make 'em like they used to - but dammit they used to!'
Oh yes we do! Just have a look at the bloodhound projects rocket chap... (Daniel Jubb)
http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/search.cfm?faArea1=customWidgets.contentItem_show_1&cit_id=4252
The young lad is doing us proud!
Texas lawyer sues Citibank over fake cheque scam
US mulls clicks for cameraphones
Tuesday 27th January 2009 16:03 GMT
@JoeK
Im with D@v3,
i don't think i have ever seen a cameraphone that you <can't> turn the shutter sound off, be it in the camera settings, or by changing the 'profile' to some varient of silent.
even my brand new samsung can have no shutter sound setting...
This is by far the daftest law I have heard of in a country that allows guns... Blame the tools for camera crimes and the user for gun crime [Only in America! - for Stephen Fry]
Chrysler turns on Circuit at Detroit Motor Show
Could the Airbus A380 be the new Air Force One?
Monday 12th January 2009 12:08 GMT
Marine One
Is a VH71 Kestrel Manufactured by Bell Helicopter. It is a variant of the European designed EH101 aka AW101 aka Merlin, but is made over there... so not overseas jobs money or parts etc..
The 380 is unlikely to be made on us soil has no US jobs and is unlikly to have US parts available. so is unliklly to be a contender.
My money is on a larger fleet of dreamliners (787's)...
NASA will give away old Shuttles for free
World's first 'thought images' seen on screen
Friday 12th December 2008 10:18 GMT
Imagined image or seen image?
Captured from the visual cortex sounds as if it was recording live sight, rather than a vivid imagination. This has far more use both for recording vision (The Plods get thier own Black box without a headcam..) and also for artificial eyes feeding the cortex data...
Bittorrent declares war on VoIP, gamers
Thursday 4th December 2008 11:25 GMT
@David Wilson
>I don't blame users for trying to maximise what they get from their ISP service, just as I don't blame ISPs for invoking fair usage clauses and restricting the access of the heaviest users.
>I just wish people wouldn't go on about being misled long after the point when they're clearly not being misled any more,
So your not posting regarding this article then? which seems to be suggesting that one type of customer is screwing others. (Which if an ISP is using simple QoS say a token bucket filter means all customers are treated equally anyway. which adversly affects the speed freaks of Voip & gamers who, to analogise, are trying to drive on a congested motorway at 70mph..)
>It's not *at all* daft if it costs the ISP less to have users who transfer less data.
Did we not establish that it costs the same for the hardware whether it was used or not.
>Whether the ISP is itself charged per amount of data, or whether they have paid for a pipe of fixed bandwidth which they can use as much or as little of as they want, they can clearly support more small users than big ones for the same outlay on bandwidth.
So if ALL the 'small use' customers all logged on at the same time say each evening at say around 7pm the network would 'clearly support' all of them? NO it wont!
'Limited Customers' are still customers they still use bandwidth, just because they are not 24/7 users doesn't mean there will be sufficent capacity at 7pm every evening...
The problem with Limited accounts is that they can still be used in peak times, they are not off peak accounts. infact because they are lower use they are more likely to be used in peak times. as they are normal users following normal patterns.
So if we used a model where you only paid when the network useage was highest, the peak users would pay for every minute, 24/7 users would not pay off-peak as usage is lowest, so a small peak user pays the same as a heavy 24/7 user.
It doesn't matter how much you use the problem is when you use it. if all 50 users on a 50:1 contention want to use at the same time the system fails irrespective of the total monthly amount, or what type of account they have.
As I see it our networks suffer from peak congestion, Like our roads, In London I can drive in and out of the city 10 times a night and not pay, In fact I pay less than a Light user who drives in only once in the daytime. in this case the amount or volume is irrelevant the time is crucial. because there is a finite amount of road capacity. I see the internet in the same way, a finite capacity, which is freely available off peak and is clogged up at peak times.
Basically if you use the internet at peak time expect it to be slow, its not because 'Bittorrent declared war on VoIP, Gamers'... its because there isn't enough internet for everyone, and who is responsible for building capacity?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
