Posts by Steven Knox 860 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Feb 2007
I skipped the 10.5 releases and went straight to 10.6x, and never had a problem.
As I recall, 10.5 came out "just in time" for the Windows Browser Choice Screen bodge, and I think it was a little rushed for that reason. I seem to remember some articles on some tech site referencing that, but I'm too lazy to research.
"...and another blow to your neighborhood bookseller."
Really? I personally still prefer my local bookseller to Amazon for numerous reasons, and this certainly won't change my mind.
But even if it did, so what? Nobody's forcing neighborhood booksellers to remain as they are; nothing's stopping them from competing with Amazon online. So Amazon is offering another service, one which on the face of it will attract technophiles and the inconsiderate. Big deal.
This would be a non-story if it weren't for your bizarrely negative angle on it.
"The whole point to this story is that the weird religious types used facebook as a tool to force their oppressive views onto others."
I think the point of the line was that the weired religious types would be able to use facebook as their tool, rather than swords, maces, crude explosives, siege engines, et al.
If I had to choose, I'd opt for being oppressed via HTML rather than via a heavy sharp object to the base of the neck.
They should be commended for adhering to the principle that since the entirety of government funding comes from citizens, they are, in fact, charging themselves and their customers whenever they charge the government. Hence, overcharging is really only cheating themselves in the long run.
However, as the article continues, they should at least make some charge, for two reasons: 1. to create a paper trail, and 2. to discourage less-than-serious requests.
Personally, I think Google's charge seems to balance those concepts well.
the handset manufacturers have already proven their willingness to bed the network operators at the expense of consumers, how does this:
"However, the process does enable the handset manufacturer to control the distribution process, and makes the manufacturer the final arbiter of what networks are supported and what SIM functionality is permitted."
mean anything but less portability?
Three-to-one is not the inverse of one in three. It's the inverse of one in four.
So if you're going on the statement in MS's press release ("By a three-to-one margin, consumers agreed that it is not as safe to use as genuine software."), then you meant to say that one in four consumers consider counterfeit software "safe".
The "real danger" quote is misleading too: to retain the same meaning you should have quoted "see real danger" as this is a survey of perception, not any form of empirical study. I'll grant, however, that Microsoft deserves a hefty share of the blame for that latter one, as it appears from their presentation that they're trying to pass of a survey of consumers' perceptions as something other than a useless pile of ... meaningless numbers.
@ZAM: "There is a contrib that allows you to easily turn off services with a click of a box."
Well, according to the article, contribs are not so easy in the first place. It kind of defeats the purpose when you have to install something to disable something.
"Turnkey system" is no excuse for not including basic configuration options such as "I want/don't want web serving" in the base system. In fact, I would argue that it means the exact opposite.
According to the animation, the chicken is crossing an 8 lane highway while traffic is moving. Not only that, but it must move with traffic, entering at one marker and exiting at the next marker down the road. Given 12 foot lanes and 70 feet between markers (rough estimate of the scale of the picture), the chicken would have to travel over 118 feet in the same time that traffic travels 70 feet (the distance between the markers).
If traffic on this highway is running at a pedestrian 60 MPH, the chicken will have to be going almost 102 MPH to get across, assuming he can avoid the inevitable motorcyclist weaving between the cars.
As for anti-trust, that was my point with the whole "transparency' sentence.
As for the "evidence" of the executive's statement, I think that the worst lawyer in the world would not have trouble convincing a judge or jury that an executive didn't know what they were talking about. Besides, the debate isn't whether or not they put their links first (that's patently obvious), but whether that's done through manipulation or subversion of their page ranking or as a natural side effect of their ranking system. So, no, that's not a smoking gun at all.
"–noun
a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps, as for finding the greatest common divisor."
(from dictionary.com)
Nowhere does that definition preclude the use of keywords, or of favoritism toward a particular result. (It doesn't preclude manual intervention either, but since the generally accepted connotation implies the use of a computer, and nobody is arguing that every search is manually processed, that point is moot.)
So the argument about algorithm and "hard-coding" is in fact a red herring. Both sides would do well to recognize this and move on to the real issue. The real issue is transparency and to what degree it should be forcibly applied to the processes of an effective monopoly.
And for true pedantry, I'd like to point out that the colloquialism "smoking gun" is used to refer to incontrovertible evidence, yet the evidence provided in this article is circumstantial at best. Hence usage of the term "smoking gun" is not warranted.
"It's surely fair to say on this evidence that, if anything, being a Time Person of the Year™ makes individuals much, much more likely to be assassinated, not less*."
No, it is not. You've presented anecdotal evidence only. Please go back and document:
1. How many people have been named Time Person of the Year,
2. How many of those people have been assassinated, (calculate as a percentage of the total, please), and
3. The assassination rate of the general population.
That's a good start. However to be sure, you'll also have to compensate for confounding variables, such as the possibility that the selection of Person of the Year is biased towards people likely to be assassinated by dint of their position, power, wealth, etc.
Then, if the numbers pass rigorous statistical examination, I may consider it fair to say that.
"OK, so let's take it that global warming is coming: that temperatures are set to rise by easily 3°C by the end of the century. Disaster, right? The tropical rainforests - lungs of the planet - will die, CO2 levels will thus rise even faster, a runaway process will set in and planet Earth will be transformed into a baking lifeless hell."
Ummm, no. You've got cause and effect all screwed up. The loss of rainforests is one of the causes, not effects, of GW (reduction of vegetation reduces carbon absorbed, etc.) The cause of rainforest loss is not GW, but massive active deforestation efforts.
Sure, thriving rainforests could help mitigate GW, but 1) they take time to grow, and 2) we as a species appear to have this irrational aversion to land that is not flat and, ideally, paved.
If any of this is news to you, I'd suggest you head to the adolescent section of your local library to further your research, as that is the level of information you appear to be missing.
Nope. In my vast years of experience as a Reg consumer, I can say quite definitively that when stories of SQL injection appear on The Register, Operating System and Web Server are almost always either not mentioned or added in a by-the-way fashion.
If there's one thing the hacks here seem to get, it's that SQL injection exploits application and database software weaknesses, not OS and Web server weaknesses.
In general, the press falls into two major categories with respect to SQL Injection reporting:
1. Technical enough to know it's not the OS/Web Server, and so not mentioning it
2. General enough to not even know it's SQL Injection, and hence not technical enough to even research what OS/Web software the target was running
Exceptions exist, I expect, as each event is unique and original.
"Apache? IMHO this is a stupid move on their part. They gain nothing but can lose a valuable seat on the JCP. Oracle doesn't need the JCP."
So Apache will lose a "valuable" seat on a board which Oracle doesn't "need"?
Oracle has already said that they are moving forward with their plans regardless of the JCP's vote.
If Oracle are telling the truth, then Apache's seat is worth less than nothing: it's an encumbrance to them with no actual influence in return.
If Oracle aren't telling the truth, then they still need the JCP for credibility at least, and the rest of your argument falls down.
Me, I currently think Oracle is telling the truth. And other than that, in the short term, you're probably correct.
But History is full of dictators like Ellison, and they always try the same type of thing, and the same end result always happens to them and their empires.
when that wrong part is instrumental in shaping policy. When you base worldwide policy on incorrect, non-scientific data, you not only harm the credibility of your organization, you run the risk of causing real ecological and economical harm.
This is why it's important for policy organizations (i.e, IPCC) to verify that they are working from actual scientific conclusions and not, as in this case, an off-the-cuff remark.
The failure here was not a failure of science, but a failure of the IPCC to rely on science rather than on non-scientific literature from advocacy groups.
That 12+% isn't just some arbitrary random sample. It's specific data. Specifically, the 6% of Google traffic is all Google services (be it ads, gMail, analytics, searching, the bots indexing, or whatnot). The other 6+% is likely region-specific traffic as mentioned above.
So it's not like it's 12+% of YOUR data. If you don't trust Google, don't use their services, and it won't be any of your data in that 6%. If you don't trust a particular government, don't house any of your data in regions under their control and limit or prevent data from going through those regions [if you must (i.e, you don't trust your own government and don't/can't emigrate), use encryption.]
The iPhone bug is actually significantly worse.
The iPhone fails in allowing access to information and features without authorization.
The HTC Magic in your case fails in not allowing access to information, even with authorization.
From a security standpoint, the second failure is actually more desirable because it protects the data.
If I had to make my purchasing decision based solely on those two "features", I'd pick the Magic. But I don't.
What happened to "Downloaded Only Free Apps"?
That number, too, could be embarrassing to someone trying to convince developers they can get rich selling stuff on their store...
If we assume that that number was correct, and that the original "Downloaded a paid app" number was correct, then we have the following breakout:
63% - downloaded a paid app
28% - downloaded only free apps
9% - didn't download anything
My guess is that they were convinced that updates delivered through the app store should count towards the download numbers.
This analysis is bolstered by the fact that the figures on the right (categories of paid apps) didn't change at all between revisions. If they had somehow miscounted paid-for apps, one would expect the breakdown by category to change at least slightly.
Actually, I know someone who has developed a very compelling business case. He's married a rugged tablet from a major manufacturer with custom software to allow EMTs and first responders to record and share case detail without mucking about with paper and pencil. It interfaces with their medical equipment to store a record of a patient's vitals with the case report; it scans standard IDs to get patient info quickly, and it references a pharmacology database to help EMTs determine appropriate dosages. This simplifies and standardizes case reports, and improves patient care. Laptops are simply too cumbersome, and fixed systems are too inflexible, so a tablet is pretty much the only form factor which can do this.
Whenever I hear "no business case", it immediately makes me think "not enough imagination."
Well, since the article says he committed the crime in "March this year", and the iPhone 4 was released in June, I'd have to assume he was using at best a 3GS, which has only VGA resolution at 30fps -- unless he was another Apple staffer careless with his test model...
"It's that trivial that we haven't yet managed it with a vehicle that basically only travels in 2 dimensions on specially prepared strips of land where all said vehicles are going the same way."
Actually, Google has managed it, in California of all places -- which speaks to the next point.
With cars, you are restricted essentially to not two dimensions, but one half-dimension: the road, with very limited options for changing or reversing direction. Then you're further constrained by the most difficult part for autonomous cars: traffic. Your tiny half-dimension is populated by other vehicles going different speeds which often move irrationally (sometimes to the point of NOT going the same direction.) Add to that the inconsistencies of road traffic management signs and symbols (especially across different countries), and you have a much more complex problem than that of autonomous flight.
With aircraft, you have three complete dimensions, global mapping and GPS technology, not to mention a relatively consistent system of identifying and communicating with traffic which has been in constant use and improved for over a half century.
The US military has had autonomous and semi-autonomous drones for YEARS now. It's not just a trivial exercise, it's a fact.
Oh, and obligatory pedantry: Kool-Aid is a brand name, spelled as shown and is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods, Inc.
Well, I think this quote from the response pretty much sums up whether "El Reg" believes that carbon dioxide emissions have an effect: "We've got no argument with the idea that CO2 in an atmosphere has a greenhouse effect: that's just a fact. "
Having said that, I think you've highlighted a serious problem at this publication. I've read enough articles on this site to see that the various reporters have (and are even sometimes allowed to express) different opinions on issues like this.
Furthermore, most (if not all) of their opinions have the annoying trait of not simply being "yes" or "no", but carry that hallmark of activist journalism: unchecked analysis. How dare they ask questions and demand "explanations" and "figures"? The editors of this site need to clearly identify to their hacks which boffins are correct, and rein in their wild, logical speculation.
"Google users trust that when they enter a search query into a Google search box, not only will they receive back the most relevant results, but that Google will keep private whatever information users communicate absent a compelling reason," the firm claimed to court.
Most Google users I know trust very little about the search engine, and certainly not those two items.
"He doesn't say which part, but notes that only one is used per device, so possibly the screen."
Well, that's not the right relationship. If he wants a predictive relationship, he needs a part that not only has one used per device, but is not (or cannot be) used in any other device.
For example, there is only one motherboard per device as well, but disassembly of the new Apple TV has shown that it has a very similar board to the one used in the iPad. If this is the part in question, the increased numbers could be based on Apple's plans for the Apple TV.
An even worse (but not likely to be used here anyway) predictor that still fits the relationship described above would be the CPU -- there would only be one per iPad, but many could be used in several different Apple devices.
(besides the commentards jumping at the red herrings of platform choice and white v grey v black hat) is this:
"...Washington DC elections officials began testing it ahead of live elections scheduled for next month. "
A system which needs to be as complex and secure as an online voting system must requires a bit more that a week's testing less than a month before it's implemented.
Disagreed, because sometimes it's more than "slightly worse than average luck with hard drives":
A few years back, we had a need for about a dozen laptops all of roughly the same spec. We ended up buying some Dells which had Hitachi drives in them.
Every hard drive failed within a year. Not most, not almost all of them. All of them. A significant number of the replacement hard drives (also Hitachi) also failed. When that happened we specifically requested non-Hitachi replacements. None of them failed.
As I said, this was a few years back, and I'm sure that whatever issue caused this particular bad batch of drives has been resolved; it may have been an issue at Hitachi, or an issue at Dell, but we haven't seen it since.
I have no preferences for or against Hitachi drives. I've been in this industry to see this type of thing happen at least once to pretty much every major drive manufacturer.
I'm simply saying that sometimes there actually is a problem. Don't simply dismiss an aversion to a brand as "bad luck" or "misunderstanding". You can miss an opportunity to help a vendor find and solve a quality control issue, and to help a client/coworker maintain as many storage options as possible.
Agreed, because the worst thing to do when you have a bad experience with someone is to simply write them off forever.
"We don't know the actual areal density [of a 750GB/platter drive], but it would seem to be 50 per cent greater than that of a 500GB/platter drive."
That'd be so -- unless they're using some new Thin As-in Reduced-Dimension Interior Sidewall technology to fit much larger platters into the same form-factor...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
