Posts by max allan 264 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Mar 2007
Will we finally be able to see that people really went to the moon and the bits and bobs Apollo missions left behind?
Of course, if NASA could fake the moon landing videos presumably they can fake some photos of the site from orbit.
I can just about believe we made it, I can't believe we've never been back.
"Grr" to space exploration policies.
Well, you can combine suggestion number 2 of ransom (and crank up the price a bit) with the cost of spectrum and we're at :
I'm Cisco and I'm releasing this P2P thing and if it doesn't work due to licensing, I'll shut down all your routers.
Or maybe they're going to use fricking laser beams instead of radio links.
" If only more companies would have the stones to forge their own path"
Consider Nokia and the "Ovi" store that is doing a whole App store and more. Not only can you download apps, music, video etc.. but they offer online storage as well and other future possibilities.
I haven't used it so can't really comment, but it sounds like it should blow Apple and Android away.
And yet it's not even well known by most nokia users, probably because you don't have to have it to run the phone (unlike Apple and iTunes) and their marketing are focused on the phone hardware rather than the surrounding fluffy clod of software (and yes I do mean clod not cloud)
"I suspect that many grumblers don't really dislike the BBC - it's just the Beeb now provides so many reasons for people to dislike its behaviour"
Sounds like Apple could come into the same situation. People don't dislike it, they just don't like it's behaviour of trying to stifle Android by hitting HTC and locking their hardware and software so you can't do what you want with it.
(In fact lots of people would very much like a shinier laptop)
Maybe this is going to be a humungous "SUCCESS" in that he says "we won't do it". Not because he cares but because he can't be bothered to pay for the dev effort. Then some code monkey does it anyway and maybe makes a few quid on the app store, probably will have to do it through Cydia as Apple might not approve it.
So Apple don't need to bother writing apps now, they just ship some bare hardware and all the fanboi developers do all the work of making it useful for them.
I guess next phase is they ship an empty shiny box and let someone else fill in the hardware.
Wouldn't the acceleration of a significantly high power gun pop the paintball in the barrel? (Imagine throwing a water bomb too hard and it popping in your hand)
It does seem like the whole idea has been done before in slightly different guise (igniting black powder instead of "fuel&air" in a musket rather than a paintball marker)
The cloud is the information superhighway with bricks in the fast lane.
User access is a shot in the dark with clucking service providers only providing the golden egg of maximum bandwidth to those born with a digital spoon in their mouths.
Cloud computing services from suppliers such as google can be compared a rose, they look very pretty but when you grasp them, they deliver thorns.
Cloud computing offers high specification applications to devices with little computing power however bandwidth gobbling applications are like treacle to download to mobile devices which are then overloaded by the content like a hotel under a tsunami.
We asked the man in the street what he thought of cloud computing and he said :
"Ts all a waste o moi toime. I downladed one o them there clouds once and since then oi ken only see email from my bank iccoun in green and it stopped workin"
So, do we really need cloud computing or is it all a waste of money that the government shouldn't be investing in?
As a 35 year old I realise I'm on the edge, but I find Radio 1 is generally pushing out teen crap and I only listen to Radio 1 because it's the only music channel I can reliably receive on my way to work.
So why do they need R1 and 1 Extra to appeal to the same audience when they haven't got anything but 6 music targetting the slightly older generation?
(No Radio 2 doesn't hit the mark. It was for my parents when they were my age and it's still aimed at them now)
There are so many other things they could cut down on that no one is going to miss...
BBC FAIL
"if your application stops talking to Windows, Windows will want to kill it."
How about "if your application stops talking to the user, the user can decide to kill it." ?
I don't care if my app is talking to Windows as long as it's still talking to me. If there is some sort of progress indicator, I'll leave it to complete.
I'm still on XP, but I often see apps that Windows says aren't responding, that are still usable and some that windows is happy with, that aren't responding to me.
So whichever thread gets busy doesn't really matter to the end user. Just make the damn thing work and windows sod off and leave me to make my decisions "It looks like your program is trying to write a letter, do you want me to help with that?" (Remember the f$"£ing paperclip)
OK, so if we can force the computing device to have a single bit error, how do we know the multiplication it's doing is part of the SSL calculation and not deciding how much memory to (de)allocate or the address data in an array etc... any of which is highly likely to make the machine so unstable that it falls on it's arse.
So, unless we're really lucky we're going to loose those 4 bits we were looking for (unless it's a sensible machine and does a core dump, which would only be readable by an "admin" priv user, who can read the private key anyway)
So, we've got a machine on it's back. Now wait half an hour for someone to notice, wander in and reboot it.
And they managed to get 8800 of these errors in 100 hours?
Even assuming a rapid reboot cycle of only 5 minutes between shutdowns and assuming that your single bit error always hits SSL processing and you can get the data out (including the time required for the SSL stack to become available and you to initiate a calculation and refiddle the PSU) only gives 1200 instances.
For manufacturers to "get round" the problem, they only need to encrypt half their content (say every other KB or maybe less than half 1K in 10...) and then the chances of you hitting the PSU frig button at the same time as you're doing some SSL calcs are minimised.
Or have I completely misunderstood something?
It doesn't matter where it's aimed, it's going to hit anything standing anywhere near the target. And don't think it won't, copyright holders' lawyers will start using it as an excuse to try and get all sorts of stuff banned. Even if they don't succeed, it's probably our tax money that will end up paying the court costs to sort it out.
Why do people who have no idea about what they are legislating for get the power to make legislation.
They're still talking about "websites". Don't they realise that the internet is not just websites now, it's P2P, NNTP, RTSP and more.
Also, ever heard of "virtual hosting" where multiple websites share the same IP address.
stupid, stupid stupid...
Basically, once anything is in digital form, it's copyable and distributable. As soon as everyone gets over that, life will be a lot easier for all concerned.
Companies will stop complaining because they'll realise there is no revenue in CD/DVD sales. They'll have to make the money on cinema or live show ticket sales instead. And artistes will have to make money out of public appearances and branded goods etc...
Why are films in particular so expensive, because the "mega stars" demand so much money. Why do they demand so much? Because they can. If the film companies didn't have that money to spend then they'd get someone equally as good, just not as famous/expensive.
I remember talking to a chap, I think it was about the Falklands. He (and his team) spent a day or so sneaking/fighting to the top of a hill to plant a rebroadcaster to get radio comms from the commanders at the back to the front line troops. Within about half an hour of switching it on it was blown into lots of very small pieces, several times.
So, try that with a 3G/GSM mast and you're going to get the same problem.
I can see the error message now :
"Network connection cannot be established, please check your nearest transmitter hasn't been shot to bits"
(NB while GSM signal can go a long way, it's only useful for about 30Km, apparently due to some timing delay issue. So I've been told.)
Why does everyone have all this bad attitude.
Would you rather a "yankee spy wagon" drove round taking photos or that they just did it from space with a satellite and said "F*** you we can do what we want anyway" ?
They don't photograph your house from any angle that someone can't see it while walking/driving past. So what you're really saying is that you're so ashamed of your house that you'd rather nobody saw it.
The "intelligence" use is useless for most purposes but the most general individual uses rather than police / military action.
Get over your selves luddites.
"Oh no chaps, steam engines are taking all our jobs. In a hundred years we'll all be out of work and reduced to whining on forums about stuff that we can't change"
If it were my company, I'd just say "Oh well, no more US sales, I'll concentrate on Europe" and leave it at that. Preferably closing down all my US operations and removing all the money from the country the day before the court case.
Then just let Apple stew in their own apple juices.
The American operators and customers will soon get annoyed enough to buy HTC kit anyway on the grey market.
Although I do have some sympathy with people who have had genuine ground breaking inventions, this seems to be Apple throwing together a whole bunch of buzzwords in different sequences, patenting them and then waiting for someone to invent something that they can make fit one of their combos.
Rather than investing loads of money in coming up with a whole new idea.
I actually like Apple products, I had an iPhone and an iMac. They avoid most of the crap "your system is broken" errors and other problems with Windows and a lot of the annoyance around partially finished software on Linux (your software isn't finished until you've written a decent manual for it! and I don't mean an INSTALL how-to and "self documenting code")
So, you know you've got patient John Smith on the table, no idea where he lives or his age, so from all the John Smiths in the country, you can at least determine that he is allergic to everything, currently taking everything (even though he is allergic to it) and has recently been diagnosed with everything.
So, the name has been precisely no use at all.
Of course, if he's clever enough to have his name and address you could probably take an educated guess about his nearest GP and maybe phone them up and say "not too many details but if I give this chap an injection of xxx will it kill him"
But if he's going to the trouble of keeping his name and address with him, he could probably keep his allergy/prescription/illness list there too, just in case.
Of course, if he's on holiday and foreign, he won't be in the system anyway.
"the same weight on the net as off the net" and this "threat" has no weight wherever it's made if it's made in a public in a jokey way that makes the writer identifiable.
If he'd posted it to the airport and taken care not to get any finger prints /DNA on it then it would be a different matter. I think we can all agree that anyone stupid enough to publicly announce who they are and what/when their terrorist plans are is unlikely to have the skills required to do much damage...
Although, I think anyone making a joke these days is well advised to make sure it's clearly a joke and add "lol" or a smiley face. At least then if it does come up in court you can always prove that it was only ever intended as humour.
For example :
Question : Do you get 5 foot high penguins?
Answer : No
Humorous response : Oh cr*p, I just ran over a nun.
I don't now expect the police to turn up at my house and start examining my car for blood and nun damage or phoning the local nunnery asking if any nuns are AWOL.
Oh, hold on, is that the sound of sirens I can hear...
No officer, I'll come quietly, just let me get my coat.
Have a look at Vodafone's Sure Signal. Sure the user can turn it off/on or mess with it's internet bandwidth but apart from that it appears to be completely voda managed over it's VPN. (the user can limit the cell to only his own phones as well but this is a feature not a requirement)
NB Has anyone taken on of these apart or hacked it to see if you could set up your own home telco?
If you use Quidco, you can get the money back yourself. I think it's 10% of the ebay fees on any purchase you make get paid back to you.
I know, everyone's going to say "Quidco, isn't that a scam?" No, it isn't. I've had money off them.
Of course if your cookies have been stuffed, then you probably won't get any Quidco money.
(It does say you should always clear your cookies before trying to use one of their offers)
Looking at the number of other services that offer "free money" like that, I think cookie stuffing could be VERY profitable. (I've had £220 from Quidco and rarely remember to use it properly)
If someone wants to sell something, why shouldn't they?
As other people have said, if I go to the trouble of learning how to do something, that cost me my time. Why should I be denied opportunity to charge someone to recover some value from that.
Even if they are simply putting the software on a CD and shipping it out, or even just sending you a link to the dev team website, they put the time in finding out where the dev team are and then went to the effort of selling the information. (including setting up their own website for it)
However you slice it, anyone objecting to someone doing business is on dodgy ground unless you want to bring just about the whole world back to the dark ages.
Anyone with insufficient tech skill to do their own google search for iphone unlocking and find the dev team probably need a simpler service than the yellowsn0w, redsn0w, ultrasn0w, pwnage and whatever else nightmare tangle of bits and bobs you need to unlock.
I expect when steam engines were coming into fashion, Mr Ludd was writing similar articles about the danger of machinery replacing people, etc....
Don't fear the change, consider how to profit from it. If Ludd had spent less time objecting and more time learning about engines he could have made some money and advanced society forward.
Extreme example : In future criminals will know when you leave your house (and where it and you are) and be able to plan their break-ins accordingly. So, instead of fighting the fact, embrace it. Start a service that "fakes" data about someone being at home. Or a "virtual companion", a profile of a scary kick boxer with convictions for killing muggers that single vulnerable people can go for a walk with.
Hmm, does posting to the Reg count as prior art in a patent dispute??? Bye.
Let me get this right, you're going to change your OS and hardware because you saw some people dancing in a shop???
What other shopping decisions could be influenced like this? "Reggae Reggae sauce" maybe?
How about all the Sony store employees all singing the current number one chart hit to get you to buy Sony or the Bose store people putting on a "spontaneous" performance of "West Side Story" to make you buy overpriced hifi.
Do the great unwashed masses really base their high value purchasing decisions on the flimflam of advertising and marketing ??? I despair for the human race.
(As opposed to a bit of research and actually using the product in the shop)
This is so obviously planned, practiced and rehearsed. You can see some background shoppers trying to join in and see what happens with real "spontaneous" dancing. They all do different moves at different times.
After some playing with them when I worked for Three, I settled on the music from 2001 (sorry can't remember it's name. Goes beeeeeeeep, beeeep, badam, dom, dom, dom...)
Anyway, the deal with these is that the phone rings once normally, then switches to the music. So people would hear "ring" then "beeeeep" assume the call had dropped/gone wrong and call someone else.
Lo and behold my quotient of annoying calls from people who didn't know me but wanted to ask pointless questions dropped hugely. I'd still get the first ring while the phone was in my pocket, but if I wasn't too quick on the draw, they went away.
I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them.
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
It's the next best thing to the people who are asking for a "f%£$ off" "ring tone" (as I think 3 were calling them then.)
The point of unlocking is not to deny anyone profits. I'd be happy to buy a sensibly priced iPhone without a simlock if it were available. In fact I've come close to buying one with the PAYG option. The provider can't assume they are going to make money off me with PAYG because I normally only use a mobile for incoming calls. So I'm not taking any of their profit by putting a different operator's SIM in.
(I'm either at my desk with a desk phone or at home with a phone. I drive between the 2 locations, but don't call on the road. Any other time I might be out and about, I'd probably rather be doing what I went out to do than talking to other people)
In fact, I'd be better off with an internet tablet, like the nokia N800 than an iphone, but the iphone's nicer.
If I provide you a network, then anything you send over it can be read by me. Simple as that.
If these so called security professionals at a conference didn't understand that, then they don't deserve their jobs.
Who is to say that whoever runs the conference centre's network wasn't dishonest and stealing passwords, or whoever runs the ISP doing that, etc...
It's probably not hard in a conference centre for someone with a bit of tech savvy to install a wiretap on the whole building's internet connection. (get a few mates to complain about the network, then turn up in overalls, wave a badge "I'm here to fix your network", probably wouldn't even need that much cunning, you just need to find the right cable!)
Remember:
Always encrypt your data (it's "httpS" people, it's not hard)
Trust nobody.
Question authority.
Give me your passwords. No, you don't need to know why, you can trust me.
Reminds me of the time when beancounters and IT bods came to an understanding.
The finance system had been a bit over specced. One month end, the finance director actually came over to IT and asked for help. Apparently he'd forgotten to run a really important report just before month end processing started. So, after a few moments and a point in time recovery to a "spare" part of the cluster, we got him to log in and run his report.
Afterwards he said "I was a bit unsure about signing off the very large PO for this system, but now, I'm so glad I did".
His trust in IT's decision to design some spare capacity had been amply rewarded. And we knew we could trust him for a few "upgrades" in future.
No bricks required, just a potential disaster.
The front page has all the information I want to see from an ISP, basically the price per month. A few useful links for potential and current customers.
I logged in to the members area and got my own details back. The forums and member areas have always been shocking pink.
Who ever goes to their ISP's "home" page anyway? I go on the net to find other stuff.
Compare it with Tiscali for example, there are no animated news feeds, no links for fashion advice or holidays, no high bandwidth images of words... I don't want any of that and I REALLY hate jpgs with text in. Totally unneccessary.
In short, I like it.
I like to send back my junk mail in the prepaid envelopes. I try to make sure to fold it so that it's thicker than the post offices cheap letter rate. If you take all the stuff they send you and the original envelope, you can normally fold it into quarters and make quite a bulge.
I don't know if the PO bother totting up these extras or not. Roof slates certainly sound like a good idea, but I doubt they'd fit in the prepaid envelope.
I do normally have the kindness to write "NO THANKS" across the application form in black marker pen. Just so they realise that I don't actually want a new credit card/whatever when they've opened it.
If Windows can't fix it, like in about 99% of the situations where I've ever seen problems you've got no other help. At least someone who understands what's going on in Linux can get a meaningful error message or status out of it, rather than windows which may as well just blow a raspberry at you as print any of it's "your system has a configuration problem" "OK" error messages.
No it's not flipping well OK that something went wrong, and it's even less OK that you can't tell me what went wrong so I can fix it.
That said I have been disappointed with Ubuntu 8.10 and it's network applet. The network applet only actually permanently changes your network config if you go hack some config files. (unless you want the default DHCP option!) This is the sort of idiot problem that turns people off Linux. If the GUI tool doesn't do everything it needs to do for "what it says on the tin" to happen then it's worse than worthless, it's deliberately misleading people. I don't care if the config files that it needs to edit belong to some other area of the system, either go ahead and edit them anyway OR pop up a warning box "This tool won't be effective unless you manually do..."
I just switched to OpenSolaris instead and haven't found any such glaring cockups yet.
Anyway, back on topic of idiot American, I expect she bought laptop with ubuntu because ubuntu was cheaper than vista.
This is a good thing and a step forward by stepping backwards.
Firstly, no big colour display so you've got a chance of a decent battery life.
Second, Bluetooth. You won't be talking at your wrist or listening to MP3 from a crappy speaker, you'll do that with a bluetooth headset. At the worst with wired head phones/set.
Finally if you don't want it on your wrist, it's presumably going to be small enough that you can ditch the strap and pop it in your wallet , hang it round your neck squeeze it into your shoe or whatever else you want. If it has a halfway decent voice dialing / recognition you never even need to see the unit, just say the names/numbers/commands to it over BT as you need. Major data entry (your whole address book) will probably need a PC to dump onto it anyway.
(SMS could be a bit tricky without the unit but I'm sure someone can think of a workaround)
All you nay sayers : use a bit of imagination!
I'm on Be and can confirm that I get about 12Mbit/s download consistently.
(And a slightly higher "sync" rate)
That's compared to virgin who had a consistent sync rate of around 8Mbit and a download speed of around 128Kbit/s or less in the evening. Normally around 3AM (not really peak surfing time) I'd get the full 8M. When I complained to support people I was told to patch windows (even though I had the same issues on Mac and various Unices) , then to install anti spyware/virus software etc. then ignored.
Be give you a day of discount when it's your birthday and have proactively warned me about planned maintenance that might affect me. The only minor problem I had with Be was dealt with by a person not a robot and a person with a bit of understanding as well.
And in case you're wondering, I work for a competitor who would give me a free broadband package, but I'd rather pay Be for it.
i didn't know McD's did free wifi for customers because I never even go through the door.
But now I might. I can imagine paying a couple of quid for a "Mcburger" (or whatever their cheapest item is, I really have no idea, "royale with cheese" maybe) and then binning it and using the wifi. It's still probably cheaper than the other wifi options available (5 pounds for an half hour, 7 for an hour or 8 for a day type pricing plans).
Or even approach other customers (many of whom would be confused by the idea of the internet "whit d joo meen ah cin git pikshoors n moosic offov a wyur when there innt no wyur?) and ask for their receipt with the password printed on, then sit just outside or even scavenge receipts off the discarded trays (if you don't mind looking like a real freak for free wifi).
"Everybody be cool, this is a wifi robbery. Any of you punks go online and I'll execute every mother%£%@ing last one of you"
" in some instances demanding up-front payments from retailers before the goods are even shipped"
Those pesky wholesalers, demanding that someone pay for something before they'll send it out. I just can't imagine how the retailers will survive now that they're going to have to have made some profit before they can buy something else to sell...
I wonder if we can reverse the whole situation : local supermarkets let me take as much shopping as I like and then I only have to pay for it when I use it.
Or, Christmas presents that I give out now and only have to pay for when the bill comes in, after the 25th December.
That would solve the credit crunch!
If you're a chrome user, you can't create email (unless it's just me!).
Hit reply and you get a blank message that you can't type into with the recipient's addresses at the top.
Hit "New" message and you get a similar blank page that you can't type into and address/subject that you can type into.
The font / format buttons are disabled as well.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this?
My nvidia 768MB 9600 gts that I bought about a year ago is still going strong. I have to play at 1920x1200 (otherwise my monitor decides it needs to stretch the image, even if I run at 960x600 (exactly half) it assumes I'm at 800x600 and I loose the edges.) and it's still good even at high res.
With most of the GFX settings on high the frame rate is occasionally a bit choppy but if you have a monitor that doesn't need such a high res it'll probably be fine. It's definitely playable.
Not very future proof though because nvidia won't do SLI on GTS cards if I read the SLI site properly.
<pedant>
App store is only used for iPhone 2.0 and above and you said that sipgate only works with up to 1.1.4....
Truphone is the only app I can find for >2.0 in app store.
</pedant>
So, I wonder if Germany will try and ban Truphone, which is available on current firmware iPhones, (from the app store.)
I had to find the postcode of a railway station recently to type into a map search website. A quick search of FGW's website gave no clue. After some more web searching, I gave up and phoned the customer service number. I was told that the postcode couldn't be given out "for security reasons".
No doubt a photo of the railway station is also prohibited "for security reasons". Watch out train spotters and lost people.
If you use MS Live to search for anything, you don't get any eBay results. I tried searching for cash and found cash registers, nothing from eBay though. If you don't find it on the MS live search, the cashback doesn't apply. So, even if this idea might have worked, it probably won't now. eBay aren't even listed as a "store" on the search site.
If I read the instructions right, you call SpookCall and your access number, then the number you want to appear as and the number you want to call.
Assuming you're happy to pay and their systems allow it, you could call +1 555 spookcall and then the "from" number as whoever you want (i.e. it could look like a UK number it doesn't have to be in US format) and the "to" number as +44...(i.e. a valid UK phone number with international code).
I don't know anything about how international phone calls work, but I'm assuming if the call ID in the US is spoofed, it carries over to the UK. It's probably an expensive method to "have a joke" though.
Why does everyone complain about plastic bags, not the content of the bags. Each bag has a miniscule mass, being quite flexible and thin. But by the time it's filled with groceries, there is probably 100 times as much hard plastic, almost none of which is recyclable by my local council (only plastic with certain numbers (6 or 7 from memory) can be accepted).
So, why is nobody whingeing about the hundreds of times more tons of plastic that is used as packaging?
I actually find carrier bags useful, for filling with soiled cat litter. If I didn't have a ready supply of bags at the supermarket, I'd have to buy them separately. (see the "litter locker" product for an example of how carrier bags are actually saving the environment)
It's just typical of our government to hit out at the easiest target : carrier bags, motorists, people without ID cards, etc... Plastic carrier bags can only be a fraction of the waste problem, but they are the easiest to complain about. Just make everyone use reusable card boxes, hessian or hempen sacks for carrying their shopping home instead. Then let them fill the carrier with a load of hard plastic wrapping a tiny item (e.g. a 1 inch long USB memory stick with plastic wrapper that is about A4 sized)
What alternative is there to individual product packaging? Expensive recyclable plastic instead of cheap last a million year stuff, glass (breakable, heavy), 'tin'/aluminium cans (probably ideal for most products, it's widely recyclable, probably more expensive than plastic though).
Someone please start an "anti plastic packaging on products" campaign.
I cancelled my Virgin contract after I got a letter (in the post, written on paper) telling me to decrease my download activites.
Their speed was shocking as well. My 8M connection would go down to about 128K in the evenings and back to 8M during the day for a couple of hours.
When I complained, they told me I needed to apply patches to my router or PC and make sure I didn't have any viruses.
I switched to BE and now I can get about 10-14M whenever I want it. (this is the max for my line considering loss/gain/power etc) Occasionally it dips to around 7 for a short while, but I've yet to decide if that's because I'm doing something else on the PC rather than the BE.
And BE gave me a day's free internet on my birthday. They seem a lot more "real people" than Virgin ever did, even when the "real person" in india was telling me "you are needing to be upgrading your internet provisioning routering firmware and making sure your computering isn't running any viruses".
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
