Posts by The Indomitable Gall

Meh...

The episode's main plot device is culturally specific anyway. It loses something when you spend the first half of the cartoon trying to work out what the heck they're on about!

That last picture...

What do you mean "camera cover" -- that's a screenshot from a new hi-definition version of Descent, isn't it?

There's an app for that...

Here, does the iPad support printers via USB breakout? I see a novelty freebie app coming on....

Best thing for it.

If it's up for sale, it's best off being bought by the French -- Nord-Pas-de-Calais make a phenomenal amount of money off sales taxes at "booze-cruise" hypermarkets and wine warehouses, and the biggest customers of the ferries are tourists heading to France and French haulier Norbert Dentressangle delivering goods to the UK.

A French-owned Calais would be an investment that would be expected to pay off in multiple ways -- sell it to a corporation and it's profit above all else.

I'm not in favour of privatisation, not by any stretch, but this xenophobic "not the froggies" nonsense is risible. If we sell, they're the best buyer.

There will be a camera, but...

Yes, there'll be a camera-equipped model -- it's inevitable.

However, this patent is not evidence of this. Even if they had no plans to make one themselves, it's in Apple's interest to make sure that every patent they make for the iPhone covers as many devices as possible, if only to make sure that anyone who wants to do it has to pay through the nose.

Not convinced...

Even aside from the "large only" thing, looking at the design, the only specific headphone conduit is from the iPod/MP3 pocket, so you can't even use your iPad as an oversized iPod.

What a great idea!

I don't shave often enough, I spend months between haircuts. It's all too much effort, but now I realise that I can get "positive results" from having my nose broken and reset -- all my problems are solved!!!

In all seriousness, saying anything positive about cosmetic surgery (ie non-reconstructive plastic surgery) is effectively talking up dysmorphia, which is a clinically recognised mental disorder.

Anyone who visits the cosmetic surgeon should be considered dysmorphic, and as such incompetent to give consent. And if a surgeon operates on someone incompetent to give consent, he must be struck off.

Yes, all cosmetic surgeons should be struck off.

Actually...

I reckon this is a fit up.

I'm pretty certain the next Barbie will be a computer engineer whichever way the public votes.

Why? Cross-selling: there will be a pink Barbie netbook computer on the shelves by Christmas, you mark my words.

Ooooooooooh.....

Ooooooh... the Rock Island Line is a mighty good road.

The Rock Island Line is the road to ride

The Rock Island Line is a mighty good road

There's a woman on the shitter,

Pulled the chain came back and hit 'er.

Gonna need a lot more paper

On the Rock Island Line....

Shipping report...

...Rockall, Force 4, N by NW; teacup, force 10...

At my primary school, we had kids dictionaries. Bigger print, simpler explanations, fewer rude words. This is not an affront to children's intelligence.

In some other schools, they used "proper" dictionaries, dirty words and all. This was not an affront to decency. (Heck, we even had the "big dictionary" at the front of the class too, and another in the library.)

To me, either policy is acceptable. If a particular school authority wants to change policy, that is acceptable too, and it's acceptable that a transitional period sees both in schools.

What is unreasonable and unacceptable is that both sides make this out to be a major human rights crisis, and that these rights have to be protected on an individual-by-individual basis.

It's not the kids who need to grow up, but everyone else.

(Besides, when does a kid really need a dictionary anyway?)

Cost of development...?

If it H.264 cost $5,000,000 for browser implementation, and there's now 5 major browsers (IE, FF, Opera, Chrome, Safari), that's 25 million dollars.

If we assume that they're going to make the same amount of money from consumer digital video devices, that's another 25 million, totalling 50 million dollars.

Then we take the assumption that they're planning to make more from commercial encoding (broadcast, DVD distribution, VoD sites) we're looking at least another 50 million.

So it would appear that they want over $100,000,000 for a video codec.

Did the spend an inordinate number of man-hours working on this, or are they taking just the pi[NO CARRIER]

Hmmm... can I see the odds?

I just have this nasty feeling that an orbital nuclear strike platform is more likely to be used for a military strike than against a catastrophic piece of space debris. Comparing the number of known catastrophic space debris strikes against the number of armed conflicts in human history doesn't leave you with favourable odds....

But coding is not the whole effort.

Testers and debuggers generate very very few lines of code, but they're not an insignificant part of the dev process.

Can we see a follow-up that examines paid-for testing. If Red Hat et al aren't putting doing their own thorough testing, they're setting themselves up for liability....

Old vs New problem

"Persuading users to use stronger passwords is an age-old problem that dates back to the dawn of the PC era."

It's not an old problem, it's a new problem.

In the old days, you had about 3 passwords; you had to convince the user to make them strong. Once they were strong, you could use them for a long time because they were secure. Because you didn't change them, you could remember them.

Now, we all have a dozen or so passwords. If we make them strong, they're hard to remember. The harder they are to remember, the more likely we are to reuse them. Because some people use weak passwords, corporate policies add a layer of security by forcing us to change them every few months.

I can remember every password I had on the computers at uni, because I used them frequently for a long time. My password for the office PC expires so quickly that I've barely learnt it by the time I'm asked to change it. The cognitive load is high, and every time I sit back down and unlock my PC, I have to filter out "noise" from half-a-dozen old and "other system" passwords before I get to log in.

So my passwords are getting weaker all the time as it's the only way to remember them.

It is a new problem -- it just looks similar to an old one.

Price rises.

As usual, a bunch of people say "why are you complaining"?

Google has got to the point where it rarely makes life any easier. Googlemail is presumably already turning a massive profit. If Google are increasing profits without improving UX, then it follows that Google are increasing prices (we are paying for Googlemail by our willingness to accept adverts) at no advantage to the user. It's a classic bait-and-switch: get them hooked on something cheap, then start turning the screw.

The cunning part of Google's plan is that the customer doesn't even realise he's paying!

Every day I hate my country more.

If this happened here, the ex-boss would be howling in indignation about lack of respect and lack of trust. Seems like in Australia, people are allowed to be human. Well fancy that -- human people.

Next thing we know...

...Simon Cowell will turn this into an X'Factor special.

X-Factor: A Song For South Africa

Easy...?

So go on, tell us: what's the security like?

Radius...?

Any word on how tightly it can be rolled when not in use?

Viewer tracking...?

"the ITU said the next generation of the technology will enable just that. It will require the transmission of multiple 3D images in parallel, each view selected as the playback system tracks the motion of the viewer."

What about people who (*gasp*) watch TV with friends and family? Which viewer exactly is the TV expected to track.

Only following orders, but admissibility...?

OK, so UK law protects "only following orders", but let me ask you this:

Is it not still the case that evidence illegally procured is inadmissible in court? As such, random stop-and-search is still a very bad idea, because even if by random luck you find a terrorist masterplan, the address book of the entire Al-Qaeda network and a nugget of weapons-grade plutonium, any attempts to prosecute would (or should) get thrown out of court (wrongful arrest, inadmissible evidence etc). Any attempts to get a court-order for surveillance would have to be turned down (again, no admissible evidence).

I don't suppose the Reg could ask the Home Office about that, could you?

Quite right, quite wrong.

* Quite right:

UFC is not suitable for children, so should not be automatically exempt. The sporting exemption should not extend to combat sports. The BBFC should, however, have the right to grant an automatic classification to sporting events carried out under the auspices of a sport's official governing body. The level of violence in competition karate, jiu-jitsu etc is heavily regulated and blood-letting is only ever the result of accidents. PG seems suitable, even without viewing the video. UFC has a predictable amount of blood and injury and it would be safe to say it should always have a mature rating, although I'm not sure whether 15 or 18 is more suitable.

* Quite right:

The modern music video is an entertainment artform, and is often constructed in the manner of a short film (consider the milk cartons in Blur's "Coffee and TV"). The exemption was based on the idea of a performance recording -- a band on stage, an orchestra in the orchestra pit, whatever. A true performance recording maybe should still be exempt, but why should a modern music video by treated differently from any other short film?

* Quite wrong:

That any parliament should introduce wide ranging powers under the justification of preventing the extreme and unarguable case. Publicising the extreme case is nothing more than misleading the public.

Lockdown...?

Lockdown, in an open source product? How does that work then?

Advice for the next poor sod to get taken hostage...

If you're ever taken hostage, tell your captors that if they kill you before releasing you, the capitalist dogs won't have to pay your wages, but if they keep you alive for a couple of years you will be able to attack the cold hard of the bourgeoisie with a massive overtime claim.

Blocked IP addresses?

Simply solution: client software.

This could be as simply as a sand-boxed browser plugin that connects to Facebook for your and passes through communication between Facebook and DeFacebook or whatever it's called.

Establish precedent...?

Maybe the big concern is that this might establish precedent for considering BAE Systems a de facto American company and stop all the ridiculous UK government spending....

Native codecs...

" With the next preview release of Opera 10.5, it will add support for native video codecs, mirroring what Mozilla has done with Firefox. "

Praytell... will that mean adding in another set of codecs for each video type, or will it happily share the codecs that I installed for VLC?

You landed on the road WHY?!?!?

"According to Polzein he was forced to come down on the interstate to avoid an even more dangerous descent into trees."

Descending into trees put one man in danger. Descending on the interstate -- in an unlicensed, illegal vehicle -- puts dozens of lives in danger.

A man who takes risks should learn to accept the consequences.