* Posts by Laie Techie

54 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007

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'Bladdered' Utah couple cuffed in church lawn sex outrage

Laie Techie

Re: Mormons?

I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the largest Mormon sect). Please refer to us as LdS to distinguish us from the FLDS and other splinter groups.

Salt Lake City is only 40% LdS, despite hosting the world-wide Headquarters and largest LdS temple (two separate buildings).

The LdS Church sees all sex outside the bonds of marriage, so if this couple are LdS they were acting outside the teachings of the Church. The LdS also has one of the largest charities in the world, so very few members live on the street.

Not all LdS wear temple garments - just those who have been through the temple. These garments are holy vestments, but not considered magic. Many other sects have clergy where the ministry is their full-time employment. The LdS Church has a lay clergy and open priesthood, so our holy vestments were designed to not get in the way of our 9 to 5 while still serving as a reminder of our covenants.

Finally, the couple was outside a Catholic chapel. Btw, Catholicism is the second largest denomination in Utah.

OkCupid falls out of love with 'anti-gay' Firefox, tells people to see other browsers

Laie Techie

Ender's Game

Are the same people up in arms over this who boycotted Ender's Game because of Card's views on same sex marriage?

Eich used his personal money to promote his personal views six years ago. He does not use Mozilla Foundation money for political propaganda. Choose your browser based on features.

Amazon, Hollywood, Samsung: PLEASE get excited about 4K telly

Laie Techie

Content Delivery

Wait until HDMI 2.0 is widely adopted and there is a standardized physical format for content. We are mirroring the "HD-ready" era when TVs had the pixels for 1080 content, but no standard way to transmit content.

Boffins devise world's HARDEST tongue-twister

Laie Techie

A Flea and a Fly

A flea and a fly in the flue

Said, My gosh, what shall we do?

Let's flee, said the fly.

Let's fly, said the flea.

So they flew

through a flaw in the flue.

Mandatory HTTP 2.0 encryption proposal sparks hot debate

Laie Techie

Re: No need for additional IP's

> You can have as many name-based virtual hosts you like on one IP. Also with SSL - it's called Server Name Indication (SNI), and any reasonably modern browser supports it. I am quite sure this will be a requirement for implementing HTTP/2.

Certificate exchange takes place before the client tells which hostname it wants; therefore, the server can send at most one certificate. Certificates which allow multiple domains (and not just multiple hostnames) are still expensive, limiting their use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#TLS_handshake

Does 'Star Wars' casting call hint at DEATH of LUKE SKYWALKER?

Laie Techie

Re: Han Solo

> Glasgow eh? So they're going for the genetically disadvantaged offspring of Luke and Leia then?

Um, according to the canon, Leia marries Han. Luke has multiple failed marriages before his courtship with Mara.

Do Not Track W3C murder plot fails by handful of votes

Laie Techie

When DNT was first being discussed, there were the same kind of discussion. There is no technical way to force ad producers to NOT track viewers of said ads. DNT is just a header saying "please, don't track me"; there is no enforcement. The very TCP/IP protocols require the IP address to be in the packet headers (w/o this information, the server wouldn't know where to send the reply).

I like the idea of not being tracked, but we're at the mercy of the ad-servers.

ICANN approves Arabic, Russian and Chinese global domain spaces

Laie Techie

Multiple ways for the same visual result

Unicode includes combining characters (eg. put an acute accent on any other character). However, there are single character representations of the most common ones. Is there a plan on how to normalize this in URLs? Will á (u0225) be treated differently than á (a + u0301)?

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

Then there's the whole issue of full-width vs half-width characters. Phishers dream, indeed.

US parents proclaim 811 'Messiahs'

Laie Techie

Re: Brazil

Dezêncio Feverêncio de Oitenta-Cinco (Born on February 10, 1985)

Um Dois Três de Oliveiro Quatro (1 2 3 de Oliveira, the Fourth)

Noite da Paixão (Night of Passion)

José Rolando Pra Cima Pra Baixo da Rua (Joseph Rolling up and down the street)

Snowden's email provider gave crypto keys to FBI – on paper printouts

Laie Techie

Re: Thanks Mr. Levison

<quote> Currently, I have posted a statement on the login page that I have not received any secret orders and should the notice disappear, users should take heed.</quote>

There are three main reasons for the notice to disappear:

1. The NSA spying thing blows over, so you remove it

2. You receive an order to remove such a notice

3. You receive an order which makes the notice false.

Only 1 in 5 Americans believe in pure evolution – and that's an upswing

Laie Techie

Intelligent Design in School

Wording on questions greatly influences the replies given.

Should Creationism and / or Intelligent Design be taught in school?

I am a conservative Christian (though I disagree with the Tea Party Republicans!) whose father is a well-known biologist. I personally believe that evolution is a tool God used in the Creation. I don't read Genesis as 7 literal 24-hour days.

I don't believe that Intelligent Design or Creationism should be taught as Science, but may be appropriate for Social Science. Science demands empirical evidence and reproducibility. Religion is too subjective. State-run schools should not promote one set of religious beliefs above another. If I had to learn about Ku, Lono, and the other Hawaiian deities in Social Studies, why not the Christian God, Buddha, or the Lady worshiped by Wiccans?

Microsoft offloads heap of critical fixes in 'ugly' Patch Tuesday

Laie Techie

Re: Bah!

When you see hundreds of updates in *nix, it's looking at all software installed through a package manager (such as apt) and not just updates for the OS itself. That's like blaming M$ for the Flash update for Windows.

Feds charge man in $1m 'Dr Evil' scam to blackmail Mitt Romney

Laie Techie

RE: Blackmail

<QUOTE>QUOTE 'The blackmailer offered to release the mysterious documents if $1m was paid into a separate Bitcoin account.'

I'm not sure that is how blackmail works, isn't it the other way around?</QUOTE>

Please RTFS before opening your mouth (RTFM is too high a bar for El Reg). The black mailer threatened to publish Romney's alleged tax documents if Romney (or the GOP) failed to pay the million dollars *OR* if a million dollars were posted to a separate account before Romney caved.

FLABBER-JASTED: It's 'jif', NOT '.gif', says man who should know

Laie Techie

JIFF?

I pronounce GIF with a hard-g to distinguish it from that other graphics format, the JIFF.

Apple 'slashes iPhone 5 screen orders', tight-fisted fanbois blamed

Laie Techie

Problems

Perhaps people haven't forgotten about the iPhone 5's major problems.

1. The map application. While Google Maps is available as a third-party add-on, there's no way (short of jail breaking) to make Google Maps the default map app. Even with Jail breaking, it is still impossible to open Google Maps when clicking on an address in the list of contacts. This CAN be fixed by Apple through software, but it is unlikely.

2. The crystals used to protect the camera lens give photos a purple haze under certain circumstances. Since this is a hardware problem, Apple cannot fix this without releasing the next version of the iPhone. Will Apple admit their faulty design and give us a camera worthy of 2013?

Fatty French Kilogram needs a new-year diet, say Brit boffins

Laie Techie

Re: 1 Gallon H2O = 10lbs

It depends on which gallon.

1 fluid ounce (US) of water equals 1 ounce, which means that a pint (US) is a pound. There are 8 pints per gallon, so 1 gallon H2O = 8lb.

When working with aquariums, we round to 10 pounds to allow for rocks, plants, and fish.

OMG! Aaaah! Apple TV! Yes! No ... Probably! Sometime!

Laie Techie

Duke Nukem Forever?

If you wait long enough, it just might become reality - look at Duke Nukem Forever.

Apple CEO: Frothing fanboi iPhone 5 hype screwed our sales

Laie Techie

Connectors

Why buy an iPhone 4S with the legacy 30-ping connector when it seems all but confirmed that the iPhone 5 will have a 19-pin connector? Any kit I buy for the iPhone 4S will need an adapter to work with newer versions.

Crap PINs give wallet thieves 1-in-11 jackpot shot

Laie Techie

Re: Re: You carry your birth date around with you?

> Driving license photocards probably, although I don't carry mine around.

Here in the US it's against the law to drive without your drivers license with you.

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?

Laie Techie

[quote]The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.[/quote]

The word SOPA means soup in Portuguese. Does that mean the govt wants to turn this country into a soup kitchen?

A word's meaning in a foreign language only comes into play when the original context (in English) was inspired by that other language. I doubt more than a handful of our congressmen know Swedish.

Android devs get schooled on style

Laie Techie

"Don't Make Me Think"

"Don't Make Me Think" should be required reading for anyone in UI design.

Google's social search mash gets EPIC FAIL

Laie Techie

Integration

Google was upfront about this. When they released the +1 button, one of the stated purposes was to *someday* use the ratings people in your circles give a certain resource in order to personalize search results for you. It would also indicate which people in your circles voted the resource up. The ratings of people outside my circles should not affect my search results, so to avoid spam, don't follow spammers.

Report: Popular CAPTCHAs easily defeated

Laie Techie

Alternatives?

It is time to move past image-based CAPTCHA. image-based CAPTCHA doesn't work for blind people or those with images disabled and are increasingly easier for computers to solve.

We need a CAPTCHA which is accessible, easy for humans, and near impossible for computers. My own site has a bank of hundreds of questions and acceptable answers. This makes sure my posters have enough intelligence to productively participate, but does discriminate somewhat against people without a strong grasp of the English language. This bank supports multiple correct answers to account for alternate spellings, writing numbers out in numerals or words, etc. You would be surprised that no bot has correctly answered the question "Is ice hot or cold?"

Another approach would be to place a honeypot - something which looks like a CAPTCHA in the HTML code but doesn't appear when rendered by a browser. Bots would attempt to solve the CAPTCHA, but humans (not seeing the puzzle) would leave it blank. This approach will only work as long as it is in the minority or if it sometimes displays a true CAPTCHA to its visitors.

Would you trust a dot-bank site more than a dot-com?

Laie Techie

Credit Unions?

Here credit unions make a big deal about how they're different from banks. Would credit unions actually apply for a bank TLD?

iPhone 5 now set for October launch

Laie Techie

Upgrade?

I upgraded from iPhone 1 to iPhone 4, so I won't upgrade to iPhone 5 this year anyway. I'll reevaluate the situation in 2012.

AT&T's iPhone 4 drops 2.5 times as many calls as Verizon's

Laie Techie

Captions

The question asked was: "Over the past 90 days, how frequently have you experienced a dropped call on your iPhone 4?" The graphs show a single percentage per carrier. Does Verizon's 1.8% mean that only 1.8% of Verizon customers in the survey experienced /any/ dropped calls, or that Verizon customers averaged 1.8% of their calls being dropped?

Firefox 4 now one beta away from Release Candidate status

Laie Techie

Every Firefox Beta?

I think Firefox 4 is almost to the status of Duke Nukem Forever in that it's taking forever to be released. Firefox has been plagued by bugs which keep pushing back the expected release date. That's the real news, the reason beta releases get so much coverage at El Reg.

Verizon iPhone 4 jailbroken – already

Laie Techie

Why Jailbreak?

Jailbreaking will allow you to install apps not sanctioned by St. Jobs. It won't change the hardware, so it will still only be able to connect to the CDMA networks

Jackson's Hobbit movies back on track

Laie Techie

Other works

IIRC, New Line Cinema only has rights to The Hobbit and the six books collectively referred to as The Lord of the Rings. New Line cannot borrow from the other books without getting into legal trouble. HOWEVER, The Lord of the Rings does contain much background information (which is fleshed out in the other works) which is unencumbered.

Memo to Microsoft, RIM, Nokia: Quit copying Apple!

Laie Techie

Apple stole GUI?

As I've heard it, Apple didn't steal the UI from Xerox. Xerox developed the GUI for internal use. Apple saw it and and asked Xerox permission to use it in their new OS. Xerox agreed. Microsoft stole that GUI from Apple, and when Apple threatened to sue, Microsoft threatened to not release any more software for the Mac OS. Apple relented.

4G networks can screw up cable TV

Laie Techie

RE: Surely Virgin are OK

Most cable companies provide fiber to the house; the inside of the house still uses coax.

Apple refuses frozen iPhone repair

Laie Techie

No biggie?

Growing up in Hawaii, I'd say "small kine" ("kine" being Pidgin for "kind" or "type"). I relocated to the U.S. mainland for work where "no biggie" is common.

Back on topic, I wasn't aware of the temperature limitations of the iPhone. I used my phone in 5F (-15C) weather and the biggest problem was trying to keep my fingers warm. On these cold mornings I miss the stylus.

Blu-ray barely better than DVD

Laie Techie

Setup?

OK, just a few questions:

1. Was the DVD played in a Blu-ray player? Most (all?) Blu-ray players have an algorithm to "upscale" or "up convert" SD (standard definition) content to "near HD quality". With each generation, these algorithms are getting better.

2. What is the native resolution (480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) and size of the TV, and viewing distance? If the screen is too small or you are sitting too far away, of course some of the details of Blu-ray will be lost. This is doubly true if the TV doesn't support native 1080p.

Google ordered to pay out for automated defamation

Laie Techie

Buy African Slaves?

It wasn't too long ago when searching on the term "African slaves" returned links to "Buy African Slaves". Algorithms need to be monitored and improved to avoid such mistakes.

The Frenchman in question was convicted of "corrupting a minor", so he *might* have served time in prison, in which case the suggested search was legit. Did the corruption include rape? If so, Google's algorithm was within acceptable limits on that suggestion, too.

Coder cooks up Java-built Flash Player

Laie Techie

float vs Float

Tom,

Float is a class, float is a primitive type. pixels[pixels.length+1] will throw an ArrayindexOutOfBoundsException, thus breaking out of the loop.

Xmas kicks off on 2 August

Laie Techie

Christmas Every Day

Aren't we supposed to carry the Christmas Spirit throughout the year?

Where I'm at, there are craft stores which do carry Christmas projects year round, but they only start playing the carols after Thanksgiving.

I'm also with the person above who suggested buying Christmas decorations *after* Christmas when stores are giving them away. I bought an artificial tree for $30 which retails for $350. I throw away all old lights and buy new strands (guaranteed to work) for a buck.

iPhone 4 fix to centre on software, negate need for recall

Laie Techie

Personal Observations

This is purely anecdotal, but I had the original iPhone for 2.5 years with a minimum number of dropped calls. In fact, I can't think of one dropped call in the past year. I got my iPhone 4 on Wednesday, and I've already had 10 dropped calls. I don't have a death grip, my hands don't sweat profusely, etc. It's bad enough I may actually buy the bumper.

iPhone 4 fever takes hold. Again

Laie Techie

Just a phone?

It's a smart phone, so it's more than just a phone. It's a phone, camera, PDA, personal music player, and web browser. Other smart phones offer the same, but still, the iPhone 4 is more than just a phone.

Facebook forces users to expose or remove connections

Laie Techie

Facebook for co-workers?

I limit Facebook to friends and family; Colleagues can connect to my LinkedIn profile. My boss and co-workers don't need to see photos from my vaction or know which tv shows I follow. LinkedIn is much more business / profession oriented. My LinkedIn account has an up-to-date resume and list of activities related to my career.

3-million-km-long comet plunges into Sun

Laie Techie

Celcius to Kelvin

> Nope, 100,000 celcius = 100,000 - 273.15 kelvin, or 99,726.85 degrees kelvin.

0 C (freezing point of water at sea level on earth) = 273.15 K

100,000 C = 100,000 + 273.15 K = 100,273.15 K

Maybe math classes in the US aren't as bad as I thought ...

New iPhone to land in US on 7 June

Laie Techie

Time to upgrade?

I have a first generation iPhone (gift from my company). Every May I'd get excited by the rumors of the next iPhone, just to be disappointed by the actual specs.

Now rumor has it that my iPhone won't support iPhone OS 4.0 with its multitasking and other cool features. Is it finally time to bite te bullet and buy a new phone?

Copernicus reburied with full Catholic honours

Laie Techie

RE: Can't by a hypothesis

> Have to have an observation from which to draw a conclusion.

Religion tries to explain observations. The ancients saw the sun be born every morning and die every evening, so they came up with different theories (a dragon swallows the sun at night, the sun is a chariot, etc). Just because there is no scientific evidence to back up these hypotheses and you don't agree with them, doesn't mean they aren't hypotheses.

I, personally, have observed things in my own life which I ascribe to Supreme Being. When talking about such things, I preface it with an indicator of my level of confidence, such as "I believe".

iPad security broken in less than 24 hours

Laie Techie

Apple Approved

When I look at the way Apple is handling this, I am reminded of that eternal September. of 1993 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September ). Once again we have loads of newbies gaining access to a technology. If one of the n00bs installs a virus or whatever, they blame Apple who would have to provide support for and clean up after 3rd party applications. Apple decided to go the other route, only allowing applications they (supposedly) verify won't destroy the iPod / iPad / iPhone. No more support calls from a wannabe hacker ssh-ing into the iPhone and /accidentally/ running "rm -rf /" as root, thus turning their device into a brick.

I don't agree with Apple's stance, but at least I understand it.

Apple to reveal hallowed iPhone 4.0 on Thursday

Laie Techie

iPhone OS 4.0?

I've been waiting for confirmation on the new hardware :(

Mozilla births first Thunderbird 3.1 beta

Laie Techie

Birth is a verb and a noun

The dictionary says birth can be used as a noun.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/birth

Carlos Slim is world's richest man, Bill Gates now number two

Laie Techie

Charity

Bill Gates could have still been on top if he didn't donate so much to his Bill and Mellisa Gates Foundation.

Also, I wonder how much is in stocks. Remember Black Wednesday when Bill lost $40B when the stock market crashed?

Chips make you chipper: Official

Laie Techie

Water Pipes Freeze in Winter

Reminds me of the study years back which found that water pipes are more likely to freeze during winter than during summer.

Jedi chapter seeks leader after master resigns

Laie Techie

Disturbance in the Force?

> A true Jedi wouldn't need to know the location of the meetings but would sense the disturbance

> in the force?

Um, refreshments are *AFTER* the meeting's over...

Windows 8 possible July 2011 release?

Laie Techie

Windows Final?

> About Windows 8, they should release it on the 31st December 2012, and call it Windows Final.

i thought the Mayan calendar ends on 21 December, not 31 December.

Next from Apple: The Pocket iPad

Laie Techie

El Reg or The Onion?

The past few days, I've spotted articles on El Reg which are better suited to The Onion. Is this to be the norm? I like humor as much as the next guy (can't wait for the next episode of BOFH), but El Reg needs to maintain some decorum appropriate for a news source.

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