Posts by Cameron Colley 2226 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Jun 2007
It's great to read an article by a journalist who isn't recycling the same old FUD.
Until more people start printing, and reading, articles like this the terrorists will have won. Every time I hear an announcement about vehicles being banned form stations, or similar, I know we live in a state controlled by terrorism.
"It takes anywhere from 2 to 7 seconds for a satellite image of the UK or Europe to start to load and the first request of the day is always the slowest."
2 to 7 seconds, to me, sounds high for a latency problem (a lot more than 100mS, for instance) -- are you sure the Met Office images aren't from another domain or sub-domain and this isn't a DNS issue? There is also the possibility that the delay is caused by a lookup from a database that feeds the site.
It seems that the US can't help but give us examples of their prudish, puritanical mindset. Wouldn't someone signing up to become a guard in a prison containing male inmates expect this kind of behaviour and, more importantly, why did she have to look at the offending area of the screen which, if the CCTV I've seen is anything to go by, will be a very small area anyway?
If you read the article again, you'll find they were determining whether some people who claim they can detect RF can actually detect RF -- I suspect this is because the most vociferous anti-mast people claim to have this ability.
What the study seems to show is that these people cannot "detect" RF any better than could be attributed to chance.
Perhaps you ought to contemplate this result next time you feel the need to leave the room whilst transferring files over your WLAN. You might also wish to think about this study next time you spend any time near to a police car (at traffic lights, for instance), or walking through an area populated with offices.
As other people have pointed out -- the vast (voting) majority of this country are just as stupid and controlled.
While I like a "dumb American" jibe as much as the next Englishman, suggesting that the US public are stupid without mentioning our current government could be seen as Blair/Brown propaganda to distract us from our own totalitarian regime.
I think both PDA-type devices and laptops both have their uses. My Blackberry will keep me in touch, and abreast of any alerts or other drama -- but, obviously, if I'm going to make some changes to the system I'm going to want to VPN in on a laptop.
For personal use too, I find a mobile device to be useful for checking bank balances, emailing friends, checking the status of my web site and the like -- though for that I prefer a Windows Mobile Device (HTC Universal), as there seems to be more freeware available than for the blackberry, frighteningly, IE on Windows Mobile seems better than the browser on the Blackberry 8800.
I'm not sure about HSDPA, as my device desn't support it, but I'm posting this over UMTS from Leeds city centre. I agree, coverage could be better, as it can be patchy, but 3G is available Leeds.
I'm not that thrilled by the idea of the iPhone anyway, but not having UMTS and HSDPA nowadays is just pathetic.
People play a game and are stupid enough to value virtual objects in real money, so others fleece them. I don't see the problem.
"real estate" in any virtual world can be almost infinite nowadays -- only an idiot would pay for a small piece of infinity. "magic items" are just small pieces of code and are only rare because nobody's duplicated them -- once again, you're an idiot for paying for something that someone has contrived to be rare. Real-world objects, like the aforementioned Rolex, are made in limited quantity due to restrictions on materials and labour (OK, and a tiny amount of contrivance). A Rolex cannot be devalued by a fake -- unless one buys it as a status symbol, anyone who does has my sympathy.
My dear old mother taught me, amongst other things, that you never get something for nothing and that people do things to help themselves, not you.
If you live by this, you're not going to fall for many scams -- I'l repeat: falling for a 419 makes you greedy or stupid -- even the senile have à healthy level of paranoia.
"As any good conman will tell you (or would if it wouldn't damage his business model), it's the people who think they can't be conned who are the easiest to con.
When you gloat about the gullibility of others, you lose sight of your own weaknesses and one day, if you're unlucky, some conman will find your buttons and press them all at once. After a full spin cycle, he'll have you completely cleaned and dried out."
Are you not aware that there is a difference between a well thought-out con, that can work on even the most intelligent of people, and a 419 email?
Those who fall for 419 scams are not taken in by a clever scam, they're stupid and greedy.
"ian, possibly the laptop user was a field account manager? Contact management applications like Salesforce typically have a "mini-master" loaded onto the laptop."
In that case, anyone using that software to store sensitive information is a moron, end of. To store sensitive information on a PC in a secure office isn't too bad (you only have break ins and social engineering to worry about) -- but to allow it on a laptop is idiotic.
It's frightening that, in a century where information technology is used by a huge percentage of the population, people still don't understand how valuable data is and how damaging a leak can be.
Of course we can criticise the law -- it was criticism of the law in this country (UK), that lead to our laws becoming more liberal.
As for the prisoners the US takes, I think you'll find that most sensible people agree that that is wrong too -- just because one lives in a corrupt state does not mean one should be prevented from pointing out corruption in others. If that were the case, then nobody could ever criticise a government.
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