Posts by jimbo60

Which Dave?

Sorry...I was thinking the correct response should be "Dave's not here."

Then repeat mindlessly multiple times.

Either way I'm dating myself...

Old DEC lore

This train of thought reminds me of the origins of the phrase "always mount a scratch monkey", one of several great pieces of old DEC lore.

http://edp.org/monkey.htm for one version of it...

Isn't it obvious?

Logan Lamb: "You could just go to the root of where they were hosting all the files and just download everything without logging in," he said. He also noted the files had been indexed by Google, making them readily available to anyone looking in the right place.

Um...why not just get a copy from him? Or maybe Google cache?

hardly finished...

Edge on current Windows 10 still cannot open a local html file...something I do every day with automatically generated html reports. Edge cannot "share" (i.e. send link) via Outlook email. Also something I do almost every day. So for me it is a non-starter.

good article on these magnetic fields

A good (and readable) article on such extremely strong magnetic fields, in the context of magnetars as a likely source for gamma ray repeaters, can be found at

http://solomon.as.utexas.edu/magnetar.html

Fascinating stuff!

This is repair?

"the image was pulled from unallocated space on Rettenmaier's hard drive"

Um...why is a Geek Squad tech recovering deleted files to repair a computer? That sure doesn't seem like a typical repair procedure unless the customer went there specifically to get files recovered.

Much as I despise anyone involved in kiddy porn, it sure seem like the legal grounds for this case is crumbling away.

150GB?

So how does a urology practice 150GB of patient data? Even with many thousands of patients, that's a lot of data per each. An awful lot of it would have to be imaging of some sort, which they aren't going to use on all of their patients.

The stolen data that would be harmful to those affected would be a tiny fraction of that 150GB, namely all the personal information in text records.

Sad day...

I love my Nokia Lumia 1520. Best phone I've ever had, running Windows Phone 8.whatever.

Unfortunately, the hardware started misbehaving. When the phone mic cut out, I had to get something that worked as a phone! So I picked up one of the Black Friday $30 specials on the 640 as a quick, cheap, and hopefully temporary fix. I also used that as an opportunity to try out the Windows Phone 10 beta (fast ring). I'm still running that, but it pales in comparison to the 1520 running 8.x. Granted, the phone is in a completely different class, but the problems I have with now are software issues, not cheap hardware.

Sadly, each next generation turn from Microsoft seems to get worse than the previous one. It seems as if they've forgotten how to develop product quality software.

A premier university is now a troll?

UW-Madison has long had one of the premier computer science departments in the US, right up there with some of the more well known names like MIT and several of the top California universities. I'd hardly call that a patent troll! I'd also expect them to have a considerable patent portfolio.

I'll bite...

Apple's latest attempt to create new markets: The new iWire bra harnesses jiggle energy to keep its mobes powered for an entire day.

journalism, please?

You forgot to report the most important fact...the cost of this brilliant study. I bet that wasn't a reduced portion.

oooh, too tempting....

"Circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us..."

Please, don't repeat Vista release!

I really like where Windows 10 is going, and I really want a desktop capable system with all the under the hood improvements that went into 8.x. But July 29? My test system isn't reliable enough to be three weeks from release (yes, I'm on the fast ring so I have the current bits). The last time MSFT made the calendar king over quality and developer feedback was the initial Vista release. And I really don't want to see that repeated!

Suddently Apple is the hero?

Apple gets very publicly punched in the nose by someone who actually stands up to bullying one-sided contracts, and because they flinch they're suddenly heroes? All because they weren't as obnoxious as the worst offenders. Apparently the reality distortion field is still working well.

Keep an eye on the birdie...I hope El Reg reports on the terms of the updated contracts.

Also, Swift sure seems to be one sharp lady, or she has some real brains working for her.

already doable...

I've been using Cygwin ssh support to do this for years. I developed and run an automated multi-node test infrastructure that uses python and ssh to drive the remote systems. Between Cygwin and python, all the sins of different directory name separators and other OS-isms are handled cleanly, and the test tools I need to run just work whether the target system is Unix/Linux or Windows + Cygwin. It's definitely handy to be able to do all the remote stuff with portable ssh.

Let's just hope Microsoft puts some code quality investment into whatever ssh source they use, so they don't get hit with the next Heartbleed or whatever like everyone else.

way to much of a fish story here

First off, the guy claiming to have made the hack doesn't even know proper aircraft terminology. He says he caused an engine to lift. Huh? Engines don't lift, they thrust. Sounds like he's trying to describe a slight roll without a turn, which would cause slip, which the engine won't do. Mismatched thrust would first cause yaw. Enough yaw can change the airspeed across the wings and cause roll, but at that point the plane would be off course and the flight crew and ATC would be freaking out.

Now he claims to have hacked space station temperatures, and next he'll take the Mars rover out for a spin.

I'm thinking this is an exercise in finding out how many gullible journalists there are in the world.

Think of the benefits!

Please, people, let's focus on the positives here...

- No more blaming weak signals on "holding it wrong".

- Your iPhone will finally last an entire day.

- Your iCoolness factor goes up another notch.

- None of that stray wasted energy will contribute to climate change, so Al Gore approves.

- Your energy savings can offset some of Al Gore's jet's emissions.

the real value

To bring up a famous quote..."There's a sucker born every minute.". We should thank Apple for making it so easy to identify them.

don't trash a phone you've never owned

I have a flagship Lumia (1520), and that phone is great. Battery life is great, it'll go for two days of real use. The display is superb. The phone is responsive, useful, and doesn't have hangs, crashes, proximity problems, or any of the things others have claimed as problems. My only complaint is AT&Ts stupid choice to not include the wireless charging on that model. My wife's smaller 920 easily goes for a full day and then some.

Both of my daughters have flagship Galaxy S4 phones, and they can't get through a day on a charge. One is always trying to manager the battery life by frequently switching the GPS off. She also had a slowly progressing failure of the internal charging connector while over seas for several months, which was a real pain.

I do agree with the other posters though about no new flagship phones for too long. Especially on AT&T, which didn't even pick up the 930, so the only upgrade to the 920 was the 1520, and not everyone wants a phone that large. They sure didn't to anything to keep a loyal fan base.

cost of consumables?

Nothing at all about the cost of the consumables? Given that it's already questionable to spend decent money on a slow trinket factory, how much does it cost in consumables to make the trinkets?

nothing new here

HP has been doing this for several years now. There are 3-4 days of holiday time off in there (depending on the year), the rest we have to take with vacation days. As an HP employee, I really like it, because I can take the entire holiday period off and when I go back to work I'm not buried under a mountain of backlog and emails, because everyone else was off at the same time.

completely nuts!

This whole suit is completely nuts. Huge increases in power usage? From a device that at most uses 50W (and probably only when charging an empty internal battery)? Does that household's electrical appliance inventory consist of one LED light bulb (and no computer)?

The hot spot is not public. It's open, security-wise, but all you get is a login web page. You have to log in with your Comcast subscriber info to gain access to anything. It shows up as a distinct SSID ("xfinitywifi") from the customer's own.

Whether you agree or not, Comcast advertises it as a benefit. You might share some of their bandwidth going to your modem with others, but you also benefit from being able to use the feature when you are away from home. At least that's the theory; I've never even bothered to look for it, as I have tethering on my phone and just use that when I'm not around free Wi-Fi spots.

I do have Comcast service and they enabled it on my (actually their) modem. If I hadn't know about it (from Comcast advertising) I'd never even have known it was there, it would've been just another mystery SSID popping up. I suppose I might notice if someone started pumping gigabytes of bandwidth through my connections, but that's not likely. I'm not located in a dense urban area, so someone would have to be parked in my driveway or visiting my house or my neighbor to actually use the capability. So in that regard I don't care that it's turned on, and if I have a guest that wants to use it, then that just means I don't have to give them my own guest access keys.

So for me it's really a no-op.