Posts by Tim Bates

Wide-eyed kiddies in Scarface school play shocker

Nativity again

On top of the corrections made by an anonymous coward, I have to ask, if Christianity is a cult and not a "bonafide religion", what do you consider to be a bonafide religion? Islam? Buddhism?

I'm shocked!

They've mixed together 2 rooms when making that set!

Irate Aussies go after US website

KFC

Pressure more than law AFAIK.

The ad had an Australian cricketer walk into a crowd of black spectators who were quite clearly supports of the West Indies cricket team. This apparently is made racist because he says something about KFC being able to make anyone a fan (or something to that effect).

Had they used white New Zealanders in the ad, everything would have been fine - I suspect the black W.Indies spectators were chosen simply because there was a game against them around the same time.

Oz censorship debate censored on Comms minister's website

The Real WTF

The Real WTF™ is that they assume the end consumer of the page has Javascript running... What about users running with JS off for security, or seach engines?

Whoever mentioned it above is right... It belongs on Daily WTF.

Men at Work appeal Down Under plagiarism ruling

One bloody bar - tops

It's like one bar that's sort of similar. From a 3 and a half minute song... Hardly grounds for copyright arguments. I really hope the appeal goes well.

If this stands, I'm writing a tune that is every possible combination of notes you can have, recording it, publishing it on the net, and waiting for 5 years. Then I'll sue every music publisher out there.

Windows Phone 7 will not translate to Win Mobile after all

Well, off I go.

A few little apps were all that held me to Windows Mobile. I guess if my next phone is unlikely to run them whichever way I go, I may aswell go to Android.

This new OS is actually making the iPhone seem attractive. Which is pretty sad.

Microsoft connects Web2.0rhea dots in Outlook... bitch

Me too...

I couldn't help but wonder exactly how much business time and internet MS is intending to try and waste here. Outlook was never targetted at home users, and most businesses don't like social networking sites due to the time wasting.

WTF are they thinking?

Microsoft erases Windows 8 optimism

And now for something completely different

MS has been at it for years claming their OSes will rock your world. On release, the only reason the world gets rocked is because everyone gets frustrated at some setting or feature being removed.

Where do I want to go today? Pretty much away from Microsoft's marketing department.

Google's Nexus One sales still sluggish

I'd get one if...

I was keen to get one at first. I can put up with no hardware keyboard, but I don't want to put up with a US import and the problems that can cause.

Maybe the next HTC Android phone will have a keyboard....

Austrian army cans Benny Hill recruitment ad

Ummm

I wouldn't know, but I did think it looked a bit low budget.

I guess the question is, how do you know so much about low budget pr0n ;-)

Duh...

One at a time, if you know what I mean....

Ubuntu Firefox shuns Google for Yahoo! search

Mixed thoughts

My thoughts go something like:

Stupid

Not too bad

Ironic

Funny

Hmmm

Maybe time to switch back to Debian

SourceForge bars 5 nations from open source downloads

Of course...

The US law is not the world's law. SF is, I guess, legally required to prevent users in said countries from downloading from their US servers.

Since we're talking about Open Source, anyone can take that content, mirror it in another country that doesn't have a silly restriction on software exports, and the "bad guys" can have all they want legally.

I get the distinct impression a large closed source software vendor was behind this in some way - the countries involved are known to be quite keen on open source/cheap software.

Ownership or mirrors.

But the servers worldwide are NOT owned or operated by SF. They are all 3rd party owned and operated. SF just directs you to them.

The website itself is US based, which raises a problem. But I'm sure some enterprising Chinese person could create a SF website mirror/proxy and direct downloads to appropriate neutral countries.

FCC evicts wireless mics from future 4G band

Standard FCC

FCC is at it again. Ignore the users because someone waved a bigger cheque in front of them. Who cares if they did jump through the hoops a while back to do things legally... They paid less money than the new guys.

Microsoft predicts Linux will fail mobile 'quality' test

Alternative title

Pot calls Kettle "Black": Windows Mobile turns racist.

Microsoft Office 2007 retailers dodge patent injunction

Oooooohhhhhhhhh

This US court ruling would explain why 2 days ago I was unable to download the trial of Project 2007 after being sent to a generic redirect.... Who cares that I'm in Australia, not USA... Apparently court rulings in USA apply worldwide.

And as is usual for stupid corporations, the email I sent went unnoticed because a moron paid minimum wage decided not to read it and instead just guess what it was about.

Serious IE and Windows flaws left to fester

And then?

Only a numpty would allos SMB/CIFS to internet, but most numpties allow it for their entire LAN.... Which means just one laptop has to come in from a numpty's home LAN, and the entire business LAN is screwed....

I learned that lesson last year when our LAN at work got hit by Conficker - and no, it wasn't a laptop that caused it but a government department supplied computer that got infected by the government WAN where they had their standard firewall config allowing ALL computers to access SMB/CIFS. I was not ammused!

Within about 10 minutes of finding that problem, I switched all our computers to only allow access to SMB from our local servers (which aren't Windows boxes).

Google gets all Minority Report with Street View

Upcoming legal action I suspect

No business owner is going to be happy to have photos of their business splashed with ads for another vendor.

Big businesses probably won't suffer much since people don't generally go look at their local McDonalds or K-Mart in Google Street View. But they're also the more likely to have a legal team ready to pounce on the concept of competitors ads showing on an image of their shop (especially if trademarks start entering into it).

Small businesses in particular will be annoyed. Small businesses in small towns will be even more pissed off - chances are their only competitor's ad will end up stuck in their virtual windows!

Microsoft sees its chance in Googlephone

One Word

Zune.

I suspect someone at MS has their knickers in a knot because their baby Zune didn't take off like the iPod, and their idea of a ZunePhone was knocked back.

Slovakian flies to Dublin with 90 grams of explosive

Stable, but still explosive

All explosives should be treated as if they could blow up. Same basic rule as firearms being treated is if they are loaded.

Did the morons check if the victim had any potentially problematic things in his bag first? Or did they just chuck it in? Even if they had a plan in place to not miss the bag, who's to say something in his bag wouldn't detonate it in the airport killing hundreds of staff and travellers?

Hacker pierces hardware firewalls with web page

Morons

NAT != firewall

Firewall != security (especially for badly configured values of firewall)

The above is something I have tried to smack into people who should know better many times over the years. Even my government employer takes this stupid approach of assuming a blocking internet traffic on most ports makes it safe. People seem to forget that once something is breached, the outer perimeter doesn't stop anything.

Monty's 'Save MySQL' mudsling gets 15,000 backers

Broken Logic

So you're saying that the actions of a single person who sold off his one project's name are a reason to avoid all open source projects?

I beleive stereotyping is generally considered a bad move... Can I have your resume so I know who never to employ?

Yep.

Fork and call it something else - "YourSQL" anyone? It's not like the name is important.

I'm not worried about what happens. If Oracle mangle it all into a useless blob, then something else will take it's place and popular systems like "MediaWiki", "Joomla", etc will all be adjusted to suite.

To be fair...

To be fair, this is the first I've heard of it, so I guess 15,000 is an OK number.

High-speed Chinese train kicks French, Japanese butt

Pirated design?

You can almost be assured the reason they look like Japanese and/or German trains is that Chinese engineers went and looked at the Japanese and German trains... Then simply copied the design.

And like all Chinese knockoffs, it works fine when you try it out the first 2 or 3 times... But then suddenly fails spectacularly when it comes down to using it for something serious.

Nope.

I say this with in intended racism or disrespect... No. I would not want to get into a Chinese made vehicle. Especially one that will be travelling at over 50km/h (and over 200km/h is way out).

That said, remember what "Made in Japan" meant before the 60's/70's...

Verizon snuffs Google for Microsoft search

Cause Bing does so well... Not!

I'd be pissed if I was one of their users... Bing couldn't find itself if there was a big neon sign saying "I'm here" with an arrow pointing the way.

Seriously, I've been pushed off into a Bing search by MS website 404's, and the result is that it finds nothing. Off to Google, and there I have the answer at the top of the list (using the same query).

Google weighs in to Aussie firewall row

But not all Christians (and/or groups).

Conroy's filter plans are not supported by all Christians and churches. Many who understand the implications are just as against it as the next person.

Most people in our church are against it for one reason or another. Some fear the future censoring that will result. Some just don't like the idea of being frustrated by false positives.

Yes.

Books can be banned by the Office of Film and Literature Classification.

Unfortunately the internet isn't a book or film. It changes every second, with volumes of information that would take most people a lifetime to consume. By the time a complaint is processed, there's every chance a website has moved or been changed.

Service cracks wireless passwords from the cloud

DD-WRT?

Might be able to get WPA2 support using DD-WRT instead of the crap Linksys firmware... Tried that?

Because it's Steve Gibson, I'll pass.

You'd still need to pass those through a cracker to see if they are weak. Long does not mean strong. A page of zeros is probably not real strong for example.

Steve does sort of explain where those strings come from, however he fails to explain it in enough detail for anyone to determine if he's cocked it up... Given his history of getting it wrong and then being a dick about it, I think I'll just pass.

Gumtree comes over all queer in blocking 'offensive language'

Normal words.

Don't you love when normal words are used to describe a minority, it becomes a popular meaning, someone takes offence, and then we ban plain ordinary words based on it.

Open sourcers aim selves at US gov

Bad example

Someone's poor choice up front does not mean all open source is bad. I'm gathering from the description that this large e-commerce site is run by people that:

* Don't research hardware compatibility before purchase.

* Chose to reinvent the wheel by writing their own ecommerce solution in Ruby.

* Run benchmarks as root on production machines just to see what happens.

I'm not saying all open source software is perfect or even good. Some stinks, especially mine. But it's the same with closed source. Someone's decision to share is not a gauge of how well they wrote it.

Catholics slam PETA nude adopt-a-mutt poster

Further maths required.

That ~$300 covers vet work required before releasing the dog to a new owner. Remember that they can't legally allow them out without chipping them, and their policy is to desex to avoid future unwanted animals. That alone would be over $200 worth from even a cheap vet.

On top of that, remember they also have operating costs, like food and power.

Buying one elsewhere still ends up needing the above desexing, chipping, etc.

Toshiba worker arrested for selling copy limit busting SW

Why FAIL?

One of them yeah, because they didn't read the article. The other on the other hand feels the same as many others - rootkit once, and be blacklisted forever.

I personally refuse to buy Sony because of a string of warranty issues, followed by that rootkit incident. I don't trust them anymore, and it's incredibly difficult for a large corporation to regain that trust. The catch 22 is you don't buy the products so you don't see them again to find out if they've changed.

Apple voids warranties over cigarette smoke, users say

Good on em!

Does the warranty card specifically say they will void it if the user tips water in? How about acid? Or cleaning detergents?

Simple matter is there are literally millions of substances users could feed into cooling vents and void the warranty. Apple shouldn't be expected to list everything that could cause damage, or the paper coming with the computers would need it's own shipping container.

I for one welcome Apple's refusal to deal with smoke contaminated computers. They're absolutely disgusting inside.

Microsoft Silverlight - now with hidden Windows bias

@OffBeatMammal

People don't often come across websites on the internet requiring Photoshop to be installed.

That's probably a huge reason why people are far less noisy about Adobe. When Flash was a pain in the arse, people were noisy. Now it works, so most websites work fine for Linux users.

MS discovers flaw in Google plug-in for IE

@Anonymous Coward

Testing of the browser is almost unnecessary. It's testing and redesigning the in house intranet systems that cost time and money. Some of that could mean complete rewrites as thousands of lines of MS-mutilated code needs to be brought back to standards compliance.

Of course they're going to have to do it sooner or later, so it seems odd so many are still stuck with IE6 after over 3 years. IE6 is now considered a security problem in itself.

IBM lab builds computerized cat brain

I made you an AI...

but I eated it.

T-shirt firm hijacks good ship Pirate Bay

Copyright...

Still under copyright though... So if people take it and use it, they are pirating it... Oh... Where's the head scratching icon.

Dirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

These are nothing!

None of those go close to the things we get on a monthly basis in our shop. The spider webs shown here are a tiny display compared to what we have seen.

If you want really disturbing (and I think I've got a photo somewhere) then look no further than a gecko killed by 240V. The eyes explode out of the sockets.

Visual Studio gets Linux dose with Mono

Re: GPL FAIL?

How is it a fail? They're selling licenses for the binaries, and it likely includes support. Nothing would stop someone taking the GPLed code and recompiling it, but they wouldn't get support and would need to track and compile updates themself.

Governator in acrostic 'f**k you' outrage

The IT angle...

Obviously the IT angle is that it was typed up on a computer... Der.

Microsoft uncorks Outlook, world goes .pst

Recently?

MS clearly use the word "recently" because they are talking in the sense of the age of the universe... People have been asking about data in PST files for about 12 years!

Ubuntu man finds metalove in Debian attacks

Vista Service Pack

He's not wrong about that Vista Service Pack 7, or whatever it's called... It's heaps better than Vista Classic.

I like the idea of Ubuntu and Debian devs working together more because there are usually common bugs.

Microsoft goes Darwinian with evolutionary tree patent

Re: Evolutionary Software

Why would it upset creationists? They don't need to use it...

Dell: Linux v Windows netbook returns a 'non-issue'

Re: Huge segment of home users use one app

Totally agree about IE and iTunes. If Apple release iTunes for Linux (I don't see why they haven't) and enough people show off Firefox, then no one at all would return a Linux netbook (unless it was crippled by something like Xandros).

Telco offers 911 by txt

Under 20's

Look how many teens can text faster than they can write with a pen or type on a computer... No problems with typing there.

Some commenters seem to assume criminals are smart... Most, thankfully, are not. Thus kidnap victims often are left with a phone at some stage, but talking would be obvious. Trouble is the beeping of the phone might also be a bit obvious, so I don't know if that helps much.

Is server virtualization delivering for you yet?

Qemu to the rescue

We needed a Windows based server for one single application. It didn't seem very wise to spend $1000+ on another server that would be idle 99% of the time, especially when the existing Linux server is idle and has tonnes of RAM.

So, qemu went on, and we have a Windows install sitting on our Linux server without anyone noticing. Problem solved. Not a big VM story. Nor is it done "properly", but it's a real use, and it got us out of trouble (well, wasn't really getting out of trouble, as much as adding convenience).