Posts by teacake 174 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Mar 2007
"Good to see a TV that allows you to turn off the picture and just have the audio.
(Actually it's a useful feature for a lot of TV, especially documentaries which love to shove pointless images in that do nothing to enhance the audio - Horizon, I'm looking at you)."
Or not looking at Horizon, if you take your own advice...
"To a physicist, 10x Normal radiation level is slightly heightened (for a given Normal on a given scale) but instead of dealing with the physics or the facts, you prefer to use "scaremongering". In what way do you think you are any better then the Red Top brigade who also bend the truth to sell copy."
That's not at all what he was saying. Go back and read the article again.
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"The "science" that assured us this was a safe design was wrong. "
You appear to be labouring under the misapprehension that it was "science" that decided how resilient to make the plant, when it was actually the bean counters. The scientists designed it to survive the level of quake and tsunami they were told to - five times weaker than the one they actually faced in the event. That the plant has survived at all means you could criticise them for over-engineering, but that might seem a little churlish if you do it at the same time as screaming at them for the problems the plant is now facing.
"Scenario: Argies have built an airbase in the south and have destroyed the airbase on the Falklands.
..."
This is primarily an IT tech site, with the occasional divergence in to military hardware at a non-technical level. That being the case, could you possibly translate your little scenario into English? Can't follow your banter, old chap.
"I imagine any educated employer would have sacked the loud-twittered idiot for americanised vulgarity of expression and displaying lack of judgement and self-control. Would he have expressed himself in the same way directly to airport staff? Particularly if the member of staff was over two metres tall and weighed 100 Kg?
Of course one may lament the lack of proportion in official response. But, as for freedom: we are all absolutely free to say or do whatever we want. Conversely, we must also be prepared to take the consequences, foreseen or not."
Anybody else imagining that little outpouring to have been spoken in the style of Noel Coward?
"You have GOT to be kidding me ... Does nobody reading this forum actually understand basic electronic theory? Look up "multivibrator", and get yourself a tiny chunk of an education ... if your country's firewall doesn't "protect" you from such information, that is."
Hur hur hur. You said "vibrator."
As well as sharing the fraud concerns of other commenters, what about tracking? Why were we all worried about the RFID tag on our passports but now we're not bothered when it's on our credit cards we carry every day? Do we really think these aren't going to be used to record our movements? After all, shopping centres are already tracking you through your mobile.
Barclays sent me one of these cards when my debit card came up for renewal. I couldn't reject it via internet banking so I phoned them up. The gentleman on the phone told me he was required to explain to me the benefits of the contactless system, and then having done so (and me still wanting rid of it) told me he couldn't cancel it. So I went into my local branch. The cashier told me she was required to explain to me the benefits of the contactless system, and then having done so told me she couldn't cancel it, and I'd have to see the manager. The manager told me he was required to explain to me the benefits of the contactless system... in each case they said "You don't have to use it." Surely it's a cornerstone of good IT security to not leave a feature in place that you don't use, when you've no idea or control over what it's doing. Barclays told me that if I didn't want the contactless system they had to cancel both my old (still valid) debit card and the new contactless one, leaving me without a card for a week while a new non-contactless debit card arrived. The new one apparently does not work everywhere my previous debit card did, and is generally given to customers who cannot be trusted. Surprise surprise as soon as I got the new second-class-citizen-who-can't-be-trusted debit card, the interest rate on my Barclaycard credit card shot up. So, then, fuck Barclays. After 20 years I'm off.
"The point of VBS is to provides a single, one time clearance for people who wish to work with Children and vulnerable adults to replace the current CRB checks that must be done regularly and for each job you do. "
Except that the VBS check does not cover quite the same ground as the enhanced CRB check, so most people will end up having to get both.
"Frankly, they can fuck off if they think any of us field based guys are going to be doing any more than we're paid for after the email that went round explaining that we were taking unpaid holiday if we didn't drive on dangerous roads in areas that had severe weather warnings in place.
If I were a little more reckless I'd have gone out and wrapped the car up on purpose."
You only need about 3mph to get it irretrievably planted in a ditch. Hypothetically, of course.
"I'm not Bono's biggest fan, but in any case I am forced to concur with you all since you have each manifestly achieved more in your lives and done more for the greater good and suchlike than he has. I mean, it's self-evident."
Well, I didn't release The Joshua Tree, so if it's the greater good you're referring to I reckon I'm ahead on points, at least.
On the subject of whether "significant" numbers of people wouldn't have broadband if they couldn't download illegally, I suspect it's more the case that the ISPs are able to sell premium high-bandwidth connections on the back of that downloading. So the question is how much more money do the ISPs make off the premium connections, if any, given that they have to throw more resource at those heavy users? Only a couple of years ago, ISPs like PlusNET were trying to get rid of their heavy downloaders.
Well, if it's going to destroy us all, don't sit around here moaning about it. Go and wave a placard or something. We'll still be here when you get back. Or not, depending on how successful you are.
I don't know about quark cannon destroying the universe, but I do know that oxymoron doesn't mean what you think it means.
"A DAMOCLES MACHINE THAT IS HALTING THE ADVANCE OF TRUE SCIENCE"
Careful. Some spittle nearly hit me there.
"Astro-physicists fear that if enough quarks are pegged together in one of those condensates, they can trigger a mass-reaction that would attract all the other quarks of the Earth, transforming our planet into a dense pulsar or black hole."
Splendid performance. I'm an astro-physicist. I don't fear this. Smash them particles, I say, and let's see what falls out. Last one to get turned into strangelet soup's a ninny!
For those commenters who are bemoaning the lack of mention of pumped storage as an alternative to thermal capacity in dealing with intermittency, the basic problem still stands. Creating pumped storage is extremely expensive and the impact very large, and who is going to want to invest in it unless the returns are very large?
There has been a study, reported on by Lewis on this very site - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/ - which took in pumped storage as an option. If I remember correctly, we're looking at having to convert pretty much every major body of water in the UK to pumped storage. What's that going to do to the ecosystem, particularly if some of it has to be sea water?
Mr Sutherland seem to think we're only concerned about humans processing our personal data. We're not. A data-mining algorithm is just as bad, if not worse. If you're running your data-mining tentacles over a database, you're still processing the data in it, you're still - how can I put this? - running fishing expeditions on millions of people.
"No offence, boys. Most of you are barely evil at all."
How's that for damning with faint praise? Here we are, trying our level best to outdo each other with our eviltude, and there you are telling us we're barely registering. Sheesh, might as well go and bait some Scientlogists or something.
How can they say that password masking does nothing for security, and then in the next breath recommend keeping it on by default for high-risk applications, because "sometimes security should win"?
It either helps or it doesn't, and if it does help then it's a matter of weighing up the advantages against the disadvantages of password masking.
Advantages: if every password box is always masked, it provides consistency for the user. It reminds them that the password is something they should be keeping to themselves. It largely deals with shoulder-surfing which, judging by the comments here, is still regarded as a problem by a lot of people. It's a lot harder to read keypresses on the keyboard than characters on the screen.
Disadvantages: easier to mistype the password.
I don't think unmasking the password makes it any more likely that the user will write it down or store it in a file. The sort of people who do this are the sort who have difficulty in remembering the password anyway. They'll still write it down.
"There should be an audit trail within the organisation showing who has actually accessed personal data. "
Who currently does this? It would result in a lot of data being generated, is this something that is regarded as good practice for all organisations or just those working with particularly sensitive data e.g. medical, financial?
Having missed by only a couple of days having my details revealed in the Great Child Benefit Data Giveaway, the Pensions Trust have finally managed to do it.
Knowing the ICO can and will do nothing more than shake their heads and say "Tut, tut, tut", is there any basis for private legal action against these muppets, or does one have to prove monetary loss?
"Surely giving certain IT bosses the sack would drive the message home fairly quickly?"
It's usually not the fault of the IT bosses. They're powerless to enforce an IT policy that prevents this sort of mis-use of the data. Or did you think that it would be IT policy to attach the passwords to USB sticks?
The problem is a culture of convenience that wants to take the easiest possible route to a goal, regardless of risks taken with the data, and ignores any warnings about data protection. If the IT manager tells clinical staff not to take the data home, he'll be ignored. If he complains about this to management, he'll be ignored. If he tries to prevent mis-use by locking down systems to stop removal of data, he'll get told in no uncertain terms that the clinicians must be allowed access to the data however they want it.
"Website owners may implement any of the following methods:"
They may also implement the following method:
Place a notice on their website explicitly forbidding the interception of data from the site for advertising purposes. Then you're covered for any snooping outfit, not just Phorm.
Why should website owners have to opt out, any more than ISP customers? If Phorm's business model works, there'll be dozens of these parasites to deal with.
In any case, didn't early opt-outers find that a Phorm spider promptly catalogued their site as part of the opt-out process? Phorm will still be using data from your site to deliver advertising on behalf of your competitors, it'll just be out of date data.
...the police will also complain that Shell and BP charge them for fuel. How dare they charge for fuel? It should be their duty and pleasure to assist in the fight against crime.
Back in the real world, there needs to be a cost involved in retreiving ISP records, to prevent the police going on fishing expeditions just for the hell of it. They should have enough suspicion to justify a significant cost of investigating. Otherwise they'll just ask for everyone's data.
"We'll never really know until the neat air war opens, but if you'd like to get a flavor of near real world results goto: http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123041725
You might find flaws with the approach, but with the Raptors flying the same exact sorties as other craft, the Raptors lost only one encounter. I think the final numbers were Raptor kills 244, "The Enemy" 1."
Against F-15/16s and Tornado GR-4s? I'd be stunned if they didn't. How about against some modern fighters?
"It's not that simple. What, exactly, would one ban? A ban that is easily circumvented by the vendors changing how the device is described would be annoying and pointless. Suppose, for example, that the vendor offers a generic sound-producing device that can be programmed to do lots of different things, including the "mosquito" function."
Well, that's so easily dealt with I'm surprised it even needs saying. A device incorporating an illegal function is illegal, surely. You don't say "That handgun is legal because it also includes a torch" do you? Or do you?
"The comparison with blocking mobile phones is rubbish: it is not "legal to transmit signals". In general, it is illegal to operate any radio transmitter. There are specific exceptions for licensed devices such as mobile phones."
No it's not. My original point might have been a simplification, but in essence it is possible, as you have demonstrated, to licence certain use of a technology without giving carte blanche. Allowing people to have sound-generating equipment (a hi-fi) does not mean you have to allow them to play nuisance sound to drive people away from a location. And you don't have to frame the law such that nuisance has to to be demonstrated in each instance, merely ban the devices which have that function. Can't own it, can't operate it.
The fact that the mosquito is "basically just a speaker" is neither here nor there, and legislating against it should be quite straightforward, with no need to ban "stereos-at-ambient-plus-5-decibels" at all.
The mosquito has a very specific aim - to make it unpleasant for people to remain in a location. Simply ban all devices that have this sole purpose.
It's legal to transmit signals, but it's not legal to transmit a signal that blocks mobile phones or interferes with speed monitoring equipment. Why would this situation be any harder to legislate than those?
"Born in 1956, I seem to remember a railway station in Birmingham called Snow Hill. I also remember boarding a steam train there with my grandparents (Or, was it a church choir outing - memory is hazy nowadays). And getting a little orange ticket.
Therefore, I must've been more than 4 years old, so - 1960 - last steam train?"
According to the article, 1960 is when the last new steam locomotive entered service, not when the last steam train ran.
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