Posts by T J

Drone nerve centre malware was Mafia Wars' infostealer

They run WINDOWS !!!???

You have GOT to be joking. You have GOTTTT to be joking. They run Drone control software.....on mswindows !!!!????

Feds slurp WikiLeaker's email with secret court order

Geeeeee

Timely reminder. I really MUST get rid of all my gmail accounts as soon as I find somebody else who can do IMAP without stuffing it up.

Oh and preferably who supports client-side encryption (yes you can do it with mail now).

Android's scariest nightmare: resurgently sexy Microsoft

Not a hope

Not a hope. A phone that stands even a chance of getting viruses, let alone one that Will, Definitely, No Doubt About It get viruses, does not stand a snowflakes chance in an autoclave.

Everything down to a pencil will be running Android by the end of 2013.

Provider: Anti-piracy ruling has 'killed Usenet'

How do you kill a corpse?

It was already dead. However this is a giant liberty by pretend authorities just the same. USENET could have one last USE on the NET - cause these idiots to tie up all their time and money chasing ghosts.

In the meantime - why not just move your leaf server/s to a non-treaty country (Ie. one owned by a different Kleptocracy to yours) and be done?

If you just close up shop it gives the wrong impression - it makes them think they can win (they can't) and it makes them think they understand the new status quo (they dont, and never will).

Just sayin.

Facebook's complexity will be its doom

A total incoherent mess

Speaking as an active programmer with over 25 years experience in EVERYTHING from embedded all the way up to high level mush like the current markup ("Pick a random word and stick ML after it, then mention XML so you sound like you know something, and THEN get the word 'stylesheet' in there somewhere too) mess (folks, its a mess, its a real, real mess and I dont care if it pays your mealticket, its not comp.sci its just shyte):

Speaking as that - FB's interface always was a complete, unintuitive pile of dogs vomit and continues to be. This usually doesn't matter, people get used to interfaces no matter how bad they are (Apple's ancient crappy desktop, Blackberry's godawful GUI, the total mess of GNOME, the dreadful changes in KDE 4, etc etc).

But familiarity doesn't imply quality - FB's interface is very low quality. And its app API is a joke.

But - what do you honestly EXPECT from a giant mass of javascript????

Nimbula 'cloud operating system' spans data centers

His Generic Holiness...

There is no such thing as 'generic clustering', so this is just hype.

Only established things like content-serving can make use of any sort of clustering solution 'out of the box', everything else must be tailor made.

This is a Holy Grail matter, ie. not really solvable and it will make big CompSci news if it ever is.

Why do I keep saying 'cluster' instead of 'cloud' ? Because I'm a computer scientist and I call things what they are, I don't care what some coked up exec calls them.

Ridley Scott confirmed for Blade Runner pre/sequel

Wrong on the Internet

Sorry but you are wrong on the internet old chum.

The Jetter (two t's btw) sequel was actually surprisingly good, given the nature of his usual violent, rambling drivel.

I would assume if they are calling it 'Blade Runner 2' then it is indeed based on his novel, but we'll see.

Oh, and I'm totally past caring too!

Apple injunction startles Samsung

Yes WHAT intellectual property?

Yes WHAT exactly, are Apple referring to as 'their' 'intellectual property'?

FFS, they weren't even the first touch screen developers, OR tablet developers.

This is sour grapes because they left it 3 years too late before they brought out their phone, and now they are trying to play catchup.

Apple can suck it down like the whiny maggots they are.

Anonymous unsheathes new, potent attack weapon

Satan

So.... they've basically reinvented Satan? Ie. the tool that along with Gabriel became Nagios.

Nagios can already perform this kind of attack. And defend against it too.

But then again a lot of idiots run that m$ rubbish as webservers, so until that is exterminated from the face of the web - not long to go now - it will remain fairly easy to penetrate and take down a lot of sites.

Dotcom millionaire causes trouble at mill

Legendary

Altruism is not dead. Yes this has been in the news here for a while in Oz. It looked like the woodchipping scumbags were going to win, but then out of the blue these two heroes rescued the situation.

We thank them.

Data ownership becomes fuzzy in the cloud

In the CLOWN!

Spell it RIGHT. Its IN THE CLOWN, its all IN THE CLOWN!!

(Mine's the one with the purple rye fungus traces)

New NZ copyright law means ISPs could cash in

Stringing.

So... the thing is to string them along till the very last moment, then completely change your details.

Eg. churn to a different provider, use a VPN with a different exit point, turn your modem off for a day so when you get back and restart it it DHCP's a different IP address, etc, any combination of.

Man, you could even write plug-ins to do this for you in bittorrent clients!!

We could send the big recording labels broke in no time with this approach! Go NZ!!

Oh, and yes I download heaps. I just don't regard it as illegal as it's information and outside of anyone's jurisdiction (it just is, so don't bother arguing). If its worthy, I'll buy the product down the track, if its not I wont, they dont have an inherant right to make money from producing rubbish and they never did, it was just the mechanics of things meant they had an artificial scarcity monopoly. Now that artificial monopoly is gone, forever.

Apple ordered to pay $8m over playlist patents

Yup, this is insane

Pretty much what everybody above said. These utterly ridiculous patent cases are also casting a shadow over themselves: They will all be retrospectively undone, because there is now no way that they cannot be.

Twitter hacker flings poo at PayPal

Masterpiece

Its only the web so ultimately who cares. But this is still funny!!!!

Google and Microsoft sued over interwebs street maps

Follows logically

Obvious. Follows logically from the problem. Not patentable.

I hope when the 3 monopolies crush this that it starts an avalance in the patent office.

Chinese coal blamed for global warming er... cooling

Why an Economist?

Why is an Economist commenting on physics? Shall I go and ask a Lawyer to explain Biochemistry?

Background checking in the palm of the hand

Wont work everywhere

In Australia, there are almost no legally accessible databases that this thing could use. It could be a handy tool for a licencsed Private Investigator but they have tools like this already.

So it is only creepy if the society the software operates in is sufficiently creepy to allow it.

Spam volumes show massive drop - but why?

Start charging Microsoft

Since its all Microsoft's fault for producing the only 'OS' that can get viruses almost effortlessly, they should foot the bill for all the wasted time, bandwidth and the accrued aggravation. Oh, and loss of money by the gullible though then again, thats something m$ thrive upon isn't it.

Everything is converging on the network

No

No. No its not coming together.

Mines the one with the actual vision of reality glasses in the pocket.

Spikes in demand get lost in the cloud

Rebadged, Renamed, Recycled and Ret*rded

Its just clustering, it always was clustering, and always will be clustering.

This is just clustering for the masses, and it has all the same problems, including problem-domain specific code requirements, fair sharing, live migration, and network availability.

This, as hardware becomes almost free so you can do it all in the basement at a fraction of the cost of using an external entity.

I like the term 'Clown'.

Data storage in the Clown.

Virtualization in the Clown.

Clowning in the Clown.

Software as a service: Separating the bells from the whistles

Its all utter bunkum

Its all a load of complete bollox. SaaS is a marketing executive's coke fuelled pipe dream and so is 'The Clowwwwd'.

What exactly is the advantage SUPPOSED to be?

Offsite/outsourced infrastructure? - yeah, see how far that gets you, its been an unmitigated disaster for everyone over the last 2 decades. Unless you are a 'Consultant', but those leeches win every time (I should know, I was one).

Affordability? Use the open source gear and stop mucking about. They are mature products now and work more or less perfectly. Besides, this rubbish has nothing to do with open or proprietary code - buy what you can afford and use it well. Dont listen to reps.

Consistency? Pffft, you can kiss that goodbye right from word one. No matter what you do, the owners of the servers will rationalize a way to f**** you up. Be it a configuration change, or an upgrade you dont want (because THEIR security/whatever is at risk - whats that got to do with you?). And I'm not sure where they're going to find this network that stays up forever, I dont think anyone has developed one yet and it sounds expensive due to the tons of fairy dust required.

Server load? Come again? Hardware is FREE now, and networks are just about too.

Why would you need to run anything externally? At all? Ever?

Well.....you wouldn't, won't, and don't.

Hack attack kills thousands of Aussie websites

The Tao Of Backup

Yup, 2nded of course.

So, DNS? Probably dead or at least very ill and in a nursing home.

Cloud? Ooh that's dead, so very, very dead. :)

Paris, just because she's a good generic symbol for public Idiocy.

FBI fat-thumbs data centre raid

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDEOTZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!

Oh god oh god oh god we are de-evolving, DEVO was right!!!!!

The world wants cloud coders. Where are the cloud coders?

Web 2 died, when will this?

WonkToooo had the decency to fade out and stop insulting us, when will this rubbish follow suit?

Help! My Exchange server just rebooted

Dont use Exchange

Simple. Any questions?

Mine's the one with the non proprietary mail spool that works.

Texas cinema texter becomes foul-mouthed movie star

Gods bless you people

And preserve thee! Having watched a Dame Maggie Smith play get nearly ruined by a phone going off ..... words cannot express my desire to smash!

Germans completely humourless: Official

Ah, its even more than that

The Germans actually have a very good sense of humour, and its often quite subtle. Its been said that Germany was possibly founded by Aspergers people and this could be true - they tend to be very direct. This doesn't preclude humour, in fact the opposite.

Brit censor stamps on The Human Centipede

Um, and you can choose for me .... because?

I might want to watch that. (I wouldnt, I watched the original and horrifying though it is its basically 90 minutes of my life I'm not getting back).

I have the right to watch that.

YOU dont have the right to stop me.

iTunes Match is iPiracy, claims loopy Oz industry troll

Idiots? Yes we have those.

Yes, sorry everybody, we have some real idiots here in Oz, some absolute tools.

Put it this way - we only JUST banned live exports of cattle overseas, and in at least one state we still don't have a rail link to the airport.

Hit the porch and resume whittlin', where's my banjo......

Francis Maude goes back 110 years for cybersecurity strategy

Nothing needs speed cameras.

Bad analogy. Are you suggesting the internet too needs unwarranted surveillance? Because there are many who think that also and they are not well looked upon.

Gov 'skunkworks' to develop e-petitions system

agile methodology

Well, that about takes that idea out before its even off the ground. They are going to have enourmous fun sticking little notes all over the walls, annoying the shit out of one another by 'pairing' when trying to program, shuffling all the erroneous code off to one side, delivering a piece of shyte early or an approximation of the target late (very late), and then there is the joyous fun of Planning Poker.

Agile: A Methodology For Ensuring High Staff Turnover.

Data encryption and the Cloud

Nobody knows anything.

And they're all idiots.

Honestly, this distributed storage/computing thing has been bashing around for decades and several fundamental problems were never solved:

* Yes, security, and all the complexity thereof

* A wonderful MAGICAL network, Lisa! That never fails and is always available!

* How do you do generic coding? Clusters can't, they need specialized daemons written to be purpose specific? Java? Pffft. Yeah right. Python? Ok, viable, but how do you sandbox it without a million programming caveats? What is your distribution model in this 'cloud'? Are all services cluster....oh! sorry!....'cloud' aware? No? What do you do about that?

Let's all just put our suits on, turn up and give a 1 hour presentation of utter, utter bunkum to some morons from rich families in more suits, say 'cloud' a lot (and maybe 'paradigm' and 'leverage' a few times), collect our $2000 fee and head home to the spa and ho's. Who's with me!

Earth receives picture postcard of Milky Way

What Bar where? - Dave, of the Winchester club

Yes, if the bar is that faint this aint a bar galaxy doods.

Stealth hovercraft armada poised to invade South Korea

Pointy Stick Alert

Yeah pretty much. They were never that viable a weapon which is why you dont see them in use much. But thhis is North Korea and its still under the spell of all that 60s Communist Big Dream (you know, the one where you could train plants to produce better offspring and there was never any corruption in the politburo......)

Depressed Scottish file-sharing nurse gets 3 yrs probation

BFPI now targetted.....

......in sights......awaiting strike command.........

Germany’s rights-holders hit freetards hard

Must be a very robust government

Must be a very robust government indeed. To imagine that it could survive this with the voters.

Total Recall rehash – exit Martians, enter Jessica Biel

Not a reboot as far as I can tell?

If they are calling it 'Total Recall' then I guess they are rebooting the title. But otherwise this looks like an attempt to actually re-tell the book, which is all anyone should care about.

The Arny film was an utter, utter, steaming abortion. Not even a PKD plot could save it.

So let's see what they come up with.

When you tell a PKD story 'straight', or an approximation of straight, you get a good result.

Screamers was brilliant despite being very low budget, Minority Report survived having Tom Cruise in it, and we all know about Blade Runner.

Now if they want to get real, they should tackle 'The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch'.

Waking to check mail? You're not alone

Always hated phones!

Speaking as a Gen-X'er, I HATE PHONES. If its not a convenient moment - it goes to messagebank. If its from a number the phone doesnt recognise - it goes to messagebank.

Data, not software, paves the road to riches

I was going to write a tirade...

I was going to write a tirade about the many idiocies of this presentation but you saved me the trouble, and for that, I thank you.

Is the IT Dept failing users?

No they are doing their best.

No, its several things.

Users are getting stupider.

Managers are getting stupider and more disconnected from the tech at hand.

The technology itself is going BACKWARDS rapidly and a lot of it isn't actually "New technology", its old tech rebadged or its just a tiny rearrangment of something marketed as a Product[tm].

I think IT's position is nearly impossible now. And the cloudy cloud is going to make things worse, as now you have to rely on some other idiot's infrastructure as WELL as matching apps and services to your requirements.

I urge the entire industry to rethink and start from scratch, but you know how likely that is.

BT cheerfully admits snooping on customer LANs

Your own router?

You can't use your own router? Or does BT have some stupid clause insisting on using theirs?

Email in the cloud

FOOOOOOOOOOLS

You fooooooools. You poor, mad foooooooools.

1. Dont use Exchange.

2. Learn how IMAP works you IDIOTS.

3. Run a decent redundant cluster.

4. Dont use Exchange.

5. Dont use Exchange.

Simple really!!!!

Supreme Court: DNA database retention regs are unlawful

Why is this still being argued?

Why is this still being argued? It should be more DIFFICULT to take the samples in the first place, and NO, they should not be retained except for conviction of VIOLENT CRIME.

Start sanding your Telescreens, for humanity's sake.

The other enterprise desktop?

KDE

KDE, so long as they eventually revert 4 to 3.5 behaviour and ditch Dolphin forever.

Official: Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5bn

Competition++

Well, now there will be an explosion in VOIP operators! Get on it people!

Is iPhone data collection legal?

A timely article

This is a timely article and thank you for raising it. I have almost given up drawing attention to the Telecommunications Act and what constitutes breaches of it, and half the time it seems to go unenforced, possibly due to lack of information. And now there is a 'culture' developing of leaking information like a sieve to go on top of that pre-existing 'culture'. I think its time for some hardball.

Fedora's Lovelock Linux is beta ready

Will it suck?

It is a Design Requirement of all Fedora's that they have unfindable bugs, strange interoperability issues with common apps and protocols, and a jungle of homegrown libraries that provide nothing the reference versions don't.

I presume in the name of goodwill to all the Fans[tm] they will be adhering to these principles with this release?

Halifax cuts investment accounts off from the web until April 2012

Bye guys

Bye!

Steven Moffat promises 'darker' Doctor Who

The Wartards of Marrrrs

Sorry old boy just have to pull you up there.

The Waters Of Mars was in fact not good. It was terrible, and very embarassing.

I think you are mistaking it for...... anything at all that RTD had absolutely nothing to do with.

This better be an improvement Steven......

This better be an improvement Mr. Moffat.

You are currently on probation, especially after I vomited blood for 3 days after that Xmas Special. Oh it was special alright. Special the way that suddenly discovering you have Scurvy would be.

You showed signs of promise, but sir, we all just ASSUMED that after you took over the helm the series would be come briliant, like the real Who! All Blink, all Empty Child, for gods' sakes all JEKYLL. This did not happen, and around about the time of the Candy Daleks there were spontaneous outbreaks of crying in public.

You are on probation Steven Moffat. This better be an improvement.....