Posts by Pierre

McAfee downplays service pack fail

Listen to Brent

I think Brent's point was you shouldn't need anti-malware on a server because it shouldn't be possible for any malware to get in there, period. If you allow the lusers to run untrusted binaries all over the place, then no AV is going to save you. If you do not allow such nonsense, then you don't need no steenkin' AV in the first place. OK, your lusers will probably want to have some admin rights on their machines, and LARTs are not always deployable, so you'd probably want to slap a nice AV on end-user machines -that'll teach them-, and maybe on a couple fileservers to avoid spreading, if they're lazily administered or if you can't control all the entry points, but that's it. No untrusted binary should be able to make its way on anything else*. And that bloody well includes world-facing servers.

I recently re-read a dreamer's ramblings about that:

http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/

Not the most recent stuff but still very true.

*Unlike Brent, I don't feel like mail server should need AV. They should only see plain text anyway. Attachments should be avoided, and if absolutely needed should be rerouted to a fileserver.

Russian porn starlet brands DD jubs

+ mother

And the missing word is...

Anna Morgan?

Strange name for a pr0n star. Wasn't that supposed to be Samara's name in "The Ring"? Though now that re-read what I just typed, it might make sense...

Anti-Eurofighter Downing Street e-petition started

@LImited Budget

Hey, so maybe it'd be a good thing to scrap Tranche 3 AND to call back the guys from the American wars in the Middle East then?

That's OK, you brits can always...

... buy a couple Rafale....

Engineers are troublesome 'expert loners', says prof

No "I" in "Tim"?

From the engineers I know and the comments here, this guy was bang on!

Some engineers *are* creepy loners unable to work in teams -especially the youngest ones. That's part of the culture and that's *not* *good*, despite what a bunch of them seem to think. Sure, if you're good you'll probably manage to solve the problem this way. But it's never be the best -or even one of the best- way. So you'll either come up with a working but sloppy and short-lived hack around the problem, or have your solution(s) refused (or self-censored) 24 times before reaching some acceptable compromise between deadlines and fitness-for-purpose. Both are considerable waste of time and can be avoided by rounding up and discussing ideas, problems and solutions beforehand. But then again, the danger here is endless useless meetings about the colour of the file in which the specs for the flowchart of the prospective roadmap will be stored.

It takes good management for this to be efficient, the current shortage of which may or may not explain the tendency towards loner habits when you want the work done. ;-) It might or might not be done right, but at least it'll be done.

As for the procrastination part, it's not specific to engineers and is not necessarily a bad thing. In older types, it turns from "wait idly till the last minute" to "study and discuss the ins and outs till the last minute", which usually leads to a much more suitable solution than starting doing random stuff blindly. And coincidentally it looks remarkably like team work ;-)

But again, I'm not an engineer myself and I tend to be a dreadfully procrastinating loner, so what do I know?

Google Squared - the Cuilest search app ever

Nice article...

But I still preferred the one on PHP. The MSPaint drawings are pure win though.

Windows 7 boss predicts 'modest' initial shipments

"best", "better" and "good"?

I somehow doubt these adjectives will really apply. A certain film title springs to mind instead...

McKinnon launches second extradition challenge

If you can't do the time...

... don't look at an open merkin computer the wrong way.

Unless you're Chinese, Russian, Romanian, or pretty much anything but British. Oh, and it helps if you have malicious intentions. Being helpful and pointing to the operator how his machine is full of holes is a no-no.

Pah.

Also, I'd sign any petition you want but please, please, don't make him sing!

Apple punts batterylicious MacBook Pros

"the most affordable [MacBook] lineup"

Hey, careful with the price cuts. Some day these things might end up being less expensive than my car!

Acer: Android netbook to come with... Windows

Makes sense

But not for a netbook of course.

Windows for the "legacy" users unable to cope with technological progress, and a Linux-based OS for those who want performance. ;-)

Of course, on a netbook (with presumably low ressource), having 2 different OSes is plain stupid. Especially if one of them is gonna be the super-bloated I-need-20Go-just-for-the-OS Microsoft spawn.

UK Communist website abused by Chinese hackers

It's all a commie plot

Supposedly the code targets Windows machines only. Windows is, as everyone knows, a hard-core capitalist OS. So the chaps browsing the commie website from a windows machine are obviously capitalist spies hell-bent to sabotage the People's aspirations to a better life. Hence the malware, embedded deep on the site by the webmaster, through a proxy on China (to dodge the legal spat).

Prove me wrong

At long last, internet's root zone to be secured

Breaking the key?

How would anyone need to break any key to break DNSSec?

Typical short-sighted gizmo-lovers, believing that the security of a system is this of it's stronger element. Hey, I've got whole-disk encryption, the key is a SuperSecureGaranteedUnbreakable Version 67 hash (4GB) stored on a stick labelled "enc. key" that sits on top of the machine. You'd need trillions of trillions years and more energy than is contained in the whole universe to break in. Or 30 seconds. Which is it?

You can get as strong a key as you want (which, dear AC, means NO MD5). It won't change a thing.

Anyway my point was that DNSSec would probably be broken very fast, if any bad guy really cared (the important part being that no-one is going to even remotely think about it. Because it has strictly no interest for a black hat.). The only people interested will be white hats, for the fame and glory (it means money).

Now deploy DNSSec all you want. It's certainly not going to make the internet any more secure. Hopefully it won't make it any *less* secure. And it certainly has the potential to make it *a lot* less neutral. Actually there's almost no way it's not completely and thoroughly abused and raped. Same as anti-terror laws used to chase fly-tippers and the like.

Same good old method: make up a fantastic (in all the meanings) threat, take "vigorous" action resulting in a "totally legitimate" landgrab. That's how the US annexed Iraq, that's how anti-paedo laws are used against, well, pretty much anyone including those they are supposed to protect, that's how your council can spy on you and how the plods can steal you camera for no good reason. That's also, closest to the point, how Arkansas got a bunch of oversea-based websites' domain names handed to them...

Utterly pointless -and dangerous.

Unless I'm missing something. All it will do is allow a rotten corporation (Verisign) to make some more money, and give the US unfettered power over the whole Internet, none of which is a good thing (think Arkansas...). It will make it slightly more difficult -but in no way impossible- for a supervillain to take over the internet, but I very much doubt anyone would have tried anyway (see this stone? It repells green tigers. Only $5000 for you, my friend), maybe because no-one would achieve anything by doing so.

No, the internet won't "cease to function". You might have to type IP addresses sometimes, or rely on certificates issued by people or corporations you know, but the "chain of trust" was never really secure anyway, and it never will. Just wait till DNSSEC is broken (should happen roughly 3 hours after it's first deployed).

It looks suspiciously like the weapons of mass destruction thinggy: At long last we're doing something. Against an imaginary threat we just made up. Which gives us full rights for a massive landgrab. Of course. As I said, the chances of some supervillain wanting to take over the root zone are approximately the same as being eaten by a green tiger in the Square Mile, and the chances of said supervillain doing anything with this newfound power would be even slimmer -if you could go any slimmer. And even assuming that, it would be so easily thwarted in a (comparatively) cheap and efficient way using only readily-deployed strategies (one way may be exchanging certificated by IP-based connections between known and trusted peers et voila! "Chain of trust" restored. Admittedly it will be some work for the largest structures, but nothing comparable to DNSSEC deployment IMHO). But of course Verisign wouldn't make gazillions out of it, and the US government wouldn't get the power to exclude the "baddies"* from the domain name system -or just maliciously redirect unsuspecting visitors from a "bad" site to a (CIA/DHS/NSA) scam site harvesting your details. It would be a pity not to use these predator and airborne laser beams to good use, after all. So DNSSEC it is, then. Colour me paranoid, but I'll be far more suspicious about the DNS system *after* than I am now (depending on the way it's implemented. I'm voluntarily considering the worst case scenario here, which is stupid. It won't happen of course. ASBOs were never used against fly tippers, the WMDs actually existed, the Terrorism Act was never user to steal your camera, the anti-paedo laws are never used to prosecute "sexting" minors, ...)

The bright side is that you'll know where to find the really good stuff: if you have to type the IP address, you're on the right track!

Tombstone: it's not El Reg anymore, it's 72.3.246.59. That's what you get for criticizing the "anti-terror" laws!

*that would be China, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Europe every other year, Russia, Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, two third of Africa, everyone in the Middle East but Israel, any site linking to links to links to links to Simpson porn images (or p2p trackers, or gambling site, or ...) etc. etc...

Man creates third-gen iPhone rumours picture

@ martinX

"It's when you use an Apple product that you finally get what all the fuss was about."

I'm sorry, I must disagree with that. I don't know about the phone, but I found the imac, the macbook, and the ipods I've used really bland* and even substandard. They look quite OK as long as you don't use them though.

*I must admit that some games on the recent ipods are nice, but if I wanted a gaming platform, I'd have bought one (with the money left from buying a better still much cheaper media player, maybe?)

World's first electric jet ski surfaces

Heh! That was supposed to be funny

"@Pierre : take another look at how you've spelt pleasure, and I think you'll agree even Paris would have read wanker,"

Yeah well, it was supposed to be some kind of lame pun, you know, double-entendre, what with the guy on the machine being a wankel (or is it r? I'm confused now) and all that. Probably a bit *too* lame though.

As for the triple expansion engine, you do have a point about the size of this, erm, vessel. On the other hand, you'd still have a big vibration problem, which would disappear with a Wankel engine... still steam-powered of course. The first jet-ski in the world with a heating seat! The heat would probably take care of these defective look-at-me-on-my-annoying-sea-mosquito genes, too (evolution-wise). Though the vibrations might also help... maybe the triple expansion idea should be given a chance after all.

Choice

"So basically you are admitting to trying to be an idiot, by choice?"

Still beats not having the choice at all. The part about the Wankel engine is still valid though. I'm just not a self-important twat, is all. So when answering to a comment that suggests an old clumsy steam engine in a jet-ski, I sometimes indulge in a bit of self-irony on the side of the factually valid part. Doing otherwise would be sick.

"Cool. Works for me. I'll ignore you now. Have a nice day."

A nice day to you, too. Tell your horse I said hi.

@ jake (and Homard)

«Pierre: Look up "Triple Expansion Engine"»

I am very much aware of the existence of these old large inefficient things. The Wankel engine can be very compact, can also work on steam, and, appart from being a vely (sorry) good excuse for bad puns, would be much more efficient (not to mention the vibrations).

Of course my comment was but a joke, as made amply evident by the use of the icon and the stupid pseudo-japanese plonunciation. Apparently not evident enough though.

@ Homard: "Been a real pleasure too. Paris cos even she can outwit you."

She plobabry can, but I doubt you'd notice.

@Homard

"Personally I'd like to see one of these things powered by a triple expansion engine."

I think you mean Wankel engine.

No need to thank me, it's learry been a preasule.

@ Stevie and Erik Aamot

"Here on Long Island [...] while the largely innocent victim" As everyone from Manhattan knows, there are no innocent people on Long Island.

"Perfect tool for Somali pirates to sneak up on unsupecting craft at night" Yep, and the Segway is the perfect tool for nomadic antelope-hunting Malian tribes. Though I don't think the segway franchise in Niafunké is doing that well.

OMG it's HUGE!

And in this case, size does matter. This thing is, like, twice as large as a "normal" jetski, and 3 times as heavy, I would guess (batteries...) which, as far as fun is involved, is a major drawback.

On the other hand, it is less noisy, so you'll look like an ass (even slightly more so than a regular jackass on a regular jetski) but far less people will notice you. Might or might not be a plus: after all, 95% of the fun with jetskis is getting attention from the Paris-Hilton-wannabbes on the nearby shore. Or so I've been told.

Who will win the epic battle for the kitchen OS?

H316?

Surely the battle was won a long, long time ago by the Honeywell H316? Or was it the battle for the most ridiculous electronic consumer product?

Teens rate top tech brands

re: @ jeremy

Look it up...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.

Xandros - the Linux company that isn't

@AC 15.53: I disapprove this comment ;-)

«That they have a life outside hacking config files, trawling through logs or compiling their own drivers? For them Windows "just works".»

So completely untrue that it hurts. Have you ever tried to install Windows from scratch on a machine? I suspect not. Read John White's comment. Only the most common mobo/CPU/IDE drive combos will be supported, and pretty much anything else will require manually installing the drivers. On a reasonnably complex box it takes a couple days if you have all the right (i.e. pretweaked for your particular version of Windows) drivers at hand, on suitable supports (a lot of this time being just watching the bloody thing reboot and reboot and reboot again).

Windows "just works" for the luser crowd because a fuckton of wizzards spent weeks or month tweaking and installing the bloody POS for them. On the other hand, anyone moderately tech-litterate (I mean here anyone *unable* to install Windows but able to operate it) should not have any major problem with a Mandriva or Ubuntu install. They probably won't do it completely right, but they'll end up with a working machine, in 2 hours max.

If Windows "just works" out of the box, how come there is no Windows LiveCD out there, when there are hundreds of GNU/Linux and BSD liveCDs that will work out of the box on 90%+ of machines?

Now if the OEMs were not bribed to the core by MS, they could sell pre-installed GNU/Linux distros, which -oh miracle- would "just work" even for the cluelesstest of lusers -more so than Windows. OK, these wouldn't sell terribly well in the beginning -because of the moronic crowd being afraid of Linux for no reason-, but just have a few ones in stock and people will start to notice how better they are. Admittedly you'd have to make a decent job of it, which means you can probably forget about Xandros altogether*, but it's still going to be much less work than tweaking Windows for the same machines**.

Flames, because it looks like I've been carried away a bit.

*hearsay mostly, never played with the thing.

**observation based on real-life experience, not on some "mine came pre-tweaked so it must be easy" flawed reasonning.

Ouch

"you lose your shirt on it. At the end of the day, you have to do something that puts rice in the bowl."

Yep, we have to be proactive about that. I suggest we touch base some time this afternoon. I should be free at 3, but it's only a guesstimate, I'll keep you up.

By the way, the "guest OS" approach (Presto) is far from new. It's good for people who know they want to jump ships, and want to try a few distros before choosing the destination, but that's it. As the guest OS communicates with the hardware through the host , you've got all the problems inherent to the hosting OS, plus the communication problem/cost, plus the odd problem with the guest OS. So it runs slow and can be buggy, most of that being of course due to the host Windows OS.

And "than trying to convince Windows shops to load Xandros Professional Desktop on top of Windows and forgetting everything they knew about Windows and having to learn the Way of Linux."? Puh-lease... if you're really talking about the shops, the first-line henchmen do not know a thing about either Linux or Windows (or OpenBSD or Tru64 UNIX or BlueBottle or...) -worst, they *think* they know, and will be more than happy to give braindead advice carefully hand-picked from the worst windows-for-morons web forums. And the wizz guys would probably be super-happy to migrate, as -SHOCKER- Linux is way, way easier to put on *any* machine than Windows -that's especially true for "non-standard" machines.

If you're talking about the end-user, they tend to know nothing about Windows either, and have to learn from Uncle Joe (who knows informatics: he used to clean the floors and empty the bins at Best Buy), or the aforementionned Windows-for-morons forums (where every other "solution" involves flashing the BIOS and tutti quanti). So they'd be better off with a GNU/Linux system (they come with a real documentation, for starters).

Fans decry tennis gal's breast-slash plan

Horse racing

This pair of puppies is clearly a problem for her career. It's admittedly an extreme case, but it's probably not fair that she has to undergo such a risky procedure just to stay in the game. This, by the way, applies to all athletes. Maybe it's time to look at what we can do to level the field... maybe it's time to reintroduce the good old "handicap" system: before each match, various measurements could be done, and the less "naturally handicapped" of the athletes would then have to bear an "artificial handicap" (in this case, a wobbly pair of Jello-filled balloons?). Of course, this could be adapted to other sports. Someone already mentioned Linford Christie I believe. Also, have a look at that (French-like lingo alert): http://www.tetesaclaques.tv/la_natation_vid711)

Mine's the one with the referee's phone number in the pocket.

The Lord giveth...

... and the plastic surgeon taketh. A big loss for the Tennis and Entertainment Industry, Inc. -which seems to prefer skinny supermodel-like Russian starlets anyway. I'm still off to sign the petition though.

40,000 sites hit by PC-pwning hack attack

As a proud Frenchman,

Let me be the first to say "Où ça, ma beladen?"

Pityful I know. I'll be going now.

Gordon 'to sacky' Wacky Jacqui

Don't get it wrong: she won

She was just the fuse, pals. She was the first-line defense for you to hate, she's done her job (she did what she's been put there to do), now everyone hate her so her mission is done, she can be disposed of and replaced by the next "fuse" who will do exactly the same, until everyone hate them too much, at which point they will be dismissed and replaced by another fuse, repeat ad nauseam. (and yes, whatever party is gonna be in charge will probably do the same - with a nuance: if the Tories take over, you'll lose your job, too ;-) )

Firefox users flip out over sneak MS add-on

Re: Illegal action? Perhaps not under CMA...

"(c) to impair the operation of any such program or the reliability of any such data."- This does not impair the operation of FF. It could, in fact, be argued that the plugin extends the functionality of FF (which one might expect a plugin to do, eh?)

Wrong. It silently allows external code to install and run -silently. (yes, double silent: the plugin installs silently, and the 4th-party code will install silently). So it digs a huge security hole. It _is_ impairing the proper operation of the software. Period. (and I don't give a shit about the ridiculous "but clickonce app has to be signed with a certificate". Who says the certificate is to be trusted? the same company who sneaked the malicious hole in the first place? How trustful!)

Not a big issue for me anyway. It's not like I was foolish enough to use Windows for mission-critical tasks -unless it's on a properly quarantined machine.

Cisco joins Dow, as GM jettisoned

Why Cisco and not Google or Yahoo?

Well, call me cynic but aren't Yahoo and Google using open-source software? They're not gonna let the commies in the Dow! So they took the second-sorry, third-sorry, fourth-sorry [...] twentieth best. The first who don't use commie OSS. Given the failure rate of non-OSS-using-companies, in 3 years they'll have to let in some e-bay traders to avoid the OSS commies! I can't wait. At long last, the Dow will reach its natural level: only slighly lower than the Lagos Stock Exchange. Mouarf.

Linksys router ripe for remote takeover

Ho, right, It's serious then. I bet it's swine flu.

It's not like I could, hem, connect to the router and type the default password and then have access to whatever I want, is it? Cause this very, erm, sophisticated attack is much, much easier than anything you could ever demonstrate WHICH FUCKING NEEDS TEH FUCKING DEFAULT LOGIN TO FUCKING BE IN PLACE (sorry). Why would I need a sophisticated attack then? As much as I hate their crappy gear, I must side with Cisco here: this "attack" is a joke and they shouldn't bother to fix it. Last week I was fixing a friend's WiFi and I, erm, inadvertently stumbled on her neighbour's router config page. I'm sorry to tell you that I didn't need any sophisticated attack technique. And if changing the default login creds thwarts the "sophisticated attack" described here as well as as my "type 192.168.1.1"* approach, well the obvious conclusion is that the so-called "sophisticated attack" is just useless mind-wanking by people with too much time in their hands (and no brain). I'm not sure that reporting such a *erm* vuln is a plus for a rag that is, after all supposed to be somewhat IT-aware. Hey, breaking news: burglars dicovered a new very sophisticated technique to break in your house, no-one is safe anymore! If you leave your keys on your front door, some new sophisticated technique might allow thieves in: it involves highly technical moves, such as turning the key and pushing the door! Unbelievable!

When did El Reg turn into Daily Fail, again?

*adapt to your needs, you shouldn't have to try more than 4 different IPs. If the luser didn't change the default password, what are the odds they changed the default local IP? then the router tells you everything you need to know to find its default password, and you're in. No need for a sophisticated attack: a browser, a wireless card and a couple brain cells are more than enough. Maybe the "security researchers" cited here lack one of the ingredients? I wonder which one.

AMD locks and loads 'Istanbul' six-shooter

More cores....

"If there is a direct relationship between the cost of making a chip and its size and an inverse relationship between the size of a chip and its improving yields, you can see why Intel has decided to deploy HyperThreading on its chips, and the wonder is why AMD hasn't done its own variant of HyperThreading after all of these years." (and answers to "6-cores.... why do I need it? ")

Well, threading has a cost, and is not necessarily improving performance that much. For servers it might help for some applications, but on my workstations I already see some apps hitting the wall at 8 cores (that's 2 times 4). They could use more FLOPs per core, but wouldn't benefit much from more cores. I do expect to reach the asymptote at 12 cores. It's all a matter of target audience. For the really heavy parallel computing, RISC-like solutions are going to be tough oponents in the years to come (GPU-based boxes are going to make a killing, I think), while at the other end of the spectrum single threaded powerhouses from IBM are not to be underestimated. So the only real open market for x86 is going to be "cheap" workstations and medium-size virtualization hives (in-house servers). To be more explicit, on high-end workstations x86 chips are spanked* by Power chips, while smaller RISC chips (let's say GPUs) will be more and more tempting for big structures like shared datacenters (aka The Mighty Misty Cloud made of Vapour). And x86 in a modern supercomputer? Are you serious? So if I was the cash-strapped AMD, I would just build a median solution, avoiding the overhead of hyperthreading, which anyway would sooner or later lead to an uphill battle against "GPUs", while still delivering straightforward, cheap FLOPS for "low" power by the use of multiple physical cores, to beat Power chips on the budget front. Intel doesn't care that much, they can afford a sub-optimal product placement: they made metric craploads of cash by bribing AMD out of business ;-) .

Just sayin'

Mine is the cheap, bland, worn one. But hey, it does the job.

*OK, "spanked"might be a bit strong. "humiliated" maybe?

Microsoft, Asus launch anti-Linuxbook campaign

@ Jason Yau

"Isn't this just a smear campaign by Microsoft?"

Not at all. After all, it's not MS fault if open source devs kill their wives, and try to disrupt the economy by forcing an OS that can't connect to the internet on unsuspecting (but otherwise brilliant) customers. By the way, did you notice that the credit crunch shortly followed the rise of FireFox? Coincidence? I don't think so.

@ Sir Wiggum

"In XP, you download a program, you double click it, it launches and installs

In Linux you have to find it, change permissions, then execute it, that's if you're lucky and it's built for your kernel. Otherwise, you have to configure and build it, then you find you are missing dependencies. So you have to try and find the dependencies, and try and install those and so on."

You got it all wrong mate. In windows, you have to find the program on the web, pay for it (or find it for free but run a couple anti-malware tests on it), download it, find the downloaded file, click on it, wait til it installs, reboot your computer and if you're lucky it will be compatible with your version of windows and your anti-malware settings. If not you're welcome to enter the Service Pack Spiral of Death (say Hi! to your good buddy WGA), and/or disable your anti-spyware (yeah, great!). Of course, all this means a few reboots along the way. Then, if you're lucky, it might work.

In Linux, you have to open your package manager and click install. That's it.

Don Mitchell

"technologically, Linux is not as sophisticated as Windows, and indeed Linux is largely a mix of the obsolete UNIX operating system with various features from Windows NT or Apple"

Hehehe nice try*, but you went way over the edge, it's not credible any more. So I won't bite. I'm sure you'll get plenty of flames anyway. Keep it up. Next stop: the forums at porsche.com, to tell them how their cars are technologically not as sophisticated as Trabans, and are largely a mix between steam trains and bicycles.

*Assuming you're just trolling. If not, please commit suicide ASAP.

@ MaxSmart

"Remember the Wisconsin woman who "had to" drop out of college last year because she bought a Dell with Ubuntu that did not "access the Internet"? Linux is not ready for those people"

Now tell me how many students fail their deadlines because of "computer crash"... it happens quite often in corporate environments too... we're talking millions of occurences per year here*, not one single event in history. Therefore, Windows is not ready for these users. Might be OK for lazy techies for gaming purpose but that's it.

"People hate junk mail too, but without that it would cost $5 to mail a letter."

People hate cod liver oil too, but without that skyscrapers would be orange**

* Most of them are actually poor cover-up stories, but who would be foolish enough to think that the Wisconsin incident was anything else?

** yes, this is a way to say that I failed to parse your last sentence in a way that made sense -let alone relate it to the subject at hand.

OK, time for real info (+fanboy nonsense at the end)

Given that the site is not very clear about ownership, I asked Mr Whois who told me the registrant for the domain name is a Mr Michael Sharp from Kent (Washington, not the real UK one). Mr Search Engine very kindly poited me to this other website: http://www.michaelsharp.org/

It all makes sense now!*

So it would appear, after all, that this site has nothing to do with MS or Asus but is just a dedicated fanboy's work. Or most likely a roge employee**.

I don't know What Asus' take will be. After all, they do sell Linux boxes, so they might not be that impressed by MS underhand attempts to ruin that part of the market... which, when you come to think of it, might be the reason why the site avoids carefully any mention of an official endorsement by MS. Fear of the legal spat maybe?

(now there's someting true in the website: If all you want is play minesweeper and the occasional Yukon, Windows may be enough for you. You should be aware that it makes Yukon and minesweeper very expensive games though)

*unfortunately, the nutcase at michaelsharp.org is apparently from Alberta. There goes my funny theory. But let's not let that fact get in the way of a nice story.

** could he be _this_ Michael Sharp? http://www.spoke.com/info/p1makQy/MichaelSharp

@ Kevin

"I cannot begin to fathom the mental anguish that would come from trying to explain to a standard user how to install, run, and change settings in linux."

How is life in 1995?

Sharp creates true-hue five-colours-per-pixel LCD

All well and good, BUT

As initially stated, if you feed the display with RGB data it won't change much. The RBG colourspace is less than complete, but with a RGB feed it's left to the screen to convert the colours. And who is gonna tell it that one particular green+red spot was supposed to be "pure" yellow, whereas that other was really supposed to be green+red? That's what I thought.

So unless you have a 5-colour process from start to finish, you're just replacing gaps in the gamut by errors in the resampling. I don't see it being a plus: instead of a consistent bias to which the brain can adapt, you introduce random inconsistencies. I'd bet the first impression is "wow, impressive colours!" immediately followed by "but it doesn't look quite right for some reason". That's until you get 5-colours TV transmission* of course.

The 5-colour thing also makes each pixel 66% larger (probably not a showstopper in the long run but I'd bet it's one of the reason why their demo 1920 x 1080 display is so gignormously huge).

*or whichever source you fancy

PS

If you don't believe that a consistently imperfect gamut is better than random errors in colour resampling, make this simple experiment: take a technicolor movie and a crappy piece of TV show (let's say, Baywatch, for the abundance of red and fleshy tones). Watch one for a few minutes. At first the colours look weird, then you get used to it and reconstruct the real colourspace from what your brain knows (Baywatch swimsuits are red, bananas are yellow,...). Now switch to the other source. Ouch! It hurts, doesn't it? All these colours are waaaayyy off! But then, after a few minutes, it's all OK again! Switch back and forth a few times, and you'll understand why introducing random inconsistencies in colour rendition is way worst than having consistant errors.

That's why I don't think this new display technique will bring anything to the table unless there is a 5-colour feed to channel through it.

BOFH: Snout, meet trough

Absofucklutely brilliantly

Also, I know one of those people: still convinced that there is a "swine flu" pandemic and that it's a serious disease (he made the parallel with leper and plague). Also, when casually speaking about a friend of his' old Apple machine, I asked if it was PowerPC-based. He answered "No, it's not a PC, I told you it's a Mac". I tried to explain to him but he would not have any of it, answering "no, it's a mac" each time I mentionned PowerPC. I finally gave up after 3 of these answers. Ha, lusers...

Microsoft breaks Windows 7 three-apps netbook handicap

OK, can I be of very bad faith?

Assuming a "yes" there: OK, they broke the 3 apps limitation, but you won't be able to run a single one at acceptable speed anyway. (damned if they do, damned if they don't!)

(/bad faith)

Now for the media playing bit (and more seriously): it will come without DVD playback and other media-related stuff... does that mean that they removed the piece of smelly crap that WMP is, or did they remove driver support? The first would actually be a very good thing (vlc all round, Yay!). The second would be yet another driver hell unleashed on unsuspecting users (Booooh!).

Not that I care anyway. If I ever feel the need to buy a netbook*, it will either be a Linux one, or a Windows-soon-to-be Linux one.

* basic requirement: super-cheap, 1 GHz CPU (max), 258M of reliable RAM, a few Go of strorage -or a SD slot-, decent 800x600x24 display, a usable keyboard and 8+ hours of battery power. A wireless netwok card would be a plus (reduced battery life acceptable when on, but must be hardware-switchable). Make offers.

Russian blows off ex-boyf's todger with firecrackers

More than 30 comments and I'm still the first...

... to make a stupid pun about Russian blowjobs...

What is wrong with you guys?

PC-pwning infection hits 30,000 legit websites

Oh, you mean *Windows* PC then.

Should we assume that the Linux, *BSD or Apple PCs are immune?

Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology

@ Mithvetr

Wow. You actually made a point. Not necessarily the one(s) you were trying to make, though.

Tesla recalls Roadsters

@ Share Car By Anonymous Coward (bis)

I've been told that the "don't tell Sarah who I am" option is available only to the Vulture Central Platinum members.

Oh, nuts!

Leccy cars, it's all about environmentalists torquing your ... bolts

@ Share Car By Anonymous Coward

"If it helps, I promise I'll take Sarah out for a spin .... in the car, even."

You do realize that the mighty Moderatrix has access to your login name and e-mail adress, right? You should be afraid, very afraid!

iPhone apps - the 10 smartest and the 10 stupidest

What's the point?

Yeah, let's download apps which will allow us to waste hours doing an awful job of otherwise easy tasks!

I mean, seriously, who is going to actually create music on a microscopic device with worst-than-awful audio capabilities? Why not do that on a real machine, check the result on your £1000 sound system, _then_ transfer the result on whatever you want?

Same for the FTP stuff: are you *really* going to trust someone to fix a website from a frigging phone? Yeah sure, I'll fix this XHTML page -full of scripts- and/or this Apache config file. From a device that displays 10 half-lines of text at a time. Through an insecure connection. What could possibly go wrong?

I guess the Bloomberg thing can be remotely useful if you're so stock-obsessed that you feel you can't let the market unmonitored for a full 30 minutes -and can't be bothered to browse the web for the info-, but that's it.

At least the "idiotic" apps will probably give the expected results. the "smart" ones are for twits who don't have to perform any actual work but want to impress the boss's PA. Oh wait, we're talking about iPhone owners. I see now. Go ahead, these apps are great!