Posts by Tsu Dho Nimh

Is there a cure for cancer sitting at the back of the medicine cabinet already?

You mean cimetidine will be ignored like ... say ... thalidomide is?

Fake antivirus scams: It's a $120m business – and alleged ringleaders have just been frozen

Finally!

I'd see their popups, click yes and be told that my recistry was corrupted beyone repair.

Linux has no registry.

How to strip pesky copyright watermarks from photos ... says a FACEBOOK photo bod

Re: As far as I am concerned

As far as you are concerned doesn't count. It's what copyright law and privavy laws say that matters.

http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm is a good page to start.

"If the image is of me and I am alone in that image I am the copyright owner."

No, the person who took the photo is the copyright owner.

"If the image is of me and other people... Why wasn't my permission for the photograph to be taken asked?"

Because the only time a model release is required is when the photo will be used for commercial purposes - in advertising a product or service, or selling the image as "you".

Using a legally shot photo of you for news, educational or editorial purposes would require no permission from you. If you are in a public place, or a photographer can shoot you from a legally accessible public space, you have no say in the matter. And I can use a picture of you skiing, for example, to illustrate an article about skiing, ski gear, ski injuries, etc. I can't sell the photo to Head to use in their ads, but the resort you were at can use the poics in their ads (read the fine print on the ticket).

Using a photo of you for a potentially sensitive area (accompanying an article on obesity, suicide, etc.) technically needs no release, but most publishers only use photos with releases or with no visible subject's face. (if I'm shooting medical pics, for example, I make sure patient's face is out of the shot or blocked ... it makes sale of pics much easier)

Boffin fights fire with EXPLOSIVES instead of water

It's not going to scale up to wildfire size

Oil well fires are stationary points of flame a few tens of meters wide - lots of pressure behind them, but not much territory, and a single point of combustion where the fuel is coming out of the pipe. You can surround them.

Wildfires have flame fronts that are hundreds to thousands of meters wide, irregularly shaped, with a wall of flames and fuel sources that may be 5 to 30 meters high (or higher), and can be moving 60kph or more.

That's going to have to be a planet-buster of a bomb.

Top tip, power users – upgrading Ubuntu may knacker your Linux PC

" the upgrade breaks the GRUB bootloader, rendering the machine unbootable."

I had that problem multiple times with Ubuntu, maybe even with the last install ... instead of reading my GRUB and keeping the information it writes a default GRUB file. And, because my disk drive assignments aren't bog standard, It can't find the boot information.

I reported it several times and got zero response from them.

Firms fined $350,000 after yogurt sting uncovers review rigging

Re: Does anyone want to believe (online reviews)

I buy a lot online, so I rely on online reviews heavily ... but you have to read them carefully.

1 - Is the reported problem apparently "user error" or the product's fault?

2 - What is the proportion of bad, middling, excellent reviews?

3 - If there were problems, does the reviewer explain how they were resolved?

4 - Is there a pattern of product flaws?

5 - Does this reviewer have a pattern of all-glowing or all-horrible reviews?

6 - If negative, is the delivery spittle-flecked ranting or a sincere attempt to explain a bad product.

7 - Is this a "dogpile" because of some online news about the place or product? (Amy's Bakery, etc.)

I also write reviews, trying to review everything significant I buy online ... with the good, the bad and the ugly about whatever it was.

Divers nearly DEVOURED by HUNGRY SEA BEASTS

Probably get spit out immediately.

Humpbacks have huge mouths, but a very small throat, relative to the mouth size.

You could get hurt,by their jaws, but they don't have teeth, they have "baleen".

www.whaleresearch.ca/photo_gallery/albums/humpbacks/baleen.sized.jpg

Microsoft updates Hotmail to deal with grey spam

I'm still waiting for them to figure out how to screen out the HotSexSpamWithWordsRunTogether emails.

And the solution to the newsletter spam is for those offering the newsletters to make "NO" the default option, and sending the first one with a "Yes, I really signed up" way to respond. Instead they sign up everyone by default and I report them as spam.

Chinese lecturer demands his students acquire iPads

Delaying Tactics?

He says: "if I'm late for class, even if late for a minute, I will [do] self-punishment in front of the classroom ... 50 push-ups."

It will be interesting to see if there are strange things happening to his car, his elevators, his commute route, etc. It would be sooooo very tempting to make him late for as many classes as possible, by any non-lethal means I could think of.

LulzSec dumps hundreds of Arizona Police documents

RTFTORRENT?

I've read the collection of e-mails and most of the docs. There is no smoking gun. Maybe a leaky water pistol.

It's a pretty boring collection.

In-app payment patent scattergun fired at small devs

AOL on-line did this!

"applications that allow the user to unlock additional functionality in exchange for money"

I remember being able to hand over credit card details and gain access to more functions, forums, and games on GEnie, Compuserve and AOL Online. That is prior art.

AFAIR, you could even pay other people for their products on Compuserve.

Calls for US nudie perv scanner 'opt-out day'

Let's say YES, OH, GOD YES!!!! HARDER!!!

Not only opt out ... respond verbally to the groping in a proper manner :)

Ladies, please watch the restaurant orgasm scene from "When Harry met Sally" for a refresher.

Gentlemen, watch the pr0n flick of your choice for the appropriate verbalizations.

OpenOffice files Oracle divorce papers

Starting Over? Again?

ARRRGH! And what about the ancient request for a decent outline view? I submitted the request in 2000 or 2001 and it has the most votes of any feature request in the database.

How much of the code are they taking with them?

Mine's the one with the ancient copy of Microsoft Word in the pocket. I'd throw it out if I didn't need the outline view.

Carnivorous plague mice 'wiping out towns' in US Midwest

More like rodent Suburbia

"At only 10 (small furry) residents per acre, that sounds very des res."

That's 10 prairie dogs with several observation mounds, exit tunnels, and several hundred feet of burrow per acre. They have their towns tunneled like the Brits do Gibraltar.

It's more like suburban sprawl, with areas of densely populated burrows and areas of sparse burrows between them.

'Holland wins World Cup' declares CBSNews

Wrong Can Opened

What you see here is one of two stories that CBS had "in the can", already written except for the final score, ready to have the score thrown into the first paragraph where you see the variables SCORE to SCORE.

One was written in the event of Spain winning, the other in the event of the Netherlands winning. Someone pushed the wrong button. oopsie!

It's standard newspaper practice to have stories with only a couple of possible outcomes written ahead of time. They are kept ready for the insertion of a few details to bring it up to date: Pop Tart wins/loses custody battle, Evil Criminal innocent/guilty of heinous murder, Famous Person dies suddenly ... the obituary has been kept up to date by some flunky so only the date and cause of death has to be written.

(contrary to Desk Jockey's statement, the USA has been doing it at least since the Spanish-American War)

Ball lightning is all in the mind, say Austrian physicists

What about the burns? The explosions?

Many eyewitness reports indicate the ball lightning did things like explode masonry chimneys, and leave scorch marks on paint.

DVLA off-road system seriously off-message

Off Road? Translation, Please, for US-ians

"took his vehicle off the road" Do they mean you have to notify them when or before you drive your vehicle across pastures and through the woods, on unmarked unofficial roads?

That is what off-road" means in the USA.

Paris, because I'm clueless.

New use found for 'world's most useful tree'

they have!

They have ... look for "moringa scam" on google and you will find them.

What are you doing about refreshing the PC estate?

Way behind the bleeding edge

I'm inclined to stay with a stable system until it either goes up in smoke and I need new hardware or I absolutely have to use an application that can't run on the hardware or OS.

Grabbing the bleeding edge just because it's newer and shinier isn't my style.

Texan confronts the legendary chupacabras

JACWM: Just Another Coyote With Mange

Just Another Coyote With Mange.

Coyotes have long legs, big ears, and under the fur they are very slender. It's a coyote with severe sarcoptic mange.

Here is a live one:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coyote_with_mange.jpg

Here's another one, shot in Nebraska, that still has some of it's body fur:

http://www.bjacked.net/LuvToHunt/hunt/Coyote%20with%20Mange.jpg

And coyotes have long fangs:

http://www.foxnews.com/images/369374/1_62_coyote_snarl.jpg

China seals town after plague deaths

Not waterborne!

"No need to worry about it spreading through water borne pathologies?"

Nope. Unless you were bleeding large numbers of plague victims into the local water supply and then bathing in it immediately. Even then, it wouldn't transmit as pneumonic. What little I could find on accidental infection of wounds by pneumonic plague bacteria indicates it reverts to bubonic because of the mode of entry.

Most pneumonic plague starts when someone is butchering an infected animal and inhales the inevitable spray of contaminated particles of blood and body fluids. In the most recent case in USA a wildlife biologist in Arizona was cutting up a mountain lion (puma, cougar) he had found dead. Cat died of pneumonic plague, and so did the biologist. His roommate found him dead on the couch - roommate didn't get sick.

There is little prodromal period with pneumonic plague, not even much coughing until you have keeled over (severe prostration = too weak to move) which is why prompt isolation of the sick and their immediate contacts is extremely effective. Standard biohazard precautions (gloves, masks, etc.) apply.

From a 1922 medical book: "The onset is usually sudden, with a rapid rise of fever, frequently accompanied by a severe chill or chills, and rapidly followed by intense headache, general body pains, vomiting, and severe prostration. The fever is high and usually irregular, occasionally intermittent; the pulse weak, of low tension, and rapid. The heart is weak and, owing to a compensating emphysema, may present a diminished area of dulness. Again, owing to dilatation of the heart, increased dulness especially to the right side may be noted. The spleen is enlarged in the majority of cases. The respiration is rapid, reaching 75 or over per minute. Cyanosis is usually marked."

it's containable

Geo runoff guy ... not a problem. This is airborne, not fecal.

Pneumonic plague - because it is so fast to kill people, and has a short incubation period - is relatively easy to control with a tight quarantine. Antibiotics can get the death rate to below 20% if you give them soon enough, but stopping the P2P spread is the key to control.

Look up "Controlling Pneumonic Plague in China" at Google and take the link to my article at Associated Content. It has excerpts from the way they did it in 1910. No antibiotics, no O2, no respirators, no IVs. But they managed to keep it from reaching Peking, and kept it from killing most or all of the city of Mukden.

Amish farmers lose court battle against RFID

Tuberculosis is being monitored!

Michigan is the ONLY state to have cows infected with the cow versions of tuberculosis - and that variety of tuberculosis can spread to humans very easily.

There is a serious health need to know when cows are being moved from an infected area to a non-infected one.

China bars WoW expansion for showing bone

Religious influence in Communist China?

Interesting: Extreme reverence for the bones of the dead is a pre-Mao cultural thing, from Confucianism. I guess the Great Revolution wasn't as far-reaching as they thought.

Black widows: Coming soon to a kitchen sink near you

Black Widows eat crickets, etc.

Breakfast-

Black widows eat crickets, woodlice, pillbugs and other ground-crawling insects. They live in cluttered areas, like garden sheds and cellars.

The best defense against them is ecological: minimizing the prey species and the cluttered areas minimizes the chances of encountering one. They have predators - most spider-eating wasps can successfully attack a black widow, as can mantids.

The bite is definitely NO FUN!

Spam swine break next-gen CAPTCHAs

Sweatshop Recruiting

You see recruiting posts on "work at home" sites,often listed as "data Entry". They pay a tiny amount per 1,000 images typed in, but it's apparently worth it to the spammers to get accounts.

Big Brother tracking comes to Second Life

Rapid prototyping?

Looks good for making small-scale prototypes.

But the robot delivery carts are going to be a problem. We always had to escort ours through the pediatric ward because the kids liked to step in front of it and make it stop and ask them to move.

US Patent Office rains on Dell's 'cloud computing' trademark

The Farmer used Dell before they did.

Didn't he?

Killer Satnavs amok in 'Utah Polyhedron' phenomenon

Using a hiking map?

It sounds like the idiot with the GPS was trying to travel "as the crow flies" between where they were and where they wanted to be. There's a maze of dirt roads and canyons and ridges between anywhere and anywhere else in that area.

My family spent two weeks camping in there decades ago, armed with topo maps, compass and plenty of water. Most roadmaps of these areas only show the passable roads - although driving anywhere in the canyons in the late summer rainy season can be dangerous because of flash floods. If you take your time, take water and let people know where you are going, it's lovely country.

If all you want is out ... take the road MOST TRAVELLED every time you have a choice.

http://www.thingstodo.com/states/UT/nationalparks/grandstaircase.html

Mine's the one with the dead bird in the pocket - it didn't see the cliff coming either.

Stray left foot washes up on Vancouver beach

Forensics

"Evidence of deliberate removal" would be tool marks on the bones (saw or knife), or tendons ripped from attachment points.

Mounties taser bed-ridden octagenarian

Pocket! No fair, he had a POCKET!

This must be the real reason hospital gowns in the USA don't have pockets ... so we can't hide weapons in them.

Patients get delirious, often combative and delirious, but for heaven's sake, why aren't hospital staff taught how to persuade the guy to drop the knife.

PETA offers $1m for test tube chicken

How will they know?

"Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike"

How will the non-meat-eaters know? "Tastes like chicken" only works when the person doing the tasting has eaten real chickens.

Let them eat tofu!

US-Iranian naval clash: Radio trolls probably to blame

VHF goes a long way

My. Coward:

"Of course, we're supposed to believe, that at the point where this occurred, some high-power transmitter equipped "prankster" was watching that part of the sea and just happened to catch the Iranians dropping off packages and racing around warships in an already hostile situation, and figured that time was perfect for setting up this whole situation."

No, anyone within radio range who was listening could have picked up on the VHF traffic and made comments. Decades ago, a friend was involved in a standoff between his survey ship (dead in the water, with instruments and divers down) and a couple of small Russian warships in the skinny part of the Bering Strait. Their traffic could be heard all the way down to the Aleutians.

BTW, they made the Russian ships back off by lobbing packets of girlie magazines, candy bars and Coca-Cola onto their decks. The sailors were delighted, the coimmissars were not.

Dengue fever threatens continental US

Vaccine will not be easy

Llanfair - They've been working on the vaccines for years - at least since before WWII - but it's a difficult virus. They had a killed-virus vaccine years ago, then took it off the market when the problems showed up.

The Problem: You can immunize anyone against any one of the dengue variants. Unfortunately, should that person contract one of the three remaining variants, they are far more likely to have a really serious case or die. The same holds true for anyone who has had a natural infection. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_antigenic_sin for details.

The current research is trying to produce a multi-strain vaccine from bits of the virus coats, but it only infects primates. One hihgly inbred (think rare and hard to breed more of them) strain of mice might be usable, but those tests are still underway.

Right now, vector control is the best preventive.

NYC hit by bedbug epidemic

Just a common bug

Herman ... no. It's the common bedbug (Cimex lectularius).

The trend to elaborate beds - piles of pillows, canopies, draperies and other foo-foo decor provides them with plenty of places to hide out between meals on the unknowing host. They LOVE cluttered areas.

They aren't hard to kill, but you have to be persistent and thorough. And hope the infestation is not coming from a near-by apartment.

Drink-drive chain gang obliged to bury dead alcoholics

Phoenix: neither high nor cold

heystoopid ... yes, I mean you, but you picked the name. You coulda checked Wikipedia first. But nooooooooo, you decided to make up some geography.

Phoenix has a mean elevation of 1,117 feet (340 m) ... Yes, if it snows here, which is does every few years, if it's heavy enough, they would have to close the runways because THEY HAVE NO SNOWPLOWS!

The tent cities are probably tolerable in the winter, but in summer it's damned hot here. The temperature reaches or exceeds 100°F (38°C) on an average of 89 days during the year, including most days from early June through early September.

He's a bloody ass!

Sheriff Joe is only after publicity, not justice or deterrance. His arrogance has cost the county millions in wrongful death lawsuits and other court costs. His recent fiascos ... search for "Phoenix New Times" with Arpaio and see what he expected a newspaper to turn over. And there's his decision to restrict "privileged" visiting hours to those hours when the lawyers and court-certified interpreters who make those visits are likely to be in court.

He's an ass. Unfortunately, he plays well to the media with sound bites. He is also taking credit for the combined work of several local cities where he doesn't have authority or responsibility. The County Sheriff is only responsible for parts of the county (Maricopa County, in Arizona) that are not part of a city. His territory is shrinking every month.