* Posts by Jerry

126 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Mar 2008

Youth jailed for not handing over encryption password

Jerry
FAIL

I'm a bit late - but

Being convicted for not disclosing a password (or more accurately not helping investigators look at your stuff) is a major change in common law.

In my view this is a bad thing.

If they wanted to open a safe and wanted the combination they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. You can refuse without penalty.

In my jurisdiction you also have the problem that you have to prove you don't know a password. It's not enough that it's innocent until proven guilty. Now - in this scenario - you are guilty until proven innocent. You also can't use a defense of self-incrimination ( usable in common law )

Overall Big Brother wins. Your right to privacy loses, your right to innocent until proven guilty loses. Your right to avoid self-incrimination loses.

I speak this as someone who works as an officer of the court (expert witness) and who has current cases where this is an issue and will result in conviction or probably innocent parties.

Boston firefighters get oxygen masks for cats and dogs

Jerry
Happy

You'd be surprised

Fire Brigades are usually known as Fire and Rescue Service. They put out fires and rescue people from car wrecks and odd places. They also routinely rescue animals, dogs, cats, birds, horses - whatever. They're specially trained to work with animals.

I heard one case (on the UHF radio) where the local brigade rescued some kittens from a street drain. They brought along milk and saucer especially. While they were still feeding the kittens a call about a fire came in. They listed themselves as still busy and got another station to attend.

Terry Pratchett computer sniper-scope deal inked

Jerry
Boffin

What about Coriolis & Eotvos?

If you take out wind and density effects you are left with Coriolis and Eotvos effects that cause the bullet to swing left / right depending on range and latitude, but more importantly up and down depending on the direction you are firing. The major effect is East-to-West vs West to East

Airship race round the world planned for 2011

Jerry
Coat

But is it in good style?

The Graf Zeppelin went around the world with a good set of fine china and silver cutlery. It also had chefs who prepared mighty fine meals, plus a valet who stored essentials such as coats and hats for when needed.

The proposed contest will no doubt be won by some anorak wearing vegan suspended by hemp ropes from an ecologically sound blimp.

I can guarantee the Zeppelin journey was a real circumnavigation. What follows is parody.

Firefox fixes stability bug

Jerry
Thumb Down

Bloody 3.6.9

Ever since it got released I've had persistent crashes - possibly due to flash but perhaps other causes.

The only advantage is that on dual core processor the crashing component - the app container - only uses one core so I have enough CPU left to kill the rogue process.

When Firefox stops using flash and / or designs it's software to detect rogue processes the world will be a better place.

NZ woman pays motorised tribute to A RYAN 1

Jerry
WTF?

Yeah but

I've actually met Douglas Adams and have read the whole series.

I recognise the 42, but perhaps my alcohol befuddled state has made me forget the significance of 6x9.

Any advice appreciated.

Jerry
Boffin

6X9=42 ?

I'm a computer geek and I don't get that one.

Please elucidate.

Jerry
Happy

If I had he dough

I'd get a Number Plates "NO PLATES" or "ILLEGIBLE" or "MISSING"

Judge bashes warrantless cellphone tracking

Jerry
Stop

You have a very optimistic and very wrong idea about police powers

First; to position myself - I really don't like extra powers for police to track you.

I also really, really don't like laws that can be turned around to reduce your rights as an individual.

Police have a wide range of 'powers' to gain access to just about anywhere, almost on a whim.

For instance they can deem 'in their opinion' you are making an unreasonable noise. Result they can walk right in without warrant and execute searches based on 'evidence discovered while lawfully executing a Police power'

They can walk onto your property because they 'in their opinion' think there may be violence (irrespective of whether it's caused by them entering)

Finally, they can say that you have acted illegally - e.g. murdered someone - and track your movements via cell phone tower locations.

You as British - I assume - are perfectly happy to have your almost every move recorded by CCTV. CCTV exists not to make liveleak or youtube better, but to prosecute individuals after an offense.

Flaunting yourself in front of a CCTV camera bashing a 90yo granny could well be regarded as incriminating yourself.

The law doesn't prevent you from incriminating yourself. It simply uses whatever you do to prosecute you given due cause.

The judgement I am complaing about is one that can stop you defending yourself against the Police. If electronic monitoring is banned, how long before using your cellphone to record an illegal Police act become illegal?

Jerry
FAIL

The Judge got it wrong - I hope

Surveillance in most modern law systems relies on the 'reasonable expectation of privacy'.

If you put video cameras in the ladies' changing room then you have stepped over the mark of reasonable expectation of privacy. Similarly upskirting.

If you drive down the road you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Anyone can film you, or write notes about you, or follow you. This is also the reason why (often) it is perfectly legal to film police on the street.

Using newly available technology to observe you and track you in public doesn't reduce your privacy - it just makes it a bit easier for the surveiller.

If the judgement becomes established case law then you get into the very sticky area of what can be used or not used in public.

For instance they might then decide that observing a policeman beating the crap out of a 90 year old granny is O.K. but filming with your video phone is not.

In my experience every 'restricting' judgement, or even every special law that sounds good on the surface takes a bit more away from normal freedoms. For instance the plea of self-defence in assaultng a policeman has been removed in some jurisdictions. Sounds good, but the reality is that when you stop a policeman beating the crap out of a 90 yo grannie (self defence also applies to the defense of others) you are commiting a crime.

Your genes determine whether you will respond to surveys

Jerry
Boffin

Yeah - but what about the non-twins?

What is the reference level? How many ordinary people not being twins of any kind respond to surveys?

Perhaps this gem was in the paper but it's definitely not in your report.

From the abstract reference you gave it's not likely to be there either.

Holiday snaps? Er, no - criminal porn

Jerry
Boffin

What this expert witness does

You asked "My question for the previous poster is are you an expert for the defense or prosecution, or either depending on the case?"

Technically I work for the court, but I am paid for by the defense.

My job includes making requests for collection/analysis of evidence by the Police; Generation of expert reports; Sitting in court with the defense barrister explaining the prosecution evidence as it is lead; Scripting the cross-examination for the defense barrister; Finally, if I can't avoid it, giving evidence myself.

I work with the Police and many times we can resolve issues before or during the case.

It really helps if there is a good prosecutor as most of the computer evidence goes over the jury's heads, and it is usually stultifyingly boring.

Most cases rotate around identification of the defendant as using the computer / disk / ipod / phone/ USB stick / camera, and identification of others who have/had access. Typical defendant excuses are "It was someone else" or "It was a virus/trojan".

I have had only one case where the defendant was not guilty but was convicted. In this case the "it was someone else" was the correct answer.

Jerry
Boffin

My day job is watching child pornography

Honest! I work as an expert witness in criminal cases - mostly involving child porn.

I have to rock up to court and sit through the display of pictures and movies.

My last case finished this week and it had a number of charges over some pretty tame images.

Included was the Simpsons 'modified' cartoons with added sex for Bart & Lisa- probably many of you have seen them? These were supershort videos and an animated gif. The rest of the images were the usual crap that kids take of each other when fooling with a camera phone. Again nothing noxious.

Cases law has about a 50% conviction rate for the Simpsons material. It depends on the jury.

If the jury had seen any actual hard-core child porn they would have laughed this material out of court.

As it is - the guy has a very good chance of being convicted.

Mozilla shrugs off 'forever free' H.264 codec license

Jerry

At least you won't need Flash

I think just about everyone commenting here will agree that the flash player for H-264 video sucks!

Unreliable, insecure, crashes early and often.

Integrated non-flash players such as demonstrated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora are the way to go.

Jerry
Boffin

WebM can handle H264 easily

WebM uses the VP8 video codec in a Matroska container. Oh and using Vorbis audio codec

The reason Matroska was chosen was so new codecs can be included easily. The Ogg container is interesting, but will die soon because it is very hard to add new codecs

There is no problem at all with WebM containers (Matroska) delivering H264 along with MP3 audio streams. Or H264 with Vorbis streams, or VP8 with MP3 streams, or whatever format you so desire.

Irrespective of the licensing situation WebM is unlikely to die in any realistic timeframe because it has chosen (wisely) a very good and fleixible container format - Matroska.

PARIS team cracks Vulture 1-X wing

Jerry
Boffin

Wing design should regard compression and tension

The material you are probably going to use on the skin will have close to zero compression strength. It will have a relatively good tension strength.

It means that the major strength should be in the spars and to a smaller extent in the ribs.

The best tubular spar would be the entire wing thickness at the maximum height of the wing.

Your multiple spar is heavier than it needs and not as strong as it could be.

A better design would have a built-up I-beam main spar with laminated paper sections increasing in number / thickness as you get closer to the wing root. This provides compressive and tension strength

A secondary trailing spar of similar design - but smaller - is required. Then a strong doped paper skin will provide tension to stop wing fore and aft flexing.

Overall resistance to skin distortion is set mostly by by rib spacing, not so much by rib thickness.

A rib thickness about the same as the skin thickness will work well. It just needs thicker and thicker spar-caps closer to to aircraft - and ribs should be closer together there as well.

BBC adopts El Reg units

Jerry
WTF?

BBC is out by a factor of 10^11

The ever reliable Wackypedia reports on the last flood from said glacier as:

"In 1892 a GLOF released some 200,000 km3 (2.6×1014 cu yd) of water from the lake of the Glacier de Tête Rousse, resulting in the deaths of 200 people in the French town of Saint Gervais.[12] GLOFs have been known to occur in every region of the world where glaciers are located. Continued glacier retreat is expected to create and expand glacial lakes, increasing the danger of future GLOFs."

So please write to the Beeb and advise them of their minor error.

Aussie parties trade blows over fast broadband

Jerry
Flame

NBN is all about movies

I've worked in Australia for a few years in planning FTTH networks in new subdivisions. Especially on the economics of the process, but also on the technicalities.

The only compelling reason for FTTH or FTTC is delivery of movies. This is the only use which requires such high bandwidth. For all other uses ADSL technology gives plenty of bandwidth.

The reason the Government is looking at a NBN is because there is no commercial case for private operators to do so. The investment return period is several decades and requires huge amounts of pay-per-view content to even start to generate the type of cash-flow and margins needed.

The NBN is in effect the Government paying for infrastructure so private content providers can make lotsa dough.

Presumably the owners of content are being very jolly and supportive of the present Government plans - Rupert Murdoch for instance - who also controls much of Australian TV and newspapers which are quite influential in elections.

Imitate Real Ale quaffers, save the economy, says biz prof

Jerry
Boffin

Charles Darwin would be proud

This is an example of evolution in action.

There is always great diversity in species when there is little change. New species evolve to fill ever smaller ecological niches.

Then along comes major change. Most species die out and a few strong ones adapt and carry on.

Finally the last stage. Rapid change is decreasing. Again new species start to differentiate and occupy ever smaller niches.

In the case of beer (no pun intended) The technology had become very stable around the turn of the century. Thus there were many many brews.

After a while change occurred with improvements in transportation, reduction in supplies ( the war you know..) and new technology - stainless steel and industrial processes. As a result many smaller brewers died out - unable to compete.

Now the playing field is level, technology is not changing much, and more and more variants are emerging.

PARIS in cheeky GPS chip slip

Jerry
Grenade

Check out DIY drones for electronics

There is a lot of electronics subsystems that may have use for the PARIS project. See diydrones.com. The store section is a veritable aladdin's cave of sensors, GPS, autopilots etc

http://store.diydrones.com/

Steve Irwin surveillance-crocodiles travel across oceans

Jerry
Megaphone

Thailands coastlines are nowhere near Tierra-del-Fuego

The point of my post was that crocs live in the Western mid pacific, South China Sea, and Indian Ocean - give or take the anonymous seas to the North of Australia.

Thailand and Sri-Lanka are Indian Ocean and/or South China Sea. Western Pacific includes Fiji and a bit of New Guinea / Melanesia.

None of which relates to 'South-East Pacific", which by my reckoning is Chile and Tierra-del-Fuego

Jerry
Megaphone

The Reg beats the Beeb - for once

At least The Reg got this story approximately right - unlike the Beeb at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10260382.stm

The Beeb seems to think that Crocs live somewhere near Chile / Tierra-del-Fuego, and that Sri-Lanka and Thailand are in the same region rather than the Indian Ocean and South China Sea

Quote

"They are poor swimmers and mainly live in salt water - but their "home" spans over 10,000sq km of the south-east Pacific, from Sri Lanka to Fiji and from Thailand to northern Australia. "

NB Expect the Beeb article to be amended soonish.

PARIS pops down to QinetiQ

Jerry
Boffin

Mechanical bellows?

As in the inside of some types of barometer.

They are made of welded metal sections in a concertina arrangement. Although designed for a much lower pressure variation range, it should be possible to use a strongish spring to limit movement.

Perhaps link the bellows to the trigger of a cap-gun? - assuming you are going for bodge?

Alternatively, a precision machined mouse-trap?

Computing smart-scope gunsight for US snipers

Jerry
Boffin

Eötvös effect as well

Coriolis effect causes a left or right deviation. Surprisingly the faster the projectile, the greater the effect.

The interrelated Eötvös effect causes a rise and fall of shot depending on whether you are shooting east or west.

Back-of-envelope calculations for 1000m/s round are deviations of 2-3 cm at 1000 metres depending where on earth you are and which way you are firing. (For Americans, 3000 fps and about an inch at 1000 yards)

The other - greater - effect I found was light level. "lights up, sights up". The optical illusion caused by light changes has a quite marked effect.

Jerry
Boffin

Coriolis

I have in a past life been an army marksman - British variety rather than American so my bullets grouped pretty damned close - perhaps I was closer to an American Designated Marksman.

I am also a trained physicist so I know about stuff like the Coriolis force.

I have read about, but not got any further info on, the effect of Left and Right hand twist in rifle bores.

The story is that British rifles during the early Afghan wars were calibrated in the UK. When they were deployed in Afghanistan, they shot quite badly, especially at extended ranges. The cause was the Coriolis force pushing the rounds to one side. I remember - vaguely - that the left or right twist in the rifle barrel changed the error

Do these new-fangled sighting systems account for Coriolis force? Do they account for rifle twist direction?

NoSQL relationship graph straddles six degrees of separation

Jerry
Pirate

Adolph Hitler?

I don't need no steenkin database to work out I'm 2 degrees of separation from Adoph Hitler.

My architect and also family friend used to employ Alois Hitler - Adolph's brother - just after the war.

Is this a record for TheReg readers?

PARIS flashes some radio goodies

Jerry
Alert

GPS?

Does GPS work above 60,000 feet? I seem to recall that is an inbuilt limitation to deter unintended military use?

Oz customs search lappies and mobes for smut

Jerry
Go

Brits?

Clearly the scenario

“If you and your partner have filmed or photographed yourselves making love in an exotic destination or even taking a bath, you will have to answer ‘Yes’ to the question or you will be breaking the law.”

is not an issue with the typical UK resident.

The Aussies on the other-hand are somewhat nervous.

German boffins develop sharkskin paint for ships, planes

Jerry
FAIL

Nothing New

I was In Australia during the America's cup in 1987 and worked with a number of the competitors on technical 'stuff'

I ran foul of one American entry when I commented on the odd texture on their hull. Exit stage left pronto.

It turned out that they were using a textured surface to reduce drag. This was a trade secret they were very very keen to keep secret.

Flash and the five-minute rule

Jerry
FAIL

video serving?

All this caching stuff falls in a might heap when you run a video server.

Any half competent video server will vend 1 Gbps through its ethernet interfaces. That's 125MB/s. That is every 8 seconds you consume a Gigabyte of data.

Caching for 5 minutes? that would be 937 GB - call it a terabyte - to serve 250 clients at standard resolution digital TV.

For a truly Video-on-Demand system, caching means zilch. What counts is the effective transfer rate from the drive array.

Normal videos range from 15 - 200 minutes. The benefit of caching of 1TB for 250 randome access customers is almost, but not quite equal, to zero.

Carmakers boost e-car noise standards for vision-impaired

Jerry
Megaphone

Bicycles ?

If this was a good idea they'd be doing it for bicycles long ago. Bikes are just as silent as electric cars and there are never ending collisions on shared pedestrian/cycle paths.

Bikes sort the problem with a bell. What the bell doesn't do - and likely the same case in electric cars - is deal with the bloody pedestrians with ipods at full volume.

Cartoon Law goes live

Jerry
Alert

Re various comments on my 'expert witness' post

If you are charged your life is destroyed in most cases. The cost of a defence is huge and the social cost immense.

Most child pornography cases result in a conviction. But usually the charge is well justified and there are usually aggravating factors.

How to become an expert witness in child pornography? It's pretty simple, become an expert in computers and the internet and security and computer forensics and then gain a good appreciation of the law, and finally get to know a good range of briefs. The child pornography is secondary to how computers and the internet are used to obtain it. The matter of pornography is determined by the jury, not the expert witness.

Does it pay well? Yes. At least as good as a mid level silk - and the hours are good.

Jerry
Alert

Law is the starting point

I work in this area as an expert witness in criminal cases, mostly involving child pornography.

I technically work for the courts, but my role is to ensure that all the facts in a prosecution are raised with a jury - as distinct to what is presented by the Police.

With very few exceptions (*) it is up to the jury to determine if particular material is pornographic or not. It is not a matter of law, it is matter for the jury. The law is an aid but the final decision is made by the jury - they are the finders of fact.

This new law may make constraints on juries, but in the end they represent community values. It is quite possible they will determine the law is not appropriate and acquit.

It is moot whether the legal decision to criminalise cartoon material is significant. What matters is whether the juries convict or not.

I expect there will be some convictions, but the pattern of conviction will show where community values lie and will certainly restrict the type and severity of cases prosecuted.

I'm betting there will be a new standard developed which rates child manga in a range of super-mild to hard-core and the result will be a de-facto classification scheme.

(*) - I have been involved in one case where the prosecution failed because the film ratings authority deemed the material G rated entertainment rather than criminal child abuse.

Twitterati swarm on malaria campaign

Jerry

Not DEET

The nets are soaked in insecticide - usually permethrin. DEET is just a repellent and doesn't kill the mosquitos.

Bishop Hill: Gonzo science and the Hockey Stick

Jerry
Pirate

Proper sceptics answer

(1) CO2 in box - famous flawed experiment. Especially the BBC video version. Don't trust anything you see about it.

Reality is that CO2 in the atmosphere does retain heat. Simple physics says so.

Unreality / uncertainty is whether there is 'positive feedback' or 'negative feedback'. The AGW crowd says strong positive. Skeptics say - show us the data, not some goofy numerical model written by amateur part time programmers. History says that negative feedback is the most likely answer.

(2) Vostok ice core shows that CO2 lags temperature by 800 years. CO2 is a result of warming, not a cause. Latest estimates say that for every degree of warming, CO2 concentration goes up about 10ppm (plus or minus a shedload as this ain't an exact science)

(3) When you look at how much CO2 is put into the atmosphere every day, you'd be amazed at how little the atmospheric concentration is rising. The atmosphere takes the vast majority of it and 'disappears' it at once - for which there is no reasonable explanation. There are very powerful natural forces at work and the AGW crowd have a very poor handle on what is actually happening

As I am a physicist who worked in climate science for many years I can tell just by your questions Andrew that you haven't a clue about the physics. Nor dare I say about the mathematics or the statistics. So respectfully, go and learn something before making stupid challenges.

Jerry
Pirate

Teleconnection

Femwick may be right about teleconnections and eigenvectors, but teleconnections are almost exclusively a climatologists tool. Proper maths and stats doesn't want to know about them.

More normal use of eigenvectors is in factor analysis of time-series multi-parameter data. There are plenty of certified tools that do this well and the results are used in many different fields such as epidemiology, economics etc. - Check out SAS, SPSS, R for applications.

Half-assed Fortran programs cobbled up by inexperienced part-time programmers are guaranteed to have problems. "Harry" demonstrated quite clearly how not to calculate variance

Lawyers claim Palin hack suspect's PC had spyware

Jerry
Happy

Not a get-out-of jail card

My very lucrative sideline is as an expert witness in computers and communications. I work mostly in criminal cases.

The first point is that almost all computer systems used by consumers of child porn have malware - usually more than one type. This is because their cruising habits expose them to some pretty dodgy sites. The same applies to pedophiles who try and groom under-age kids. Drug dealers and general crooks tend to be less exposed.

The second point is that the technical evidence and presence of malware almost never has a bearing on the outcome. Juries are very eager to discount the presence of malware and instead rely on the human factors. Usually the video of the initial search and the half-assed excuses and minor admissions during interview are enough to convict.

Another common excuse is that 'someone else used my computer'. This is difficult to prove either way. However juries generally think "this was his computer so he must have done it."

You need very powerful evidence that malware was actively being used. For instance an intercept at the ISP showing someone in Russia controlling the machine. Since the defendant won't have this record and the authorities don't routinely collect evidence that may exonerate the accused, this almost never occurs.

What is more interesting is unprotected wireless access points. If the access point is unprotected and all that is discovered is use of the IP connected to the access point then any good lawyer can get a not guilty verdict.

Most Americans without broadband don't want it

Jerry
Pirate

Obama's first repayment for campaign contributions

Working in the industry providing broadband connectivity, and specifically fiber connectivity, it is pretty obvious what this is all about.

Movies and Money

Broadband internet is all about piping huge volumes of data (movies) to individual customers and reaping huge amounts of money in return.

Broadband fiber networks have return on investment period of decades - if ever. They are not attractive to investors. What is attractive is if you can get the Government to pay for the infrastructure and then you use that to sell content and make a huge buck.

The story that is published is that America needs broadband to become competitive, become a world leader, <insert irrelevant made-up benefit here>. Mr Obama looks good for being progressive, people get broadband, and the already extremely wealthy owners of media companies get even more wealthy. A win all round - except for the poor taxpayers who fund the whole system so they can have the privilege to consume even more.

In fact the internet has been a godsend for media companies. They would never ever have got a Government subsidy for their new fiber cable networks. But take basically the same technology, tart it up, call it 'Broadband Internet,' slap a progressive sticker on it and start the trucks hauling all that money to the bank 24x7.

And all this for just a few millions of investment in Obama's campaign.

Droid sub goes under Antarctic ice on 5000 D-cells

Jerry

NASA Astronauts use D-cells as well

If you scan through the latest Columbia disaster report you get to see interesting snippets including photos of the remains of the crew space suits.

Peeking out of the shattered cases of the AN/PRC radios installed in each suit are clearly recognizable Duracell D-cells - the classic bought in supermarket types.

I guess if you want an absolutely reliable battery that works in hard vacuum and extremes of temperature then alkaline chemistry is the perfect match.

Demise of British tank industry foretold admitted

Jerry
Thumb Down

Tanks need infantry - not vice versa

Remembering my not so ancient training in the infantry arts in Australia, especially as regards to tank / infantry cooperation, it was quite evident that tanks were a bit of a problem.

The basic rule was that counter-armour technology was so good a tank could not advance without an infantry screen out at some ridiculous distance (1000 metres rings a bell). So for the poor infantry the concept of toddling behind a tank while it dosed out death was not an option.

Instead, infantry was expected to expose themselves at great risk and well out of close support range so that a highly vulnerable target (tank) could move forward enough to do a poor impersonation of a single gun artillery battery. Not much better really than simply moving a real arty battery forward with a bit of protective cover. In fact a typical arty battery would run rings around a typical tank.

Windfarm lobby bows to ASA and cuts CO2 saving figures

Jerry

Aberdeen to Istanbul

It's not me saying that power overloads occur. Check out the IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers) report on excessive power generation in Europe http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb08/5943

Aberdeen to Istanbul may be a bit far - today - considering the poor infrastructure in place, but Czech Republic to the Netherlands overload certainly does happen.

Also for the Texas outage check out http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2749522920080228?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Jerry
Boffin

For every Wind Power Station you need another Power Station

The sad fact is that for very megawatt of wind-power you construct, you need to provision another megawatt of reliable power to to cover for the all-too-common drops in wind.

The problem with this is that the backup system must be ultra-fast response. None of this 3-5 day response time for nuclear, or the 2-4 day response of coal. You need gas turbine or hydro to take up the slack.

The true cost of wind power is at perhaps 1.5-2 x the capex of a single wind farm when you account for the high cost fast response power sources needed to support the wind farm.

Now at this stage I'm sure that various apologists will weigh in with 'averaging over a power network' However, the reality is that unless you have a continental scale power system with highly efficient transmission system then you will be in deep doo-doo depending on whether the wind blows to hard or too soft. Even then you may be in trouble - see Europe below.

As an example. Texas recently had a major outage when it became super cold and the wind stopped blowing (Coincidence? I think not! Low wind speed at night means it gets extra cold). In the Texas case there were major outages when the wind power component failed and demand rose.

At roughly the same time Europe was having a particularly windy time. From Aberdeen to Istanbul lights started blowing due to the excessive voltage generated by a bunch of Dutch and Danish wind farmers.

Overall, is wind-power a good thing? Or at least a good thing above 10% of demand? Probably not.

Overall does it save CO2? When you factor in the gas/hydro backup supplies required to keep normal supply, definitely not.

A380 too quiet, moan Emirates pilots

Jerry
Dead Vulture

And you too have become shills

Guys,

Pause for a nanosecond and think who this 'news story' benefits. None other than Emirates themselves perhaps?

The 'Plane too quiet' story is an obvious ad-agency inspired attempt to drum up business for Emirates.

I'm not sure it is viral. If it is, is there any special classification of viral that confines itself solely to ingenue journalists? Or to be slightly more direct, to journalists seeking to fill in an otherwise dreary December morning's news?

Rude Tintin pulls out

Jerry
Boffin

logic 101 - Mark

Mark: " The rules of common language do not follow the rules of mathematics."

Yeah, right.

Security shocker: 75% of US bank websites have flaws

Jerry
Pirate

My bank provides free security software

Westpac actually, a big-4 australian bank.

They have this nice non-encrypted page where you can download free security software to install on your computer (windows natch)

Such a helpful bank.

Trouble is, just thinking about it, what happens if bad guys intercept the request and supply you with a seriously compromised version?

Does this count as a new threat vector?

Do I get a prize?

Jerry

Unpatched Windows PCs own3d in less than four minutes

Jerry
Stop

NAT Router??

Given that the vast majority of home computers are behind a NAT router. 100% of unsolicited exploits will be killed in the bud.

Exploits caused by the unfortunate user navigating to the wrong web-site are more likely. But 4 minutes? Not unless the user is an inveterate porn cruiser.

How about you revise your average exploit time to months rather than minutes

Trousers Brown: Blighty faces 'food security' threat

Jerry
Black Helicopters

What goes around comes around

I have to give it to them.

Instead of recycling the traditional 'food shortages looming' - 'mass starvation on the way' they have managed to load global climate change into the mantra.

Ever since I was knee-high to a mastodon I've heard the never ending story of how things were going to get bad in a hurry.

From the 'one chinese per square unit' in 'choose your short term value in years' to the 'critical shortage of commodity X' that will cause global calamity in 'choose your short term value in years' - My assessment is: it's all a load of bollocks.

None of the doomsayers have been right on any time scale. The probability of them being right diminishes each and every time they get it wrong (There is a whole raft of mathematical and statistical theory about this)

May I strongly recommend "Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Mackay" - especially the "Popular follies of great cities " Read it at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/24518

Malware infects Merriam-Webster

Jerry
Alert

Rabbits Ears

I was calling the sinistro-dextral bi-digital gesture "Rabbits' Ears" long before '89 with it's offensive newby "air quotes". I received the wisdom on Rabbits' Ears as a long held tradition stretching back into the mists of time.

I will only grant one concession, the fingers for Rabbits' Ears were distinctly bent over. If the 'air quotes" are similar then they are a forgery. If however, they mimic the famous Churchilian dual V for victory sign then perhaps it is a sign-language dialect change?

Nut launches death threats at Debian women

Jerry
Alien

It's a diversionary trick

It's pretty obvious what this is all about.

The Cult of Debian having been mightily embarrassed by their total and absolute cock-up with SSL has decided to play the sympathy card.

A few death threats suitably reported to media agencies would be just the thing to make people forget about the SSL fiasco

Of course, if that fails then desperate measures may be in order - perhaps an (undocumented) hostile takeover attempt by RedHat? Or even better, infiltration by Microsoft agents - repelled at the last moment with their bloodied corpses dragged down the street behind the Debian Corporate Prius?

Duff UK nukes risk 'popcorn' multi-blast accident apocalypse

Jerry
Boffin

They're tougher than you think

The world has a long and glorious history of 'broken arrow' incidents.

The Americans have blown up, dropped, burnt and just plain lost a variety of nukes. To this day there is one sitting in the shallows off the East Coast of the US (oops, now just where exactly did I drop that nuke??)

The design of them is inherently safe from accidental full detonation. You need to arm them with a mighty complex process that isn't fully completed until it's been dropped from the aircraft or even moments before intended detonation. Even if the initiating explosives go off in a fire you won't get a lot of nuclear energy released - mostly bits of plutonium spattered around the site.

What is of more interest is what happens when you fly a nuke in just after another one has gone off properly. There is a huge amount of radiation and spare neutrons floating around that can prematurely trigger (fizzle) the following warhead if it's the wrong design. For this reason alone, the designs are made so that quite severe nearby nuclear events are highly unlikely to ignite a fully armed and ready to go warhead. This makes unarmed warheads pretty safe indeed.