Posts by The BigYin

Foxconn faces leaked report of worker abuse, violence

You want cheap goods?

This is the price others have to pay.

CEOP chief accuses UK.gov of putting kids at risk

What does he expect?

The ConDems are happy to see children live in poverty and to deny those who are have the ability, but not the liquidity, a university education.

Maybe if we dropped the ridiculous target of 50% getting degrees, dropped some of the absurd degrees and removed the stigma of "only" being a tradesman (plus gave "engineer" protected status like "doctor") we'd get somewhere.

Oh yeah, and maybe if we (when I say "we", I mean the various political pirates, er, parties) stopped letting multi-billion pound multi-national corporations avoid paying their fair share of tax, we would not be in the state we are in.

Coupled to that, actually regulating the financial sharks that destroyed the economy in the first place. Quite why bankers are getting bonuses again beats me.

Windows Phone 7: 'Different, delightful'... and unfinished

@Mike

Neutral!=Negative

There's a couple of other articles on El Reg that are gushing about it.

@Sarah Bee

You Register shill! :o)

Indeed

The Windows phones I have had to endure needed hard boots at least once a day.

---

MS is nowhere in the mobiles space (and never has been). One must wonder why they are now making this sudden play, is it just to collect patents and make money of the sweat of others?

MS nearly lost the netbook market with their arrogance and only serious back-pedalling over XP (assisteed by the ineptitude/inexperience of the Linux distros) allowed them to regain their hold. The problem with the mobile market is that Linux et al are already entrenched, integrated and working very well; this is not how it was when netbooks started.

I seriously hope the various Linux groups can use the mobile space as a chink in MS's armour and then spread to other areas such as the desktop (i.e a share in double or near-double digits). Only time will tell.

Can Windows Phone 7 help Microsoft come from behind?

This week is atcually...

...Meerkat week*. It's interesting that MS decided to push the PR drones into overdrive and launch this week; was this some attempt to over-shadow Canonical (which is a minnow in the OS market, but gets a fair bit of press) whilst at the same time launch their polished turd?

As for MS stopping a monopoly (mentioned in another Reg story), please; the mobile market is quite diverse already with some establish, rising and others fading (Blackberry, Meego, Symbian, iOs, Android). This market does not need the "help" of a known monopoly abuser to remian diverse, it's doing that very well already.

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*Other weeks are available, your mileage may vary.

MS pledges Windows Phone 7 '1.1' update early 2011

Let me translate

"MS to apply single-sided adhesive dressing to repair rupture of carotid arteries."

That about right?

Ubuntu 10.10: date with destiny missed

@Geoff

If I give you my PayPal account details, will you send me the £200+ I'd need to upgrade? No? Thought not.

I'll use XP until it either goes out of support* or I no longer rely on a single PC for everything. Then it will be Linuxed. Personally I cannot afford the cost of Windows 7 and, after having to endure it in my day job, I wouldn't want it anyway.

And, more to the point, why should I upgrade something that does, pretty much, what I need? I could do a re-install and fix the whole C:\S: thing but then, as I said above, I'd just Linux the fecker.

*sp3 is still under support before anyone says anything

@Geoff

Oh, and one other thing, Windows 7 also suffers from the inability to easily more the "User" folder; so an upgrade wouldn't help.

Partitions serve a purpose

1) They can make upgrades, back-ups etc a bit easier

2) They can allow the use of different file systems for different tasks

3) They can allow one to move files on to a separate spindle for performance

I will agree that some of the above are not for the new user and not partitions in the strict sense but doing it is not necessarily a "Bad Thing"(tm); it all depends on one's needs and at least Linux will *let* one partition (and re-partition) easily.

I have recently almost lost the will to live trying to get XP to move "Documents and Settings" from "C:" to "S:" to make better use of the second drive. The fact that an "industry standard" OS cannot do this simple thing is, frankly, a sick joke.

---

I agree totally about you "disc failure" statement. Everyone should run back-ups. I was getting the bike MOT'd and the place I went to had had a crash - 2 years of records down the toilet, no back-up. It makes your mind boggle. Back-ups easy to do (including off-site as well) and only idiots don't.

Aggrieved boffins to march on Whitehall

How about...

...not letting a certain large mobile phone company avoid paying about £6billion*? How much research would that pay for?

The ConDems are happy enough to see children in poverty and the middle classes squeezed, but heave fore-fend that their pals in Big Business should ever have to pay their fair share. Hence all the cuts in benefits and the increase in tax investigation - but not against the biggest tax dodgers.

Labour would have been no better, mind you.

Those three parties in summary:

Labour - you will obey the machine.

Tory - do as you are told, peasant.

LibDem - er, well, yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, but...

Microsoft lovingly open sources .NET package manager

Operation Embrace

Is a go!

Operation Extend is in the planning stages

Operation Extinguish has been proposed.

Many Microsoft workers big on company not Ballmer

Surely 1,000...

...from 89,000 is a large enough sample to have confidence in the result? Damn, wish I stayed awake in those stats lectures.

MS really does seem to be going down the toilet at the moment, can't say I am displeased about that.

Youth jailed for not handing over encryption password

Here's the thing...

...if there was nothing "sensitive" in the crypto file, most people would probably hand the password over just for the sake of convenience (but then why use crypto in the first place?)

My crypto files don't contain kiddy porn or anything, but they do contain account information, passwords, PINs and other sensitive information on my life. There is no bloody way I am handing my password over to plod. It would mean closing every account (current, savings, mortgage etc) and then opening new ones (activity in itself that might seem "suspicious").

So, by the simple act of trying to keep one's life in order and following good practice; one is effectively rendering oneself guilty. Thank you "Labour" and your destruction of liberty.

I can understand why plod might want to see into these files during an investigation (especially into something like kiddy porn) but damning an entire nation in order to to deal with the acts of a minority is NOT the way to do it!

Apple wants halt to $600m patent case

Simple

All the majors are suing all the other majors. The total sum of money (payments made + payments made) is zero. The only people getting rich are the lawyers (the perfect definition of a parasite).

If there were less (no?) software patents, the energy and resources wasted funding these legal fiascos could be put into making better products/cutting costs etc.

Ballmer goes to LSE as internal doc calls for radical overhaul of MS

MS to change tack?

You mean they will stop patenting the obvious?

Stop suing world+dog for writing software?

Stop trying to destroy open software?

Stop trying to destroy open standards?

Stop trying to break interoperability?

Stop producing software with proprietary extensions (IE, all versions)?

Stop producing software with gaping security holes?

Stop believing the sun shines out their collective fundament?

No?

Thought not.

Web marketers pledge easier targeted ads opt-out

Beef TACO? Ghostery?

Beef TACO and Ghostery were new to me (just installed Ghostery). I also use Flashblock, NoScript, CookieCuller and GreaseMonkey. It's a shame that we have to go to so much trouble these days.

Google's 'instant' search springs keyboard controls

Google has ads?

Since when? AdBlock, CustomizeGoogle and NoScript are your friends.

What I really need to do is write a GreaseMonkey script (or something) to remove the crap results (like "ExpertsExchange", I am not a member, I will probably never be a member, I do not want those results).

Man vindicated for videotaping his own traffic stop

Undertaking...

...is not an offence in the UK either. Dangerous driving is and an office *may* decide that undertaking is dangerous.

Anyway...

The biker was a moron and deserves to lose their license (I say this as a fellow biker; although no doubt the usual suspects [e.g MCN] will use this as more "anti-motorcyclist" fodder). We need retards like that on the road like we need DVD-truckers.

The cop was totally unprofessional and deserves serious censure for his attitude and subsequent treatment of the biker. Good to see the judge sorting things out.

If any other bikers are reading this - wheelies are cool. So are stoppies/endos, standing on the seat etc. Really cool. I like a good stunt show, me. On a closed track. With barrier. And medical crew.

Save if for the appropriate place.

Microsoft sends in the tanks against Motorola, Android

Seems to me...

...to be just one more reason to tear up most (all?) software patents. The only people who will suffer anything from this are the consumers. Either by being locked in to a single vendor, or having to pay higher prices to cover the legal bills.

Trucker pulled with DVD and laptop on dashboard

Exactly

"The best way to avoid being involved in a collision, or being caught by my officers"

Well, as "his officers" are going to do sod all when they do catch someone, why should anyone care? Grow a pair and take these morons to task! This driver should have been prevented from continuing, charged and his employer contacted to deal with the truck.

[Lack of] Enforcement of the rules in this manner is exactly why there are so many idiots on our roads.

Penguin in the picture: top video editors for Linux fans

Worst?

If by "worst" you mean "works pretty much OOTB and does not require much CLI, although the user is somewhat abstracted from the guts and there are a few proprietary bits" then you are 100% correct. Or perhaps you expect everyone to use custom Arch builds?

You may not like Ubuntu (and there are things that annoy me about it too) but, for now, it's my penguin of choice and it still (IMnsHO) years ahead of Win7. And at least you are free to choose any distro you choose and they will quite happily play together to a very large degree (unlike certain other OSs I can think of, that refuse to play ball with anyone and can only deal with two file-systems).

EU sues UK.gov over Phorm trials

I fixed it for you

"If the government loses the case, it faces fines of millions of pounds per day until it brings UK law in line with European law."

Should read:

"If the government loses the case, the UK taxpayer faces fines of millions of pounds per day until it brings UK law in line with European law."

Obviously the bribes and back-hander BT handed out to the unelected and secretive EU-wonks wasn't enough. UK MPs must be much, much cheaper to buy. Hmm....haven't there been news stories about that fairly recerntly?

Car wrecks rise after texting bans imposed

@Steve 13

Was that directed at me?

Idiot I may be, but the theory of risk compensation (or risk homeostasis is you prefer) isn't.

It's where people try to keep the perceived risk at a level they are comfortable (excitement/arousal offset against fear). If you make things too safe, people try to up the risk factor. If you make them dangerous (or at least, seem dangerous) then people do what they can to lower the risk factor.

So, spikes on steering wheels? Yup, if they were on all cars then people would take more care.

The studies have been done, the evidence is there. Two launch points for you:

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-balance-of-risk

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

One factor less...

...is one factor less. In that vein, perhaps we should have metal spikes put on steering wheels. You can get people would pay attention then!

Text-tards

Just how bloody hard is it to NOT text and drive? How the hell did these morons ever get a licence? If they think they can use a mobile and drive at the same time, they are not fit to be on the roads. It is that bloody simple. Do not use a mobile and drive, dip-wads.

The bigger problem, of course, is enforcing the laws. If cars had black boxes it might be possible to check logs: "2010-09-30T10:08:30Z, Impact, 70mph" correlated with phone records "2010-09-30T10:08:20Z, Text sent, recipient 'Snuggles'" would be cast iron proof that the driver was texting (assuming they were only occupant). Life ban, jail time and a massive fine would seem to be in order.

I would not object to such a "black-box" type thing so long as it did not have some kind of up-link/continuous monitoring. Not only would it allow text-tards to be nailed to the wall (something I propose as a new national sport), it could also greatly reduce the hassle with insurance claims.

In summary...

When you are driving, nothing is more important than driving safely. Nothing. Not that text, not your fag, not your cola. So put the phone the hell down and *IF* it 'bings' and you think it might be urgent, bloody well pull-over and deal with it safely. Whatever little thing has just happened is not worth my (or anyone else's) life.

A few of questions...

1) Does anyone know if carbon reinforced motorcycle gloves can penetrate car window glass in a single blow?

2) If so, and one does punch through said glass to remonstrate with the text-tard; can one use the defence of committing a minor crime in order to prevent a greater one?

3) Do I need to go back on the dried frog pills?

But it said so in the manual

Urf

The "lag of fragmentation"? I meant "lack of fragmentation".

No metrics...

...but my understanding is that Linux does not fragment files as much as NTFS, so even if other limits are similar then the lag of fragmentation is a bonus surely?

Tech firms promise EU they might cut electricity use

I was having a mad thought at lunch...

...how much would be saved if we stopped using HTML for e-mail? No pictures, colours etc; just good ol' plain text and meaningful content. If pictures etc were important, they could simply be attached.

This might not only be green, but it would save me wanting to commit physical violence against the marketing-turd that sends out a hee-ooj mail, with masses of images/links that says...err...sweet f. a. when you get down to it.

Nigerian perv scanners lay Lagos ladies bare

We are not...

...surprised in the least. And you can be sure it happens elsewhere too.

Jailbreak hole found in Apple TV firmware

As I said above

Initial purchase price. Why buy a FlibbertyGibbit for $500, when AppleTV is "only" $99? The fact that the FlibbertyGibbit has no subsequent costs (or very low costs) won't enter people's heads.

Subsidy

With lock-in you can give an artificially low purchase price and claw the loss back through other subsequent (e.g. mobile, printers...). The low initial price suckers people in and then they keep giving you money.

With more open solutions, the purchaser would have to pay a realistic price up-front for a device. This is why (say) a Droid phone is "free" on a contract but £400-ish to buy outright.

Companies like lock-in for the recurring revenue, and most users are too stupid to do the maths and figure out which option is better for them.

The big thing that pisses me off about lock-in is when a simple feature is missing and you can't add it (e.g. streaming movies from a PC to a Wii or old-xBox) without hacking into it.

I guess I would settle for lock-in that at least co-operated with open standards.

Star Wars set for 3D rehash

3D...

...makes some forms of piracy harder. But other than that, it's headache-inducing shit.

As they say "If you can't make a good movie, make it 3D".

Miliband retains Labour line on DNA and CCTV

Civil liberties?

Haven't people worked out that under Labour you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent (and even when you do that, you can't claim back the costs [and no, this is not a fiction])?

Labour also ensured our armed forces had inadequate kit and started a plethora of PFI/PPP schemes that will see the pretty decent training they get now, ruined by firms whose primary goal is money and not ensuring the safety of this nation (think what you like about military forces, but it's a crap job and the very least you can do is provide adequate kit [helicopters, ballistics vests etc] when you send people off to do a potentially lethal job. 'Elf 'n Safety, innit?)

Whilst the ConDems having ownership of "the British tradition of liberty" is worrying, Labour having ownership of it gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies.

No one did more to reduce our civil liberties and enact some of the most stringent interpretation of EU law than Labour. Even the Germans are willing to tell people where to get off over EU Arrest Warrants. But with our Labourised "British tradition of liberty" we allow people to be dragged off to countries with extremely dubious legal practices.

---

[note: I am not a Toffee-nosed nor a Fence-Sitter supporter]

Palin webmail hacker conviction upheld

And when will Palin...

...face the beak for use of Yahoo for Federal business?

No one should be above the law.

ACS:Law's mocking of 4chan could cost it £500k

Info Comm to issue £500k fine?

Ha ha ha ha! Funniest thing ever. Just like the FSO, the ICO is all mouth and no trousers. These guys will get a small tap on the wrist and it'll be "lessons learned" all round.

OpenOffice files Oracle divorce papers

"MS-Office is not going to be a cash-cow for much longer"

Dream on. I know I do....gawds do I despise MS Office. At least 2010 seems to e slightly less bad than 2007, but it is still worse than 2003.

Battle of the US super-soldier robot suits hots up with XOS 2.0

I for one...

...welcome our Mecha-Cyber-Overlords.

Microsoft adopts invisible mobile pitch

Glance interface?

Cool! Then again, it doesn't take long to read "A fatal exception has occured..." before switching it off and on again.

How do you copy 60m files?

Cool

Shame about the rysnc/cygwin glitch. Might be worth punting a note to Cygnus.

Still, at least you have a solution.

Get a grip

I asked is "cygwin" had been considered, I did not say "Use cygwin! It's the wins! L0LZ!!11!" The author had looked at various tools and not mentioned "cygwin", so my question seems perfectly reasonable to me (others have asked the same question).

You seem to have taken umbrage at a few "cygwin" related posts, do you have an issue with this tool (I used it for some light-weight ssh and rsync work and really like it). If you do, have you filled bugs, got involved?

Or do you know something about "cygwin" and large jobs? "Oh, you can't use cygwin for that because it's job index will overflow, see bug-1234".

Or are you just some reactionary pillock who can't see through the Windows? "!Microsoft==Bad"

I know which conclusion I am drawing at the moment...

Or...

...use Cygwin? Gives a lot of the *nix style commands and abilities right within Windows.

If one is going to go to the bother of having a Linux box sitting about just to show the Windows severs how it's done, one has to question why one even has the Windows serves in the first place. :-)

Second piracy threat lawyers withstand DDoS attack

Payback?

If you want some "payback" on the MAFIAA:

1) Stop buying and distributing the crap their members spew out.

2) Laugh heartily as Hollywood goes bankrupt.

3) Profit?

Windows Phone 7 up for grabs from 'excited' 3

I think...

...I may vomit.

World's first pedal-powered ornithopter takes flight in Canada

Huh?

"...covered a distance of 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 kilometres per hour...weighs just 94lb despite having a 105-foot wingspan..."

Please, pick one measuring system and stick with it (i.e. keep to metric).

Or am I just getting in a flap over nothing? (guffaw)

IE captain flees Microsoft for Google

He wants to do good?

OK then - leave the 'net alone!

Prediction: Google begins to use tech that is not part of an open and accepted standard, locking customers (companies and individuals) to their platform. Businesses did not learn from IBM, and did not learn from MS. They are doomed to shaft themselves again.

Moses' parting of the Red Sea: New sim explains whole thing

So...

...science proves that the Bible is true?

Next week: Jesus ponies.

Bill would let feds block pirate websites worldwide

Hmm...

Extraordinary Rendition.

One-sided extradition treaties (like they got with the UK).

Now this?

USA, "land of the free"? Time for a branding change methinks.

Thieves jam key-fob lock signals in mystery car thefts

If you must know...

...I drive a second-hand Polo. The driver's door requires the key to lock it, just like every other car I have ever owned. And needing the key to lock the driver's door has one other advantage - you can't lock yourself out easily.

Sorry to burst your bubble, not all of us can afford/want to buy new top-end cars every few years.

Steve Jobs in iPhone bitchslap to creationists, Tea Party

And the creationists would be right

In the strict, pedantic sense. We are not descended from monkeys.

We are descended from some kind of proto-ape from when we go us, and the other ape's 'n monkeys.