Posts by James

Atlantis home today, storms permitting

Land at Doncaster

Used to be the longest runway in Europe back when it was an RAF base, certainly long enough for the shuttle.

Only thing, make sure to employ security or the shuttle might lose its wheels.

Judge says tech-addled jurors undermine justice

Who would you want to be tried by?

This all seems pretty simple to me, just consider if you were accused of some crime and had to face trial.

If innocent, I would hate, and I mean really HATE to be tried by a jury. I do not believe for a second that they would be impartial. I want to be tried by a judge, someone who has shown intelligence to get where he is and has proven himself to be a good judge of evidence.

On the other hand, if I was guilty, bring on the jury. Hopefully they won't have a clue.

As a simple demonstration, approximately 50% of Americans reject ALL evidence and conclude that the world is 6000 years old. Granted thats the loony bin on the other side of the pond, but it just shows you what value evidence has with some people.

Paris cos she's impartial.

Police poison speed debate with fuzzy figures

A false presumption

The presumption that the introduction of cameras as a road safety measure makes is that someone exceeding the speed limit is being dangerous, someone adhering to the limit is safe. At best this is woefully inaccurate, at best it is downright dangerous. You are effectively telling people that they can use the speed limit of a road to determine safe speeds, rather than actually reacting to current conditions. At times 120mph on the motorway is perfectly safe. At other times, 10mph in a 40 limit is deadly.

People are conditioned to believe that speed, or lack thereof, makes them a safe driver. In reality a fixed speed limit for a road makes no sense in the majority of cases since it can give that false feeling of safety. 30mph past a school at 3:30, for example.

All accidents are caused by either driver carelessness or by a freak occurance. Carelessness includes, in this definition, tail gaiting, lack of observation or just inadvisable maneuvers (overtaking on a blind bend, say). There are always going to be bad drivers on the roads and they are going to cause accidents. Suggesting that they cause those accidents because they exceed the speed limit is inaccurate. They cause them because they use inappropriate speed for the situation.

To demonstrate more clearly what I mean, could you drive safely if you could not see the speedo in your car? Of course you could. In fact I would wager you would drive more safely, not because you feared the speed limits, but because you would become more aware of your surrounding.

Idiots will always remain, those that drive recklessly should be punished to the full extent the law allows. Speed cameras should be abolished as they serve no purpose other than to give people a false perception of speed and safety and create ill feeling towards the police/government. They do not improve road safety in the majority of cases.

Das überdatabase: Inside Wacky Jacqui's motherbrain

If you have nothing to hide...

...that won't stop them looking, just in case.

Bah, guess anyone posting at the end of an article like this (or writing one, tut tut) is likely to be analysed, so I'll see you all in Guantanamo.

The only way a system like this can be put in place is if for its operation are determined before it is put in place. It should be proven that those rules can be enforced, and those rules must be enforced 100%. Those rules mustnever be bent regardless of circumstances.

Experience shows us that this will not be the case, that new uses will be thought of for the technology and passed through, further eroding any rights we have. A system is only as trustworthy as those that run it, and I trust the government of this country about as much as I trust bloke in Spain offering me a watch from a coat pocket.

UK spooks forced to hand Gitmo files to suspect's lawyers

more fear of the authorities than the terrorists

This type of thing scares the crap out of me. now this guy might be guilty, he might be innocent. for sure hes no mother teresa and probably should be locked up somewhere. That does not mean he, or anyone else, deserves mistreatment.

A wise man (who I would name if I could remember) once said that a society can be judged by the way that it treats its criminals. If this man, and others, need to be subjected to this sort of treatment in order to attempt to justify a prosecution, just what exactly do the authorities believe they are trying to protect. Surely we are trying to protect a society in which precisely that sort of treatment is not permitted. We endeavour to rise above, not to fall into this type of trap. By attempting to defend what we have we are guilty of becoming exactly that which we fear.

I am more afraid of my own and the US government than any terrorist.

Malicious gossip could cost you your job

Communism, anyone

Scary article. Completely agree with the AC above, much as its a pain letting the guilty go unpunished, I prefer that option to having every aspect of my life scrutinised at every turn. Innocent until proven guilty is one of the fundamental principles on which this nation is built, so is probably a prime target for government to erode away.

Microsoft Mojave 'outs' secret Vista lovers

36 hours

Thats the time Vista survived on my laptop.

First of all I would like to put that into context. I am a self-confessed linux fanboy and had steadfastly refused to purchase, or even try, Vista. However, a new laptop included with a mobile phone contract that came pre-loaded with vista arrived, and so I thought I would give it a go. At the very least I planned to dual boot.

Expectations were low as this is a low spec laptop, 1gb RAM etc, so I fully expected slowness. What I did not expect was just how much this thing could annoy me. First of all there was the fact that I had to perform at least 3 reboots in the first half an hour of owning the thing for no real reason that I could understand. But the reboot that broke this fanboys back was after an auto windows update while I was logged in as a normal user, not admin. All of a sudden I get a popup box, the computer has been updated and will reboot in 4 minutes, with the cancel button greyed out. All I had access to was the "reboot now" button. Well, I don't know the OS at all, presumably I could have switched to admin and cancelled this happening, but any OS that reboots itself like that is off my wish list.

Next up, I didn't like the pre-install. Crappy partitioning, loads of pre-loaded bloatware that I didn't need, and no install media. Recovery disks are all thats available, and they apparently put the machine back into its original state, ie removing any new partitions/OS's you install.

Whats the use of that. I bought the OS, I want it to use it as I please. I contacted the vendor (CPW, they just order the laptop from ACER, so have no install media). Acer wanted to charge me 50 quid for the recovery disks. I have yet to hear anything from Microsoft.

After 36 hours I had had enough, vista is no more, this is being written to you via debian. I am not blind, debian support for this particular laptop is not stunning, my wifi does not work out of the box so I will be sorting that out this evening. I do know that I won't have to reboot while I do so however, even if I compile new modules for the kernel, as I can load them on the fly.

In short, all the rebooting and preventing me from doing what I want, when I want to do it, means that Vista has no place on this, or any other of my machines.

Brits terrified of online fraud, but want magic cars, says BT

OMGz no

[quote]Back then only 3 per cent said that if they could improve the internet in one way it would be to make it safer from scammers and other reprobates. Today the proportion wishing for a less dangerous online life is 28 per cent. Yet just 2 per cent of non-internet users cite fraud as the reason they stay offline.[/quote]

Hmm, kinda obvious really. The figures from 10 years ago and the figure for people not using the web for security reasons today are very close and would suggest that peoples attitudes to the problem have not changed, but rather that the threat is now more widespread and people are more knowledgeable about it. Ask a random person in the street about phishing 10 years ago and they would show you to the nearest tackle shop. People are now more knowledgeable.

Knowledge does not make people more concerned, it provides them with the tools to have informed opinions. Now they have the knowledge of scammers, they are concerned about it. Before, they were not.

Not exactly earth shattering research, I could have guessed the figures fairly accurately.

Granite Jesus, blessed be thy gneiss

In time for the second coming???

Surely Jesus back on the earth IS the second coming?

Paris is confused too

Home Office defends 'dangerously misleading' Phorm thumbs-up

Hypocrits

[quote]Internet users would be better served if FIPR focused on the benefits of the online technologies available today rather than undermine the online privacy debate and block technological progress. That would help people to make valid informed choices about the services they want to use.[/quote]

Hmm, valid informed choices. Just like all those people in the illegal bt/phorm trial got to make valid informed choices last year. Oh no, wait...

I hate this company more by the day. Wish I had the resources and know how to actually make a legal challenge.

Microsoft soothes Vista pain with Bossploitation flick

GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF

OMG, wtf was that

Fake subpoenas harpoon 2,100 corporate fat cats

Well what a suprise

My Dad is a director of a company turning of millions every year, intelligent, very good at what he does, perfectly competent. The only way he wouldn't have got stung by this if he didn't know how to click on the link. If you are in an environment when you are not used to dealing with computers or only with computers in a specific fashion then you are vulnerable. His particular company deals with structural engineering. Give him some CAD software and watch him go to work. Then wait for him to come home and say "how do I make the internet work", or "at work the internet just 'comes up' why is it different here". I have tried to train him up a bit, waste of time.

The problem here is a catch 22. The executives at companies need to know about computer security. The problem is that until something like this happens, they don't know that they need to know. The only people who can tell them are IT workers. But IT workers don't make policy, the big wigs do, and they decide what training you receive. The people who need to decide to enroll everyone for it security training and the people who know least about it and so don't enroll everybody for security training.

Hence, the most vulnerable people are the top people in an organisation because they are not routinely exposed to the dangers.

Lol at whaling.

YouTube divorce rant vid wows the crowd

Can you say

Trophy Wife?

Lol, this guy saw her coming. But you have to askm what was it that first attracted you to the old, balding, wrinkly multi-millionaire?

Ahh, the sex. Oh, no wait. You never had sex. Hmm.

Shes a more stupid version of Heather.

Paris would never get suckered like that.

US law makers seek ban on in-flight calls

Ban voice calls, period

I see no problem with allowing text messaging or internet access. Even better, let me connect up my lappy to my phone. But for the love of God ban voice calls whether from a mobile or a provided phone. At a stretch, put one phone, next to the bogs, at a quid a minute that gets distributed to all other passengers as compensation, so that a real emergency call can be made. For anything else, use text. VoIP banned too.

Windows Vista update 'kills' USB devices

@XP was the same

I was not an early XP adopter so I can't be certain one way or the other RE XP drivers/stability int eh early days. What I do know is that the follow up to XP (Vista) didn't arrive for many years. XP had five or six years to mature as an OS. The follow up to vista is going to arrive long before Vista is a stable OS on "most" hardware. If you need a top of the line PC to run it and the next version comes out, what, pray tell, is going to be required to run it. We all going to be going to IBM?

Vista should be being released right about now. Not a year and a half ago. Right now its in what I would deem a reasonable state for an early adopter. Runs well on top spec hardware, still has driver issues, number of bugs, but thats what you expect from a new system. For a system that is 12 months from being superseded it is not up to standard. If windows 7 was still four years away then fine. It's not, and Vista is a flop.

Paris as nothing flops around here

@works great for me

How can you say it runs faster than win2k when you have bought a high spec machine to run it? Run win2k on your new all singing dancing machine, then run vista, then tell me that vista is quicker. Or run vista on your old win2k machine. I want an OS to interact between the hardware and my applications, I don't want an OS that uses up all my hardware to run itself.

I dual boot gentoo and XP, given the current outlook XP will be my last M$ OS. After X years XP is now a great OS. Still hate all the silly reboots after installs/removals of software, but as a stable platform its now pretty good. I only boot to it on occasions for gaming now though. Vista will never see my desktop, windows 7, hmm.

Downing Street removes Labour Party link

I can guess where it went

Some government hack left it in a taxi when they nipped into a pub. They should learn to be more careful with their links, security policy is one thing but if some idiot in .gov leaves a link lying around then someone is going to remove it. Just hope you are not one of the people affected by this link going amiss. Why oh why can't they encrypt links properly instead of leaving them out in plain view.

UK's most popular Wi-Fi router defaults to insecurity

I can only see networks called "Sky" from here

WEP encrypted too... netgear dg834 me thinks

Until the tool does get released WEP is still better than nothing, you do at least require *some* knowledge to get at a WEP protected network, you just need a computer and one hit with the clue bat to get at an unprotected one. My router came defaulted to no protection, but at least the wifi was turned off. 9 times out of 10 Joe Bandwidth Stealer is going to go for the unprotected network rather than the WEP one, he only goes for the WEP one because he wants to show off.

Top-end Fords will be watching your rear

Not sure why people are against this

Number one cause of accidents beyond stupidity (tailgaiting etc) is crap observation. Very easy for someone to get lazy after 3 or 4 mind numbing hours on a motorway and neglect to check a blind spot. A little light can only be a good thing. The danger is if people start to use it as an alternative to checking their blind spot, so the actual implementation of the technology will be key.

@Serve Chilled.

Drivers out front in a glass box, might not be a bad way of teaching persistent bad dribvers to drive. Stick em on a skid pan somewhere with that kind of setup and let em go at it, great educational tool. And no I don't mean speeders, I mean bad drivers. Would you tailgate in a glass car?

Paris always checks her blind spot, might be a bloke she wants there.

BOFH: Lift laughs

Nicely setup

Great bofh, one of my favourites. Just imagining the look on the PFY's face as he heads off to security...

RIcky Gervais? Narggh. Not John Cusack either. Hmm, I need to ponder on this one.

Story withdrawn

what the deuce

So the guys who get lots of sex are in fact not getting lots of sex because women are not attracted to them, but the guys who don't get any sex actually get lots of sex because women find that more alluring.

Or is it the other way around.

My head hurts.

Paris doesn't mind either way.

IPS wants ID card service pilots

Here it comes

I like the throw away line. It will take up to 15 years to start seeing the benefits of this. Thats a hell of a long time when the supposed threats we are all under are in place now. Bet its a different threat in 15 years.

In addition to the threat changing, what a way to cover yourself. If at first we don't succeed, well we did say it would take fifteen years. After fifteen years is the scheme is bunk whats the betting its not abandoned. Yeah, right.

Kill it, kill it now, kill it properly and lets have done.

Transcript disappears minister's 'hack-proof' ID register claim

I'd never have believed it

The government, editing a transcript to put themselves in a better light. narrgh, no way, they wouldn't stoop so low. This government understands it security fantastically well and no way would they have made such a big gaffe. The new transcript must be accurate. Everyone knows we have an honest government, one we can trust to keep our best interests at hear.

AHHHHHHHH

Sorry, nearly got hit by a trotter, damn pigs swooping down too low again.

FIPR: ICO gives BT 'green light for law breaking' with Phorm

talktalk looking up?

In agreement with the first AC in this thread. I don't so much care whether data is stored or not, its the interception with the possibilities that leads to that has me concerned. I am far more concerned that a company might tap my communications. Once tapped what they do with it is a matter of trust and this company is far beyond trust worthy, but thats a mute point. I don't want my data anywhere near a third party.

Of the three major ISP's talktalk are the only one so far to confirm (via the members discussion forum) that their implementation will be opt in and will mean that for anyone who does not opt-in their data will never go phorm equipment or software. So far they have yet to confirm an implementation.

On top of that they recently announced a royal screw you to the BPI by saying they will fight the 3 strikes and your out rule for file sharers. Slight caveat being that they do shape p2p traffic.

I for one switched to talktalk from bt a few months ago (saving 20 quid a month in the process) and have to say nothing so far is making me regret that decision. I would be away from bt faster than the proverbial rat given current happenings.

Plugs pulled on satellite paedo tracking after pilot flops

Big Suprise

Pity that ID cards hadn't been rolled out, that would have protected the public at large...ideally from the bloody politicians who dream up these schemes.

1 in 4 sex offenders released re-offended. Lock them up and throw away the key then, they lost their right to any form of liberty. I don't care how much it costs.

People who dream up these schemes must be on another planet.

French won Waterloo, says Italian telecoms chief

I thought they did win?

Don't you remember, that was the one where Ben Affleck used his Hypersonic giggablaster to simultaneous decode the enigma machine, sink the bismarck, conquer the Brits and get Britney Spears up the duff.

Or am I getting confused again

Paris wouldn't make that mistake

Al Gore's green job bonanza - can we afford it?

Sensationalism from both sides

Whether or not the author of this article is right or whether Gore is right is hard to say from such a short piece. What this does however demonstrate is why the debate on climate change needs to be radically altered.

Pretty much everyone posting here has a firm opinion one way or the other regarding whether climate change is really occurring. Some say yes, some say no, but all have a failry cast iron opinion. Most of the reason for this IMO is the sensationalistic nature of the reporting of climate change. If an article is to make it either onto the 6 o clock news, into a newspaper or even onto the boards of el reg it has to come to some pretty firm conclusions. Unfortunately those just are not possible given current scientific knowledge. We are still at a stage of speaking of "scientific consensus", which a few hundred years ago would have had the world as round.

The only way to form a balanced and fair opinion is to go and read a hell of a lot of scientific journals, various studies on various aspects of the issue and weigh up all the evidence accordingly. Only then are you in a position to form an opinion. Go and read up on the royal society, particularly on their website looking at climate change. The most respected scientific body on earth doesn't have any sensational claims, doesn't come close to claiming to know what is happening and what the consequences will be. It just highlights where the evidence points and suggests a course of action based on the evidence at hand.

Articles such as the one I have just read are necessary in the face of action the likes of which Gore is proposing and undertaking, but it is precisely this kind of article/argument that is rendering the public debate on climate change completely and utterly pointless.

DHS ponders microwave raygun missile defences at airports

Wouldn't it be better...

...to train a crack squad of elite racing pigeons to fly into the path of the missile forcing it to destruct early? Cheaper, cleaner (cept for the bird shit), and no real testing required. Just a lot of pigeon food.

Actually come to that, wouldn't that be a better job for the terrorists. Just release a flock of birds into the path of an oncoming airliner. Have to be a lot of em, but you see it at big sporting/celebratory events.

They could of course still use the microwave jobbie to stop a flock of birds, with the added bonus of a free meal all round.

If this was on the 1st I would have lol'd

Meh, im loling anyway

Naomi Campbell cuffed in Heathrow Terminal 5

Best be careful

She might slip under the door and escape.

Paris wouldn't be so foul towards authority

Blogging Whitehall mandarin had top secret 'panopticon' plan

Best one yet

Funny, even more so because it might be true...

Mines the one with A1 on the back

IFPI demands $2.5m in damages from The Pirate Bay

More of the same

Fine calculated on the number of downloads of those 24 albums...

Once again the assumption that everyone who downloaded the album would have gone out and bought it. It's almost enough to make me start downloading music to prove a point. When are they going to get it into their heads that music piracy is not the same as going into HMV and stealing the damn CD? Maybe if they sued at 0.5p per track or something which might reflect the actual lost revenue people might have a bit more sympathy.

Paris knows they are misguided.

Amazon smacks little people with BookSurge

Throw the book at Amazon

Surely some authority figure can step in here and stop Amazon abusing its position in the sector for forcing unreasonable demands on sellers. As far as I can tell this borders on blackmail. Amazon just went down a notch in my estimation

Creative threatens developer over home-brewed Vista drivers

Talk about poor customer relations

How dare you produce software for our hardware thats better than the stuff we produce. We were forced to cripple it, had to make it integrate with vista seamlessly.

Guess I'll be avoiding creative then.

Paris for the intellectual aspect

Botanist sues to stop CERN hurling Earth into parallel universe

Appealing to the wrong people me thinks

It's all right appealing to the doodles to get this stopped, wasn't it their decision not all that many years ago to explode a bomb that it was thought by many involved MIGHT incinerate the earths atmosphere, and then exploded the bugger anyway.

If we get sucked into a black hole at least it will be quick ;)

and err,

LMAO at " the Moon remained made of moon"

Icon as we might meet them in the // universe

Yes! It's the handgun camcorder!

Happy slapping 2.0

Why wait for a mate with a mobile, no third party required. Dibs the patent on the one with wifi for easy upload to youtube

Mines the one with the kevlar