Posts by Pascal Monett

Tesla's top secret gigafactories: Lithium to power world's vehicles? Let's do the sums

Should you buy a question mark for your keyboard ? Definitely.

Meanwhile, given the amount of crust that exists to process, the sooner we start, the sooner we have something that we just need to retool to allow for said next big thing.

Re: Grid losses < 10%

I was going to dispute that, but it turns out you are perfectly right.

Thank you for educating me.

Re: induction track motorways

I can't help but imagine such a road at night in the rain. Headlights and raindrops and showers of sparks illuminating everything.

Beautiful.

But of course someone is going to come along and painstakingly explain that it won't happen because <technobabble>. And I'm sure the person will be right.

But I prefer my vision . . .

Re: you have to heat it quite a lot before it starts to work

Funny, that reminds me of something. Something from those WWII films in Paris. Something about vehicles.

Ah, yes. Diesel engines.

Maybe there's a parallel there ? Diesel engines used to be cranky things to get started too (like me in the morning). Now they're very efficient and will be beating gasoline engines in market penetration at some point in the future.

Might something similar happen for these solid oxide cells ?

Police at the door? Hit the PANIC button to erase your RAM

Next in News at 9

Hackers have found a way to disable multiple computers at once by activating a mysterious panic app.

Do you have ANY idea how much Amazon charges for personal nukesat delivery ?

And don't even think about overnight - we're way past arm & leg territory already.

I was really appalled at the invoice.

Tens of thousands of 'Watch Dogs' pirates ENSLAVED by Bitcoin botmaster

I do think that, if proven, that kind of hijinks lands you right in jail territory.

Given the difficulty of game publishers, I don't think that that is the kind of problem they wish to pile on themselves intentionally.

Now, maybe one disgruntled cubicle programmer who got keyboard rage after one to many weeks of crunch time . . possible. But as a corporate strategy ? No.

Thou speakest thruthfully, and nary a voice could say nay to that.

But pirates being hoisted by miscreants . . . I just can't bring myself to get all hot and bothered by it either.

On the other hand, if miscreants are now actively targeting pirated software, well let's say that that could be a much greater incentive to walk the Straight & Narrow than anything the police could pull.

And that makes me even more unlikely to get up in arms about this.

Because I pay for my games.

That Snowden chap was SPOT ON says China

Ah, the Rise of China, the Red Tide, etc. etc.

China will rise, no doubt about it, it's happening now. They manufacture nearly everything, they are making their own models and doing their own engineering, and they're even on their way to the Moon. Nobody can say the Chinese industry is a just bunch of copycats anymore.

But to say that their culture is much more interesting is wrong, their culture is different. It is the difference that makes it interesting to us. They have Leshan Park, the US has Mount Rushmore. China has the Great Wall, and that has been a World Marvel since it was built, but the US has the Grand Canyon, which is totally naturally awesome, so tie.

As for native cuisine, I don't much outside of what I find in Chinese restaurants around here, but I have heard of the 100-year egg nest. I can't image that being actually healthy. On the other hand, I can see unhealthy American food every time I go to the supermarket or pass a fast food outlet, so ok, I'll leave you that point there.

But "Women treat their men better" ? Really ? What agenda are you pushing there ? What misogynistic point does that make ? The US has actually made the term "wifebeater" into a proper name for an element of clothing, so I just can't see where you're going with that.

Definition right here.

'I was trained as a spy' says Snowden

ANYONE could have guessed indeed, but proving it is another thing entirely.

Everybody knew, deep down inside, that the Government could do shady things in order to ensure Order and Peace. We all knew, but had no proof and no way of getting any. Nor did we really have an issue with it.

But Snowden pulled the curtain and now we know what kind of ugly is sitting behind. And it is fearsomely ugly.

That is worth a frig in my book.

Fat-fingered admin downs entire Joyent data center

Kudos to Joyent

First they are upfront about the issue and about the cause of the issue, and they declare publishing the follow-up and not hanging the admin.

That's a far cry from just about everybody else who start by denying any problem until it is absolutely blindingly obvious to everyone that they've got their heads up their ass, then go on to make absurd "only a small percentage of users were impacted" statements.

Joyent sounds like a rather good company to work for, where the entire management chain is capable and takes responsibility. Almost unheard-of these days.

HP, are you noticing ?

LulzSec turncoat Sabu avoids jail time thanks to co-operating with Feds

26 years ?

Who did he kill ?

I'm all for justice, but it seems to me that, if he didn't kill anybody, he shouldn't be locked up for longer than a murderer would get.

ARG! A GHOST SHIP! Pirates sunk by UK cops return from watery grave

Operation Creative is a ground-breaking initiative

That it is. It's breaking so much legal ground that it's creating potholes.

But being useful, not to mention relevant, is beside the point.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? New leccy BMWs have flimsy password security – researcher

Re: I use my name all the time so why shouldn't I be able to use it for online services

Maybe because when you give your name to someone in Real Life (TM), you don't expect them to be going through the roof of your house in the next ten minutes to check out all your stuff, mosey in the cellar and leave a turd in the fish bowl.

Because on the Internet, they can do that and more, if they are determined.

Microsoft Cortana EULA contains the Greatest Disclaimer of ALL TIME

Re: Lots of the stuff in EULA has no legal backing

The EULA has no legal backing. You can only agree to it once you have forked over the money and removed the shrinkwrap. Following where you are in the world, doing that can void your possibility of returning the software you bought.

Even if you can return it, you still cannot read the EULA before you have installed the product, making the EULA anything but a contract.

If you check up on your commercial law, I'm pretty sure that, whatever your country, you will find that a "contract" is an agreement between two parties to exchange goods for currency, or something approaching that. The key notion here "agreement" : you cannot agree to something you can't read before having already paid for it.

The fact that we're talking about EULAs at all is simply because, as of right now, nobody wants to enforce anything legal about them because doing so would require shops to house stacks and stacks of EULAs for their customers to read before making the purchase. And nobody wants that to happen.

Antivirus firm Avast! takes down forums after breach

Could someone please specify

If I have never used Avast forums, am I at risk ?

After reading the article, I understand that it is the forum passwords that have been compromised. If so, never having had an ID there, I am not at risk.

Right ?

Care to explain exactly how a "backup strategy" is going to do anything to protect my personal information ?

You've got Mail! But someone else is reading it in Outlook for Android

Nailed it

All apps installed on a standard Android have all the "permissions" they can want since, if you want it, you have to accept everything. So any app at all can go read the storage area, extract any useful information and send it off to God knows who.

There is zero actual security on Android "smartphones", and I suspect that Iphone is not much better.

Smartphones. Riiight.

Windows XP fixes flaws for free if you turn PCs into CASH REGISTERS

Updates for free ? Maybe not. But I certainly do not think that Microsoft has the right to arbitrarily decide to no longer support a product that millions of customers are still using.

The proper lifecycle of a product is that it is retired when its market share becomes negligeable. Millions of customers are not negligeable. Software, as it has been said, has no date limit, so Microsoft should continue and support its product until at least 90% of XP users have switched to something else.

Google tells indie labels to take its YouTube deal or face OBLIVION

Seems to me that the Indies should become a Union

It is time for Indies to unite and dictate their terms.

The Internet allows anyone to create a forum, one of them should create an Indie Label Union site and get the word around.

Order of business would be : set the rules of what an Indie label should accept, get agreement on said rules, then go to Google with THEIR template.

It's always in the numbers. Ideally, ALL indies should just remove their videos on their own, now. Once Google's revenue has been eviscerated, then they can come back and say ok, now we do it like this. On their terms.

The problem, of course, is getting the indie labels to play ball together - the difficulty of which is, of course, what Google is counting on.

Pirate Party runs aground in European Parliamentary elections

Which is not, apparently, a voter concern.

Yet.

128-bit crypto scheme allegedly cracked in two hours

Nice to know

It's nice to know that there are still some seriously intelligent people on this planet.

Too bad for curvy ellipses then, I'll just be happy to still find them in magazines.

What ? The door ? Oh. Right.

New XSS vuln hits eBay as rubbish passw0rds persist

A half-million in fines ? Who cares ?

The real hit is going to be in consumer confidence. Hopefully it will cost them a lot more than that.

Scientists capture death star in violent explosion

Re: stars end their lives in one of two ways [..] they go out, or they go supernova

Um, seems to me that there is a "Nova" between "go out" and "Supernova".

Rubber-glove time: Italy to probe TripAdvisor over 'fake reviews'

"This system employs sophisticated algorithms"

That do not spot spelling mistakes, obvious strawman arguments or downright falsehoods.

I'm sure the sub-contracted company (that may or may not be located in Earth's Southern hemisphere) that "controls" the reviews had a hoot when they read that.

By the way, what "penalties" can you leverage against anonymous people with false logins, false contact details and changing/spoofed IP addresses ?

JJ Abrams and Star Wars: I've got a bad feeling about this

Re: I wanted the Thrawn trilogy

YES ! That !

Absolutely. That would have been awesome.

Maybe in another 75 years, when MPAA is bankrupt and forgotten along with its copyrights, and when technology has given us artificial voice simulators and CGI has lept forward in power, we will get a proper Thrawn trilogy with the original cast all in well-done CGI without (too many) lens flares.

And maybe I'll win the lottery this week.

Re: JarJar

I think many people would pay to see that !

But torture ? In a kids' film ? Can't have that.

A dip in lava maybe, but not torture. That would be too cruel.

Yes, let's not

Fringe was brilliant. Brilliant character development, and a relations story that actually brought something to the series and was not just tacked on as an afterthought once a thousand bored housewives had sent a petition to have some smooching (like in Bones, Castle, House, FBI Missing Persons, and just about all the others).

Abrams has his name on Fringe ? I'm surprised, but I will accept it as the one good thing he did.

Except for Season 5, that is. That season doesn't exist.

It bloody well is.

Wacky 'baccy making a hash of FBI infosec recruitment efforts

"good for lulz" ?

I'll be curious to see how much you lulz when you see iron bars all around you.

In case you were already high when reading the article, the FBI does not hire people who are under influence. It did not say whether said people got arrested, though.

Google is tech industry and world's most valuable brand as Apple rots

WTF ?

Twitter is now a tech vendor ?

In that case, why isn't Facebook on the list ? At lease FB sells ads. Twitter doesn't sell anything.

No such luck: Apple, Samsung say peace talks are off – way off

That sounds like a rather nice idea.

Have a pint on me.

Microsoft walks into a bar. China screams: 'Eww is that Windows 8? GET OUT OF HERE'

Nailed it.

What I really don't understand is how IBM did not make all Fortune 1000 companies understand just how much better their OS was, and how more suited to business it was.

IBM has so missed the boat in the PC space and it is continuing to do so.

The loss is all the more bitter.

Re: it's about Microsoft designing their software around a business model

I'm rather surprised that Microsoft bases its business model on everyone having 100Mbps connections whereas most people in the US barely have 2Mpbs.

Sure, in Taiwan they have 100Mbps (or so I heard), but for most other people in the world, the Cloud is just a slow remote drive that is not always there. And not secure. And not under your control.

So yeah, what's not to like ?

Re: those of us running it

Three people do not make a valid representative sample.

Windows 8 has changed a lot more than just the Start menu. It has also attempted to lock users into a walled garden, among other issues.

But I do not expect someone happy with a Playskool UI to be knowledgeable about issues. Go back to clicking your shiny tiles. I'm glad you're happy with it.

Creepy Facebook urges users to pester friends about their SEX LIVES

1.25 billion people ?

Certainly not.

1.25 billion accounts, undoubtedly, but not people.

Yahoo! Saves! Trolls! From! Session! Jacking! Holes!

So Yahoo is patching holes like crazy

Too bad it still looks like they're trying to bail water from the Titanic.

Silverlight finally becomes popular ... with crims

So you're saying that your clients are not media cartels (since industrial espionage does not concern music or video companies) and yet they use DRM ?

Interesting. I didn't think that anyone outside MPAA affiliates had any use for DRM.

Boffins teach robo-arm to catch flying beer bottle

Re: Catch unconsciously?

If I judge by the content of this article, if you're catching an object reflexively you are still using your brain because you need to know where the object is, thus you have to use your view and correlate with the reflexive action.

The kind of reflex you refer to is the bump on the knee thing. That does not go to the brain and if you end up kicking someone it has nothing to do with aim.

LA air traffic meltdown: System simply 'RAN OUT OF MEMORY'

I think the time has come

It is high time aircraft have some collision-detection hardware installed. With a local radio network, each aircraft could automatically identify itself to all the others in the local zone and they would all "negotiate" their passage.

That should take the brunt of the work off the traffic controllers, who would then "just" be monitoring the state of affairs and intervening when necessary to avoid a cock-up.

Just dreaming here, may not be practical.

"There may be _HOURS_ before the flight plan is punched in and the actual time it needs to be executed."

Um, I don't think this is about flight plan stuff _before_ take-off. This is about controlling that the craft is not going to crash into anything else right now.

I agree that pre-flight flight plan control could very well be farmed out to a mainframe that would happily control its validity without resorting to real-time constraints. But when you have a hundred flights over your head at that instant and need to integrate a new object and control its parameters, you need the result straight away, not in ten minutes.

Plus, I believe that flight control has a tendency of reassigning altitudes to ensure that collisions do not occur - that is not something that a pre-flight check can take into account.

That NAKED SELFIE you sent on Snapchat? You may be seeing it again

Totally agree.

So Twitter is going to be a roaring success, isn't it ?

Get BENT: Flexy supercapacitor breaks records

Let's ask Michael Bay !

Boffins say hot air makes Antarctica colder

Re: Yet climate modellers [..] don't have that imperative to be correct

Climate modellers are also dealing with the single most complex field of science : thermodynamics. And they are trying to create a model that not only deals with that science, but does it on a planet-wide scale.

I have no beef against scientists, their job is one of the most demanding and unrewarding that can be. What I disagree with is the gravy train that has sprouted up around the existing flawed models, and what I am incensed by is the so-called scientists that are guilty of massaging the data to fit the conclusion that lays the tracks for said gravy train.

No one with a brain can deny climate change. It's happening all the time. What I can deny is the need to go Chicken Little about it and approve throwing gobs of money at ill-conceived schemes that 1) are not renewable, 2) do not actually have results compatible with being eco-friendly and 3) give their greatest benefit only to the people that are actively involved in the scheme.

Whoosh !

Yes, but in electronics feedback loops are easier to identify and comprehend.

Nurse ! He's lost his meds again !

Re: Warming more slowly=getting colder.

That's the same line of reasoning as "spending more makes you save more !", or the beancounter view that earning less means losing money.

Warming more slowly is not getting colder. Getting colder is when temperatures drop, not when they rise less quickly.

Hey, does your Smart TV have a mic? Enjoy your surveillance, bro

" internet-connected coffee makers and such "

Nobody, and I mean nobody, will ever convince me that my household appliances have any need of being "connected".

A coffee maker is to make coffee, not listen to the radio. For that, I have a radio.

Actually, I'll make it really simple : now that we have tablets that are readable and can connect to them thar intarwebs, there is no good reason to connect anything else.

The best appliance is a dumb appliance.