Posts by Pascal Monett

Boffins DREAMING of a WHITE CHRISTMAS ... on MARS!

Re: "> The surface of the planet is young"

Yeah, probably thinks Mars is "only" 2,500 years old.

Village-swallowing MUDCANO was no accident, say boffins

Finally !

But You Shall Not Pass is way after. You should have stayed with "You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum".

MYSTERY of 19th-century DEAD WALRUS found in London graveyard

Wait, what ?

"... some Lovecraftian tale of a horrific walrusoid abomination - created perhaps in the lab of some insane experimenter, only to break free and terrorise the foggy streets of old London town in a bloody campaign of tusky or red-flippered slaughter, then later to be buried along with its victims' remains ..."

I want to see that film !!!

Senator: Surveillance state based on secret law 'has no place in America'

Finally one of them has the balls to stand up and disagree

I don't know this senator's political history is and I don't care. This is the true America, the one with the strength to acknowledge its mistakes and correct them.

It will take time, it won't be easy, but the road has now changed. Snowden was the first step, Wyden is now the second. The ball is rolling and we can hope that true Freedom will once again be had by all.

Plus, we can now finally lay to rest that argument about whether or not Snowden was a traitor. He was not.

Divers nearly DEVOURED by HUNGRY SEA BEASTS

Whale finds humans in his food, leaves disgusted

In other news, Johnny Blubber was disagreeably surprised to find a pair of humans polluting his sardine sammy this morning.

"There were just floating there, right in the middle of my plate" Johnny declared after the incident. "It's like they were doing it on purpose."

As we all know, humans ruin the taste of sardines with their rubbery smell. Johnny tried to eat anyway, but the stench was just too much.

"I couldn't take it, I had to leave." Johnny said, disgusted. "What a waste." he added.

Yahoooo! - Activist! investor! leaps! overboard! jingling! with! cash!

Doubled since last spring, eh ?

Let's see what the numbers say.

Last Spring was around March, if I'm not mistaken, but it's obvious that February is the reference. February value was 19.77.

Double that is 39.54.

Current price as of July 1st was 25.26, so there is 14.28 missing, which makes more than a third (36%) less than what he states.

For his claim to be valid, you have to go back to September 2012, and I don't remember Spring ever happening in September, even with the crazy weather we're having these days.

Conclusion : the numbers say his claim is bullshit.

Secondary conclusion : he's probably so full of it that he actually believes the bull he spouts.

SanDisk starts beating path to 3D NAND flash

This is true 3D computing

Kudos to the development team, who have managed to implement "real" 3D in design, not just by stacking chips. Kudos also to the management who did not squash the idea to go do like everybody else.

I hope this tech will prove itself indeed better than stacking chips, which somehow feels like cheating. If it does, I wonder what the financial impact will be on the cost of foundries. They already cost a few billion to build - if this tech really takes off will that change significantly ?

SkyDrive on par with C: Drive in Windows 8.1

"skydrive, that so far has had zero downtime "

Don't worry, that WILL change.

Troll loses 'we own the Web' patent appeal

Interesting ideas here

But I still prefer my idea that, in order to sue someone about a patent of any sort, you have to be actually producing something with that patent and thus, demonstrate that others are damaging your sales.

If you're not selling, I don't care how many people are infringing your patent, your right to sue is null and void and you're wasting the time of the courts.

100-metre asteroid 2013 NE19 zipped past Earth today

Re: "one to go down it and shatter it"

I read somewhere an article about how scientists had rather discredited the idea of shattering an asteroid of any size and prefer to push it into another orbit (or "move it away").

That would be because shattering the asteroid would not significantly change its trajectory, so it would be a case of getting hit with buckshot instead of one single bullet. Oh, and the buckshot would be radioactive too.

I understand the reasoning, but I still can't help being a bit disappointed the in lack of any Earth-shattering kabooms in the future of preserving Earth from . . . Earth-shattering kabooms.

Planetary paparazzi snap candid pics of Earth, Moon from space

Re: "This is better than we thought!"

I cannot agree more.

The Universe created less than 10,000 years ago ? Pah ! The God I believe in can count beyond 10,000. The God I believe in knows that His glory is much better served by a Universe that is older and more mind-boggingly vast than the human mind can comprehend. The God I believe in has given us Intelligence to percieve His greatness, and a language with which to formulate it. That language is Science (mathematics+physics).

And the beauty of it all is that you don't even have to believe in God to improve our understanding of His creation.

I will start paying attention to Creationist theories when :

1) a Creationist gets a Nobel Prize in Physics

2) a Creationist can explain why God would tell us "Thou Shalt Not Lie", yet create a 10,000 year-old Universe that LOOKS like it is billions of years old (believe in a Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do god ? No thank you !)

Texas school strikes devil's bargain, drops RFID student tracking

Re: Unreal

Yes, absolutely ! Let us add yet another layer of Political Correctness to our sad, sad world.

Oh, and call Hollywood too, so that they can find a new word for all those photos candidates are supposed to include in their CVs when looking for a job in Kahlifoniyaa !

UK gov's smart meter dream unplugged: A 'colossal waste of cash'

"fewer disconnections" and "manage payment problems earlier" don't mix

"Slade adds that their introduction should lead to fewer disconnections, as the improved data will make it possible to spot and manage payment problems earlier."

I think that's bollocks. I think that "managing payment problems earlier" means disconnection when payment is getting close to overdue, and if you don't pay you freeze in the dark until you pay again.

After all, a payment problem is only a problem for the power companies if they distribute power and don't get paid. If they have the power to selectively shut down bad payers, in today's NSA-watched society I can't for the life of me imagine why they wouldn't do it and blame it on some malfunction until payment has resumed. They probably already have a chart outlining how many "involuntary interruptions of service" are necessary before pretending to "fix" the "affected" unit becomes economically acceptable for them.

Curiosity team: Massive collision may have killed Red Planet

Uh, the moon is 1/6th of Earth's mass - maybe that has something to do with its absence of atmosphere, don't you think ?

As in : doesn't have enough mass to keep one ?

It's not because YOU don't understand something that it's nonsense.

Ex-prez Carter: 'America has no functioning democracy' with PRISM

Dubya : "it's going to take awhile for the objective historians to show up"

And when they do, they will objectively tear you a new one. You are going down as the hinging point that turned the USA from a democratic state to a police state.

Your conscience is clear ? A Muppet doesn't have a conscience !

Russian mobile operators say 'nyet!' to Apple, 'da!' to Samsung

I agree with Richard 12. Although I have personally bought one or two handsets outside of carrier shops, I can vouch for my friends and most people I know in France who typically go to their carrier shop when they want to change phones.

And if they want to change carrier, they go to the new carrier shop and make the deal, getting a new phone out of it as well.

Buying a phone without a carrier contract is not all that common in my relations, although it is not unheard of, given the number of prepaid phone refills on sale next to cashiers desks in every supermarket/gas station.

So I'm guessing that, in France at least, there is a substantial share of people who go to their carrier for their handset model replacement, and a non-negligeable share of people who buy outside of carrier shops (maybe secondhand as well) and use prepaid SIMMs or something like that.

Another point that is gaining in importance is the online secondhand market (Ebay, I guess, but Leboncoin is seriously gaining in activity as well). That has to have an impact on carrier sales.

Re: "fashion/fads tend not to cross language barriers as efficiently"

Well, given that the Iphone is selling for almost a thousand bucks on the retail market (and more on the black market, apparently), I'd say that's one fad that has had no problem with either the language barrier or the country's borders.

Dell warns stockholders that Icahn's plan would 'hamstring' company

Company founder on one hand, vultures on the other

I don't really see that there is a choice in the matter. Shareholders are obviously much better off with the man who founded the company, given that the alternative is a person who has the history of a financial vulture.

Besides, I must admit that I'd rather see Michael Dell at the head of Dell Enterprise. That way, whether failure or success, it will be his legacy.

If Icahn gets his hands on Dell, the company is sure to go the HP way (i.e. to shame and ridicule).

Psssst: If you wanna be rich, make the next privacy Robocop app

I totally agree with you. Any solution will have to Open Source by nature, so that multiple eyes can guarantee the absence of any backdoor, given that government guarantees in this domain are totally not credible (hey NSA, remember that little thing called the Constitution ?).

It will also have to be idiot-proof, which is a major stumbling block right there. Finally, all operators will have to agree to use it, which will mean setting aside their own solution - and that will be another major issue.

Since AVG has brought this issue to light after having purchased a company dealing in securing privacy, it seems obvious that this is a ploy to trumpet their own horn and it will be that more difficult for them to abandon the investment and adopt an Open Source solution.

So, right from the start this whole issue seems practically moot already.

Although I do agree that privacy is going to become a more important concern than it is now, but given that it's level of concern is currently nil (otherwise Facebook, Google and the US government would be facing quite stiffer resistence), that doesn't seem to mean much.

Boffins want toilets to become POWER PLANTS

Instead of wasting so much water, we could still include a turbine in the last part of the plumbing just before the tap. That way, wherever and whenever you draw water, some energy would be recovered.

A turbine right before the toilet reserve seems to be a must. Maybe e could put several turbines (probable loss-of-pressure issues there though).

Pure boffinry: We peek inside Nokia's miracle cameraphone

Re: "the fastest growing mobile OS platform"

Inevitable xkcd reference

Malware-flingers do it back-to-front : scaM snaps, spans Macs

What I really like ...

... is the explanations for removing the cron jobs (from the article linked in the linked article ), where the (certainly competent) technical writer warns that a simple space "could have disastrous consequences".

In other words, if you fail trying to remove the malware, you'll bugger up your system much worse than if you left it alone !

Of course, any command that includes rm in its list of arguments is not to be trifled with !

How the clammy claws of Novell NetWare were torn from today's networks

The real issue is - once again - IBM

And yet again we learn that a good product drowned because IBM couldn't be arsed to do its marketing properly and ignored OS2.

It was 1995, and it was IBM. For Heaven's sake, IBM should have wiped the floor with Microsoft, established OS/2 as the business OS and blared the message over TV and radio.

Did IBM have a marketing budget in those days ? I wonder what it was used for. Inviting VIP customers to barbecues in exotic locations, perhaps ? Because they sure didn't do any sales pitches.

Losers.

Oh really ?

I wonder what this sentence is talking about then : "Banyan’s VINES had been offering this for years with StreetTalk, but it was a specialist product, whereas NetWare was the leading PC server OS." ?

CIOs bombarded with hybrid cloud surveys

"as people flee from expensive, old-style IT into roughly equivalent [cloudy paradise]"

Of course, old-style IT is doomed because the Cloud is better and cheaper.

Sure it is.

Except if you don't want governments snooping through your data.

Except if you don't want hackers snooping through your data.

Except if you're not sure your ISP can guarantee the link to your data.

Except if you want to be sure that, in five years time, automagical updates of your on-line applications haven't rendered your old data unreadable.

Except if you want to have an actual person on call in case of trouble, instead of an automated answering machine that will, after x hours, connect you to someone in Bangalore who calls himself Jonathan.

And don't tell me that it is just a question of negociating the proper conditions. SMEs don't have the means to negociate anything near those conditions.

Google's China boss Liu steps down after torrid time

Facebook is banned in China ?

Well, at least they got ONE thing right.

Google and fellow ad-slingers PROMISE to starve pirates of oxygen

Indeed. It's about time that the rights holders got some burden placed upon them - up to now it's been nothing but cream and gravy.

And I am talking about "rights holders", not "artists".

These days, artists don't hold any rights anymore.

Yahoo! gets animated GIF commendation for defending user privacy

"a ruling [..] caused it to hand over data"

So it's an A for effort then ?

Good on Yahoo! (for once), but it really only goes to show that resistence is futile.

That is a sad state of affairs from a country that prides itself on being "the Land of the Free" and the "Home of the Brave".

Sadder still since I am convinced that the American people are not that kind of people. I know quite a few of them, and to the last one they are all nice, kind and caring, not arrogant prying pricks at all.

There is a clear difference between the American people and their government, and now we are just beginning to see the extent of that gulf.

Latest phish trawl: Your Twitter friend may not really be your friend

"This person is threatening to expose something bad about you"

Uh, it's Twitter. People do not threaten to expose, they just damn well go ahead and expose.

Failure as far as intimidation is concerned.

Forget Snowden: What have we learned about the NSA?

"We need an internet which isn't under the control of Americans"

That should not be all that difficult. It's the Internet - all we need to do is create country nodes and manage continental communications independently.

The USA has no responsibility for the work we do not do ourselves. The Internet is open, it was built that way and nothing can change that. Therefor, to keep NSA away from our comms, we just have to pay the price to keep our comms away from american shores.

I don't like the NSA listening in, but in this particular case, it's our fault for sending them the traffic in the first place.

Apple files patent for refrigerator-magnet iPads

Re: "They are ceramics and can be baked into any shape you want"

Shhh ! Your facts are disturbing the aesthetics !

Look ! Apple ! Shiny !

OOooooooooo !

China prepares to lift 13-year game console ban – report

For your education :

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/workinginspace/great_wall.html

http://www.universetoday.com/25364/can-you-see-the-great-wall-of-china-from-space/

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

Could we have that as an RTS ?

I don't think any of those examples pass the "not too violent or politically sensitive for young people" criteria that is apparently being imposed.

On the other hand, there will probably be a uptake of My Little Pony games <shudder>.

STEVE BALLMER KILLS WINDOWS

Re: "most of the places it's "selling" to are "downgrading" as soon as they unpack the hardware"

That is not going to be an argument as long as Microsoft counts in licenses "shipped" and not licenses "used".

Microsoft waves goodbye to Small Business Server

"many small business are already using hosted email services so where is the difference?"

Oh, so because a lot of people are blissfully unaware of the consequences of a bad decision that makes it OK to make another bad decision of the same kind ?

Don't think so.

Asigra's Google Apps backup calms paranoid CIOs

Market forces at work

The Cloud has absolved itself of all responsibility, so market forces are stepping in to provide some measure of guarantee.

I dare say the abject failure of Azure was probably a wake-up call for those new companies. I just hope for their sake that they managed a proper risk evaluation, or else they are going down.

In any case, I can't help but feel that this is the true nature of the Cloud - pay to access your data, and pay again to recover it in case of trouble.

I wonder how many more paying steps will become involved in all this nebulous business before bean counters finally wake up and smell the coffee ?

Jelly Bean finally overtakes Gingerbread in Android share

I just got upgraded last Friday

My S II now runs 4.1.2, and although I can express support at a number of UI improvements, I find that my battery life has taken a shot in the leg - and not in a good way.

To prevent my need for recharging during the day, I have had to implement power saving measures. This may be temporary, at least until I find what is causing this drain and shut it off, but in the meantime I am seriously hampered by having my phone at 14% battery every morning.

Oh, and I do not really appreciate having had to redefine my entire workspace. Why did they have to trash my icon settings ?

At least they didn't pull a Facebook and managed to keep my essential settings instead of resetting them.

France's 'three strikes' anti-piracy law shot down

Eh, c'est la France !

One law down, one tax arises.

Anybody surprised ?

Pas moi.

Universities teach us a thing or two about BYOD

Interesting article

The University environment is indeed taxing, and its IT is fascinating, although most of what transits on a University network hardly counts as "work".

So, could we have an example like this about a bank ?

No ?

Thought so.

Microsoft: Still using Office installed on a PC? Gosh, you squares

You, sir, still don't understand what a "customer" is for Microsoft.

Hint : it's not you, it's the Fortune 1000 CTO with the large support budget.

Re: "is personal interaction really such a thing of the past?"

Yes it is. That is probably the reason why, at one of my client sites not long ago, they had - I kid you not - a Work Without Email day, specifically touting the advantages of talking (gasp) to people (GASP) IN PERSON (<faint>).

Besides, do YOU want the full-on sweat effect of an unwashed user speeding towards you at full waddle ? With his coffee-stained maw wide open yelling for you to stop so you can see the lettuce on the rear molars ?

I prefer the email, thanks.

Man, up to now this comment list looks like a checklist of things to verify before buying into Office365.

Re: "(some by a virtual hammer across the back of the head)"

Why "virtual", pray tell ?

You DO want the lesson to STICK, don't you ?

Quantum: You know how EVERYONE's moved to the cloud? Yep... us too.

Re: the Mainframe computers of the olden days

The Mainframe computers of the olden days were models of reliability. Connections to them were via proprietary cables. To program for them required a gaggle of highly-paid PhDs in engineering and mathematics, and projects took years to painstakingly realize. Code was written instruction by punch-code instruction. When projects were finished, users took what they were given and didn't complain, because it was all brand-new and nobody had any reference point.

The Cloud has nothing to do with a mainframe in any aspect, except that data is remotely accessed, which places it at the mercy of ISP reliability on top of Cloud Provider reliability.

OFFICIAL: Humans will only tolerate robots as helpful SLAVES

"a human who takes on an android as his partner "

You need to check out Real Humans (http://en.wikipedia.ord/wiki/Real_Humans), a Swedish TV series about how sentient robots are trying to make themselves a place among humans.

Not a bad series at all. It also takes a good look at how robots can deal with concepts such as morality and empathy.

P.S. : where'd the bloody link function go to ?

Star Wars missile intercept fails for fifth year running

"The reliability of our missile defense system is being brought into question"

The reliability of your missile defense system has never been properly evaluated in the first place, and is obviously made of complete porkies at the moment.

Which is not a problem, really, since nobody is going to lob any missiles at you in the forseeable future.

'Banner year' for patent lawsuits: Number of cases, awards both up

You're a lawyer, or studying to be a lawyer, aren't you ?

Chinese mobe fandroids: Got a virus? Better blame the government

Re: "People really think someone is [..] cracking it and there's not an ulterior motive"

My guess is that people don't think at all. They just see "FREE" as opposed to "PAY" and go for the bad choice.

Next the same ones will be complaining that Android is crap.

The irresistible rise of the corporate app

Have to say I smell a rat here

All that nonsense about employees wanting corporate access on their personal phones/laptops is, in my opinion, bollocks. I don't know ANYONE who wants to recieve application alerts on their phone during off hours or, worse, weekends.

Furthermore, I fail to see just how it is sooo important to have one's work mail on one's personal phone when employees are generally sitting in front of a PC with all required access during the day.

Also, I really don't see how management is going to trust the people on the bottom rungs of the latter with corporate-sensitive data on their personal equipment when they barely have access to it on their PCs.

Now, of course, if we are not talking about the 99% of drones but of the few high-flyers who are intent on building their careers and impressing the management, in other words, those with high-level diplomas and overbearing personalities who simply cannot live an instant without total and complete access to eveything they need to impress the upper echelon, then yes, I totally can see BYOD being an indispensable part of the landscape. For the chosen few.

Which still means that it's just another status symbol.

For the rest of us, we couldn't care less that our work PC is lagging like a dead horse. On the contrary, it gives us the perfect excuse when things start piling up and we're asked "why is this not finished yet ?".

Personally, I would be quite miffed if my work PC were more powerful than my personal PC. I'm quite happy that it is not.

Finally, that reference to the cloud - "it is far better not to have the data on the device in the first place, nor on someone else’s servers, let alone something as nebulous as the cloud" - well sorry but that just about clinches it. The cloud is just as much a fad right now than BYOD is. Everybody has a cloud, every cloud wants you to climb on board, the cloud is computing paradise (that is what we hear).

Dissing the cloud while touting BYOD is the mark of pure marketing drivel.