Posts by Pascal Monett

Seagate sees big drive capacity jump coming

"but who else is going to use it"

Uh, gamers ?

Let me check the folder size for some of my favorite games :

Battlefield 2 takes 9.9GB

Crysis Warhead takes 3.7GB

Freelancer takes 4.1GB

Hellgate London takes 6.8GB

Lord of the Rings Online takes 12.9GB

Starcraft II takes 8.7GB

Company of Heroes takes 3.9GB

and my Steam folder, with dozens of games, takes up 95.5GB.

Sure, this only takes 145GB in all. You might think that a 250GB disk should be amply enough. Yes it would - for now. But neither you nor I know what games I will add to my collection in the future, and I'll be darned if I want to start worrying about disc space again like I had to ten years ago (when game size on disk was counted in MB, not GB).

I bought a 1.5TB disk for the express purpose of installing my games on it. Yes, I have more than 1.2TB available on it, but that means I have space to install a lot more games. More importantly, it means that defragging is not an issue, and the disk can manage its sectors without problem either. Plus, I have peace of mind and room to grow.

Finally, the disk only cost me 89€. Hey, that's the price I paid for 320GB back in 2007 !

'Methanotroph' bacteria feasted on blown BP rig's methane belch

Your comment seemed interesting

Right up to the point where you reference the Christian Science Monitor.

That's when you lost all credibility and became ridiculous and hypocritical because of your rant against someone else's "slant".

The next time you want to play the high road game, try and reference a REAL scientific publication. You'll look better and your argument will be taken seriously.

Facebook riddled by 'my first ever status message' scam app

Beautiful

So you can now get in one file all the inane and useless blabber you posted on Facebook by uploading it from your PC ?

And you call that "genuinely useful" ?

Interesting.

For sale: 50,000 compromised iTunes accounts

"no action taken so far against the iTunes pillagers"

Of course, it is much easier to take down a lone Bittorrent user and claim "victory" against "piracy" then to actually go after a real pirate using criminal methods to make money. With real pirates there's all this "foreign country" stuff and nonsense about "different laws" and you learn, shocked, that the entire world is not actually subject to a U.S. court of justice.

Bummer.

So you go back to sending threatening letters to P2P users and hope to cash in a little something while real pirates turn your "security" into a joke and laugh all the way to the bank. But that's not important to you because the real pirates only swindle . . . your customers.

Google pinpoints bugs that send texts to wrong people

Charles, you missed the point

Displaying a "Please Wait" dialogue was not proposed as a workaround, but as a feature that should have been included from the start and would have avoided people clicking around before the thing was bloody ready in the first place.

Google sneak peeks Android for fondleslabs

too young to remember ?

No, no, you meant to say "too young to know".

That little tidbit about Xerox is going straight to the "Obscure Origins Of Computer Things" history section.

Micron revs flashy SSD line

Missing one thing

What I would like in my PC is an SSD for the Windows partition, a RAM disk for the swap file and my HDDs for data storage.

I am missing the RAM disk. I would like a PCI card with two double-channel slots, enabling up to 16GB of DDR3 to be used as a virtual disk unit. Aw heck, even DDR1 would be fast enough.

Come on, people, it's not like it hasn't been done before. I still have an old i286-compatible card that held up to 8 1MB EDO sticks back in prehistoric 1993. And Gigabyte did one in 2009 but withdrew it not long after.

Scientologist overlord declares victory over Anonymous

"trio of dastardly villains [...] akin to cartoon characters"

So that means you can relate to them really well then, Miscavige ?

Don't worry, I'm sure they haven't forgotten you - it's just that you've been so quite lately they found another mole to whack.

They'll be coming back now and you'll be able to play again. I promise.

Boffins crack walnut-shaped Iapetus moon mystery

Extremely unlikely indeed

1. Nowhere in the article is it said that the moonlet was "perfectly aligned" with anything. It is, apparently, the equatorial ridge that is perfectly aligned. The moonlet didn't just appear above the moon in the perfect spot, it had an orbit that decayed and it "gradually descended towards the surface" before breaking up.

The article specifically indicates that the lowest-energy orbit is equatorial and gives the example of the rings of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. With so many examples and with the knowledge that energy naturally tends towards entropy, it is not surprising that the debris ended up over the equator since it would seem that that is the natural place for it to be.

2. Since you are such a prominent figure in exogeology, would you care to reference the articles that you have written on the subject and that have been accepted in such publications as Nature ?

You have none ?

Then just how are you qualified to doubt what "looks like" an impact ?

Especially since the article, which you seem to have skimmed over rather than read, explains clearly that "Particles would impact one by one, over and over again on the equatorial line. At first the debris would have made holes to form a groove that eventually filled up."

Thank goodness that there are actual scientists working on the subject, people who do not have preconceived notions about things and actually think all the way about a problem before offering a conclusion.

Walmart falls in with Washington's war on terror

What's next ?

Summary executions, obviously.

DHS videos in stores ?

Why wait ? Put a large screen on a blimp, include 1000W speakers and broadcast continuously over all major US cities.

Include army checkpoints at all entry points of all major cities (already covered by the blimps) in order to ensure proper population control (hello citizen, have you found a terrorist today ?), as well as hourly radio broadcasts and you end up with a country that would make a certain WWII dictator positively green with envy.

Firefox: freedom's just another word for 'kerching!'

ISP bandwidth

Sorry, but you're not making much sense either. Everyone who accesses the Internet is paying an ISP - therefor ISPs are the Internet.

And since everyone is paying them, everyone pays the Internet.

The only real problem is that ISPs are trying to equate the amount of data traveling through their pipes to a charge that needs to be paid for, which is patently ridiculous. You can make electricity go through a copper wire for decades, it won't be any worse for the wear afterwards.

Intel reveals 'the billion dollar lost laptop problem'

There is only one kind of security that works

That is : educating the user.

No amount of hardware thingamajigs or encypto-magic voodoo is going to beat a user who just couldn't be bothered - and if there is one thing that the Internet has proven beyond all discussion, it's that there's always a better idiot.

And if the security is transparent to the user, than that means it is tied into the physical object and thus available for decryption to the criminal mastermind.

No, I'm sorry, but you will not be able to ensure 100% security with a dongle, encryption or any other technobabble excuse. To pretend otherwise is just a bald-faced lie.

Rumbustious Rambus rampaging rebarbatively, again

"china will gladly help"

No it won't. Even the Chinese know that you don't go pissing off your highest debtor - he might default on his payments.

Xbox modder prosecution dropped like white-hot potato

Fair and balanced ?

Well whaddya know ! On the one hand, the judge knocks down the fair use argument for the defense, and on the other blasts the prosecution for manhandling the accusation process.

Sounds like this judge is actually on the ball on this case !

What is the point of End Point Protection?

"the problem is Windows PCs"

Only because, as of now, most users are on Windows.

Once you get a good share of users on Mac OS, Linux whatever or something else, the laws of statistics will ensure that you'll get your share of morons there too.

At that point, you'll see them do all the crazy, moronic things they possibly can, and you might even find out that non-admin accounts can wreak a lot more havoc than you ever thought possible.

Windows security (ahem) has been tested, and found lacking. That is a fact. That fact does not mean that the alternatives are any better. They have not been tested yet.

The problem is not PCs. The problem is users.

And that problem is not going away because of a platform.

Monarchist marks fall for faux royal wedding ticket site

Wait a minute there

So the Sun reports on this scam and not only does it totally fail to check its legitimacy but it one-ups the scam site by adding a fake golden ticket ?

Well if I ever read the Sun I'd be swearing that I wouldn't any more.

Buffy to slay her way back into cinemas

"a completely new reboot"

If a reboot is supposed to renew the series, what exactly is a "completely new" reboot ?

Is it possible to make a totally old reboot ?

For that matter, is it possible for Hollywood execs to stop taking us for morons ?

I guess not.

Bish says sorry for right royal Facebook rant

Unlike France

In France there is only one region (Alsace) and one department (Moselle) that subsidize churches and their pastors. This are is called Alsace-Moselle, and it is a well-known exception to many rules that govern the rest of the territory.

Of course, it also happens to be the land closest to Germany and most often overrun and occupied by German forces.

There might be a link there, who knows ?

DARPA: Hypersonic strato-ship crackup was no biggie

Beautifully succint !

Now THAT's what I call an "executive summary". Well done.

"one might postulate a gigantic accreted body of nuts"

Full marks for the wonderful description of nuttiness. I dare say, I sincerely doubt anyone could capture the sub-aetheric aroma of DARPA madness better than Mr. Page.

Just for the pleasure, I reproduce the best part here :

"DARPA is more than just proverbially nutty - mere fruitcakes or even the maximum possible amount of nut containable in a three-dimensional space using powerful squashing machinery do not do justice to the federal warboffinry outfit.

Perhaps one might postulate a gigantic accreted body of nuts many times more massive than our entire solar system floating in space, which would naturally collapse under its own gravity in a cataclysmic snack-based supernova and leave behind a ultradense neutron star made up of collapsed matter originating entirely from nuts. That's how nutty DARPA is."

I hereby propose that DARPA be christened "an ultradense nutty star".

Brits say 'no, no, no' to 3D TV

Princess Laya ?!?

You, sir, are hereby banned from all Star Wars references until you go back and at last learn how to spell her name properly.

Ah, sanity prevails at least !

I wish.

It would be nice to think that people would reject 3D TV based on technological criteria (the need for glasses, the infinitesimal amount of 3D programming available).

Unfortunately, once again a tech is accepted/rejected purely on financial considerations.

That said, I always found highly laughable that they launch 3D TV now, when HD TV has just begun to make real traction on the market and Blu-Ray is only just starting to actually sell.

Zuckerberg admits fallibility over Gmail block

We want control

Oh, so now Zucky is suddenly all about respecting his users' wishes, is he ?

I call bollocks on that statement. It is pure PR pandering and nothing more.

If Zucky really respected his users's wishes, he wouldn't be resetting their privacy settings to the least favorable option every time he rolled out an "update".

You see, Mr. Bitch, it's all about credibility.

And you've got none.

Wikileaks urges Time death-list spot for Assange

Person of the Year ?

Certainly not.

Asshole of the year, maybe, but person ? No way.

Facebook unveils 'next-gen' messaging system

Anyone with sense . . .

Sorry, but we're talking Facebook here. Sense stays far away from that place.

Great idea...

...for yet another wave of security and privacy failures.

I'm gonna grab me some popcorn and watch the fallout. Bound to be fun !

Global warming is actually good for rainforests, say boffins

I wonder how well that will go down with the treehuggers

So now GW is actually going to be good for the rainforests ? Well that sounds logical, given that it is a well-known fact that the dinosaurs lived in a much warmer period than today. And what did the vegetarian dinosaurs eat ? Tons of plants. Every day. Which obviously meant that there had to be tons and tons of the stuff lying around to support all that munching.

So yeah, rainforests will logically do fine.

But how will the eco-preachers spin this one ? Oh, I know, they'll say the report is not from a reliable source, or the data is wrong, or any other of a dozen ad-hominem attacks.

Still, the ripples continue to grow around the GW conflict without any end in sight.

Seagate and Western Digital sued by patent ambulance-chaser

unceremoniously chucked out ?

Certainly not. Said patent should be simply revoked, and the complainants flogged publicly for having waited years and millions of products sold before waking up to the fact that they had a patent.

This is such an obvious case of trolling that I think a charge of contempt of court should be envisioned.

Terracotta dumps Big Java's garbage problem

Hundreds of GBs of memory

Notice that it is not said RAM, but memory.

I suspect that the article concerns disk space at that point.

Especially since that is the only way that "in-process, off-heap memory" makes any sense.

So there is a general confusion in the article between RAM memory and HDD memory.

No wonder people have trouble understanding how computers work.

Glacier boffins rubbish IPCC apocalypse claims

Pointless ? Hardly.

It was ironic and bordering on witty.

You, on the other hand, seem to have seriously mislaid your sense of humor.

Re:"murdering or at least sterilising half the population of the planet"

Now that's a plan we have the means to accomplish on record time !

When do we start ?

Not by a long shot

Science is certainly not settled.

If climatology was a done deal, the weather report would be 100% accurate.

As it is, the only times it is accurate is when there is not a cloud in sight over half the hemisphere. At that time, and at that time only, the weatherman can confidently predict sunshine for the next day.

The rest of the time, it's a coin toss as to whether there really will be clouds or rain. Half the time, the prediction is wrong.

And I'm only talking about tomorrow's weather.

Did you ?

As far as I can see, it's about the rate of glacier melt, not the disappearance of glaciers.

"the bigger picture"

The bigger picture seems to be that a lot of people like you, without any scientific notions whatsoever, are relentlessly pushing forth their idea of what the world should be like.

The issue I have with that is that you take whatever seems to agree with your "opinion" and refuse to consider anything that goes contrary to it.

I prefer getting the official scientific body mobilized on the subject and wait for their conclusions before running panic-stricken in any given direction.

After all, I am aware that I know nothing about climate change, so I'm not about to trust the first opinionated idiot who tries to impose his views on me.

I am perfectly willing to agree that climate change is a fact - thermodynamics is, after all, the most complex branch of science that exists. It's just that I'm not ready to be convinced of the direction in which the climate is changing, especially when faced with a group of hysterical groupies ready to corrupt or hide data before presenting a "conclusion" based on their massaged numbers.

Hacker unshackles Kinect from Xbox

So it's "restricted" is it ?

Come now, everybody knows that the XBox is made of PC components. Yes, there are certainly one or two bits that a PC does not have, but Microsoft does not know anything else than Windows, so anything Microsoft makes is forcibly tied to its OS.

And its OS is made for PCs.

Agreed, to hack the Kinect hardware the guys had to delve into some DCMA-protected code, but where is the offense ? You can only hack a Kinect when you've bought it, so Microsoft is not losing money there, and the software is useless without the hardware, so again, no financial loss.

The fact that the hackers are not even based in the USA is irrelevant - their actions cause no harm to company so there is no grounds for legal action, period.

Ironically, their actions may even be beneficial to the company. I've been discussing this development with a few PC-owning friends I have and we've ended up agreeing that it might be worth trying out the Kinect with a few games, if it can be done. Racing games were the essential interest, apparently, but there is no reason the Kinect cannot become a simple controller for any number of game types.

So maybe, just maybe, this group has opened the doors to Kinect gaming on the PC - which would boost its sales considerably.

That would be the ultimate irony.

I can see the court scene now :

"Honorable Judge Matthews will now render his verdict. All rise."

"In view of the irreparable harm the hacker group has caused to Microsoft, I declare that it is fined 20% of the losses Microsoft incurred due to their nefarious activity."

"Your Honor, Microsoft increased its sales by $250 million in direct relation to their hack."

"So Microsoft owes the group $50 million."

And down comes the gavel.

Ellison grilled on $4bn SAP 'theft' claim

Aarrggh ! P.E.T.H. Alert !

As President For Life and sole member of the People for Ethical Treatment of the Hyphen, I must raise my voice over the crude violation that you have so carelessly committed.

Indeed, it is not "cross examined", but "cross-examined". The hyphen is not optional in this case.

You are not yet a repeat offender, so this note will be the only sanction. If, however, you continue to grossly ignore the value of the hyphen, I must warn you that you might, one morning, wake up with the remains of a beheaded hyphen lying on your pillow.

RockMelt browser slithers onto interwebs

Thanks for the heads-up

RockMelt now firmly written in my application black list, just under Facebook and next to MySpace.

iPhone glitch gets US fanbois up on wrong side of bed

"unless everyone's talking about the same game"

Sorry, but even then there are some who prefer one mode or ability over an other.

And let's not get into character races or professions, shall we ?

Hadron Collider switches to heavy ions, tinfoilers wet pants again

my farewell article

I think that is a brilliant demonstration of the man's attention span.

With such a mind, it is not wonder that True Science inspires irrational fear in him.

He must be the reincarnation of a Spanish Inquisitor - minus the power.

Sinister scams 'sextort' social networkers

It's not that they don't mind

It's just that they never gave any thought to the consequences of a breach.

To security-minded people, like many that post here, it's an obvious issue. One which easily explains the amount of scorn and scrutiny that Facebook regularly gets on this site and on others.

But people who have not understood the implications of computer security simply cannot imagine the negative consequences for themselves until they've had their face shoved into it.

Don't blame them. Educate them.

Ballmer, Bartz, Schmidt collide in London

Nope

You're not.

That was the first thing I thought as well.

Did a double-take on that actually.

Bare breast ballot finds scant support in small US town

Confusion

I see that the concept of equality is still confused with the concept of identicality.

Women are equal to men, obviously. That does not mean that they are the same as men.

It's simple, but seems to be still out of reach of the more intelligence-challenged part of the population.

And yes, that does mean that the only public place where women should be able to go topless is the beach. Hooters, strip bars and such do not count because the women that go topless in those places are paid to do so.

EPOXI set to give comet some stick

"capture intimate data"

Are we going to see the emergence of the Celestial NSFW tag ?

Apple coughs to time zone problems

Time zone problems ?

Dear God, is it possible that, in the 3rd millennium, such issues can still exist ?

What caveman-programmed application can still have timezone issues ? I mean, it's not like timezones is a problem that has not yet been extensively studied, is it ? isn't there a wealth of programming data and even technical reports on such an issue ?

Or is it because it concerns Apple, where all programs are done in Reality-Distortion Land under the same timezone, so they only find out about the issue when 3/4s of the Rest Of The World have already found out the hard way ?

Really, I can admit that programming is a bit of a Dark Art, but not getting timezone issues right puts you right there with the summer interns.

Think Different ? More like Set Your Watches Accordingly.

US census takers fight angry Americans for their data

I love it

The wiretappings, the locking up without proper trial, those are not subjects that should lead to a public outcry.

No, let's use The Census to let the government know that we do not agree to "the encroachment of civil liberties".

Hilarious.

That's a bit like blaming the parking ticket for the cost of Income Tax.

How much is Facebook worth?

"spend your virtual life in"

Sorry, but you don't have a "virtual life". There is the time you spend on a computer screen, and then there's the rest of your life.

Whether you spend your life having a good time in real, face-to-face friendship reunions, or online counting those that have bookmarked your virtual identity as "friends", is your business.

Facebook developers exiled for selling user IDs to brokers

Ban them ?

Nah, their only sin is that they got caught. Zuckerberg isn't going to ban them for that. He's going to give them time to refine the procedure so, the next time they try, they will hopefully go under the radar.

Then he will set up a mechanism to cash in on the ID selling.

Fans roast Microsoft for Silverlight demotion

MS never joins the standard

It is just adapting a new methodology in its "embrace, adapt, extend" policy.

MS has simply acknowledged that Silverlight is not successful against Flash, and will be investing (infesting ?) HTML5 to do so more efficiently.

I'd wait to see just how many "new functions" Microsoft implements in its version of HTML5 before I decide whether or not it has actually "joined" the standard or totally tried to subvert it.

RIAA and Anonymous sites both downed by DDoS assaults

Doesn't need to

He is one of the editors.