Posts by Pascal Monett

MS kills, un-kills Zune HD media player

So, the summer intern is still in charge of the Twitter department ?

That's really nice of you, Microsoft, but don't you think it's time to offer a permanent contract ?

Tuesday's iPhone event more than Apple.com can bear

You haven't watched the news in a long time, have you ?

Hackers disguise malware as emailed docs from smart printers

It uses Javascript ?

Thank you NoScript.

Again.

Microsoft mulls OEM distie shake-up

What a surprise

Guy on the top of the heap urges Master to get rid of lower-rung competitors.

Well he would say that, wouldn't he ? Especially if he expects to be among the ones that remain in the Master's good graces.

I'd like his company to be evicted from the MS Distie list just to see what he would go about stuttering to explain himself.

Facebook: 'We don't track logged-out users'

That sounds just like the dentist when he says "this won't hurt a bit" before shoving a shrieking piece of spinning metal in your molars.

Bot spanking for social network ranking

Interesting

There is now a tool to measure the best among the vapid and uninteresting.

I am thrilled to be able to ignore that as well.

Thank you for the information.

EMC exec flames El Reg

Agreed, frank 3

El Reg is doing its job : biting the hand and posting rebuttals on the front page is, as far as I can determine, good journalism.

So keep it up, vultures !

Skype for iPhone makes stealing address books a snap

Excuse me while I re-read the first line of the article

You know, the one where it says "If you use Skype on an iPhone or iPod touch".

In other words, Apple-only products using Apple-only software and apps that are Apple-software compatible.

Now, please explain how anyone could possibly crowbar Microsoft into that argument, except for a troll.

Oh, right.

Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray player with IPTV

Oh great

Sony has succeeded in creating a whole class of people who actually think that waiting a whole bloody minute after slotting in a disk before being able to actually see a menu is normal and acceptable.

Well, I guess congratulations are in order, then. The brainwashing is proceeding as planned, obviously.

Sixty-seven WIMPs spotted in the wild, maybe

Don't you just love how any discussion about the fundamentals of the Universe are immediately trolled by pseudo non-beleivers and turned into yet another Science vs God debate ?

You neither ?

Oh, good.

Scientists discover Tatooine-style world 200 lightyears off

Re:"We don't even know how life starts"

Um, sorry to disagree, but I recall reading an article in a science mag about how some boffins simulated the theoretical conditions of early Earth, what with atmosphere, pressure and heat, and came away with proof that amino acids resulted from the steam bath.

Knowing that amino acids are the building blocks of life, it is easy to conclude that the conditions for creating life are not so difficult to achieve.

On the other hand, the conditions for survival are much harder, with any number of elements able to radically or catastrophically change the environment to the extent where the fledgling hold that life had crumbles away - until a new batch has a chance to start.

Even then, it is apparently required to be in a relatively stable galatic environment - in a star nursury life has little to no hope of gaining a long-term hold, what with all the thermonuclear ignitions and subsequent violent space winds and cosmic rays that are an everyday condition in those areas.

So, even if we don't have proof, we do have a pretty good idea of how life can start and maintain itself, along with a rather good understanding of how easy the process is. What we don't know, of course, is how often it has actually happened, in what timescale and just how far along it has gone in each case.

Now, think of this : with what we know about the availability of the building blocks of life, combined with what we are learning about the frequency of planetary systems in the star systems around us, well I think it is quite possible that life is positively teeming in every galaxy in the Universe. Of course, most of that life is probably some form of microbial slime, but still, it's a beginning.

And by the time our governments get their act together to finally get humans into space, added to the time it will most probably take us to get there, well let's just say that the slime will have had ample time to evolve into an entirely new something that will really surprise us (right before biting our heads off) !

PayPal to move into the shop - without cards or NFC

Yes, PayPal is that bad

And yes, you have been lucky, which is a good thing for you. But do not forget that the essential difference between PayPal and a real bank is that a bank has the legal obligation to ensure your access to your money.

Thus, a bank cannot freeze your account without a court order.

PayPal, on the other hand, freezes accounts willy-nilly, and from all that I've read it never seems to be the accounts of the crooks, only the accounts of honest people who got had and complained.

If you choose to continue trusting PayPal with your money that is your right and PayPal's privilege, but do not go around talking about PayPal haters and making light of their troubles. The hostility towards PayPal is justified.

And I hope, for your sake, that you won't have to find out the hard way.

Hey Commentards! [This title is optional]

NO to reader-generated threads !!

Definitely and permanently not. If there is reader with something interesting to tell the world, he's already got a blog anyway. And, if he actually has a brain and knows how to write, he's probably got his own site.

If I want to plunge into the madness that is the Word of the Public, I've already got plenty of incoherence and terrible writing in the comments, thank you. When I come to read at El Reg, I expect editorial overview and professional writing. For the inane and utterly idiotic, I have Slashdot.

Let's keep it that way, shall we ?

HP PC boss: I'm so loving being spun off

Door is open, horse has bolted

Why is it that these highly-paid suits imagine that their words can change the face of reality ? Do they really believe that their obscene salary impresses anyone but their mistresses ?

HP is spinning off its PC division, period. As soon as you've said that, you've introduced uncertainty and a space for competitors to wriggle in to. Denying that by spewing words is not only useless but entirely moronic. It would have been better to say something to the effect of "HP is creating and independantly-managed division for its PC branch, which HP is committed to supporting for the next 10 years".

That would have allowed the spin-off and reassured existing customers, thus shutting off a great amount of the margin they created for their competition.

But what do I know ? I've never been to those fancy management schools.

JP Morgan has a Playmobil moment

So JP Morgan employs 9-year olds as consultants ?

Well, that explains a lot. Is that a trend in the business ? Does Gartner employ 8-year olds ?

I think we should be told.

Google's anonymity ban defied by Thomas Jefferson

Not to worry

There are places on the Internet where important things are being said and Twitter is not one of them.

History _will_ remember the important things, it will be remembered on the Internet, and Twitter (or its spiritual descendant) will not be the place where people will talk about it.

Russian rocket flub threatens to empty ISS

Re:Maybe FEMA has a plan

If those poor astronauts have to rely on FEMA to get them down safely, they might as well just open the airlock and be done with it.

LinkedIn U-turns to appease peeved users

"some of those same members may not be comfortable"

Using people's image for selling products without first obtaining their written consent is not well accepted ? Well duh.

One question : if I start selling a product and say that LinkedIn endorses it, how long will I have to wait for the lawsuit ?

Even if I put a message on my blog beforehand ?

Frankly it totally floors me every time I read things like this where so-called intelligent people can't seem to remember the basic tenants of the social and moral code, not to mention commercial and legal rights.

Then I remember that it's the Internet, where 90% of the users have left their higher brain functions in limbo.

So obviously this was a Zuckerberg-like attempt to "see how far they could go".

It's reassuring to know that LinkedIn has less sheeple than Facebook - or at least a higher percentage of users that DO use their brains.

That said, I got suckered into LinkedIn by one of my former bosses (it was company policy). I now have my finger hovering over the <delete account> button. One more screw up like this and I'm out.

AMD slips into desktop RAM biz

I do believe

that you hit the proverbial nail on the head, exposing what is probably the true goal of this announcement.

So have a beer !

Kinect space saver on its way

No, no

It's Microsoft, not Apple.

Zuck's sister leaves Facebook to start new venture

"incredible outpouring of support and enthusiasm"

Not from her brother, I'll bet !

World needs needs Tequila power: report

Indeed

The purpose of biofuels was never to actually do something ecologically resonable, but to pander to a specific lobby group.

Thus I predict that agave biofuels will never take off unless the lobby groups decide that it is in their best interest.

And that's a shame because I can make a mean margharita when I have the right ingredients !

Gun-toting meth addict gets 12 years for ID theft

It's China, I tell you !

They're sending their infiltrators deep into enemy territory to strike from within !

Bulgarian coeds exposed in hidden camera stuffed apartment

You have heard of Hooters, right ?

A Hooters babe, by any other name, is still a Hooters babe.

Microsoft boffins propose cloudy home furnaces

Shhhh !

Don't you get it ? This is MS management's new cost reduction plan : ship servers to customers and lose the electricity costs. It'll look good on the balance sheet, somebody will get a bonus and everyone is happy.

Except the tech who has to go check on the servers after hours because nobody is there during the day. And the manager whose project is unavailable because the server is down and nobody is there to reboot it.

Avisen reports losses 3 times higher than sales

What is the operational result ?

I read that they have lost more than thrice their revenue, but it is due to an investment which is supposed to bring back many times the amount invested.

In other words, this is an accounting issue, not an operations issue.

Post Office banking collapses in computer fail

"a computer problem which affected some transactions in its branches"

"Some" including, of course, any transaction a customer might want to accomplish.

Don't you just love PR-speech ?

Fingerprint scans learn to spot chopped-off fingers

A more gruesome alternative

Garrot the finger before cutting it off.

Mobee Magic Charger

My G7s are still working flawlessly

Got them in 2005 and loved them immediately. Best mice I have ever had, and most practical as well.

And since they've been working since 2005, they have to be the most robust wireless rodents I have ever had.

Microsoft hit with lawsuit in Kinect tech spat

Impulse Technologies, huh ?

Sure, I remember ! I bought one of their controllers . . . uh, nope, never saw one. Never even knew they existed. And, of all the companies of that name, the only one based in Ohio is a . . . management consultant company.

Well I think they're about to learn how to manage the biggest lawsuit they will ever see. Little Tom Thumb going after the 800lb gorilla. It won't even be funny, it'll be too short.

I'm just as ready as anyone to laugh at Microsoft, and God knows MS deserves a good turn at their own shenanigans, but this is pathetic. MS is going to bury these jokers under so much paperwork that they suffocate and ask for the beheading themselves.

Really, before going after the biggest, most experienced target in the field, it pays to train oneself. I doubt very much that Impulse has enough practice. I think MS is going to crush them like the bug they are.

On another matter, I'm quite glad to see that there are multiple posts about patents that are exactly what I think : patents that do not create product are not worth consideration. One should only be able to go to court about patent infringement if one has a product on the market. If not, it should be considered contempt of court and the fine should be a million bucks and/or a year in jail breaking rocks.

Mega-colossal space raincloud found at moist black hole

I would say

Googlympic

And that has nothing to do with the search engine !

Jobs: Apple succession plans are 'hogwash'

"I think it is hogwash"

He thinks. So he isn't sure.

Funny that. I thought he was on the board.

This must be some new form of plausible denial.

Tosh admits customer accounts pillaged

Re:How many sites send you a password reminder of your *real* password by email?

Not many, not any more. Most of the sites I have a login on send you a link that allows you to reset your password within a certain time limit. You click the link and must set a new password.

As long as the miscreants don't change your email address, that seems fine to me.

Is Anon ready for the social network?

It will fail

And it will do so on several levels.

First, the Anonymous members who put themselves in charge of this project will be unmasked, either through some detective work on the part of a news group, another hacker group, or some guy they managed to tick off because of something they said or did or didn't say or didn't do (hey, nutjobs are legion).

Second, it will fail because there is no way that a social site, with the avowed intent of taking on Google and Facebook, can be created by one person, thus there has to be a group taking on the task. And, as every working person knows, the more people you put on a project, the more the chance of a jerk being part of said group. Said jerk will inevitably throw a spanner in the proceedings by outing the group, publishing names or something of equal jerkitude.

Third, and last, the sheer magnitude of this project is going to wear them down and break them. Behind their grandstanding and posturing, what we have is a group of people who come together to revel in a bit of chaos by doing what they think they do best : hacking other people's servers. This kind of activity, which they consider fun, is something they can do when they're ready and willing, and holds the thrill of success to drive them on. Building and managing a social site is light-years on the opposite of such 007-ness. It is a job, a mountain of work, with all the dreary day-to-day Mondays that that implies. They will have to be on their toes from day one, every day, without fail, else there will be issues. On top of that, they will have to learn to deal with unhappy people, something that posting a file accompanied by gloating text does not really prepare for.

All that said, I wish them luck with their reintegration project. And I wait for the day that their site gets hacked by the inevitable upcoming hacker group out to prove a point. I'll be interested in seeing the reaction of ancient hackers gone corporate.

Captain America: Super Soldier

So it's based on the Batman engine then ?

But dumbed down, rendered imprecise and buggy, badly animated and without anything actually interesting enough to keep it worth playing.

So basically, I should buy Batman : Arkham Asylum if I want to have fun ? Thanks for the tip.

US forced to redesign secret weapon after cyber breach

I totally agree

I always thought Defense stuff was so secret that you could not even talk about it outside the special room you were supposed to work on it.

I've been called in as a consultant for banks that have more security than these jokers (no laptop, couldn't touch keyboard and could only look at screen when operator authorized me to do so).

Defragger salesman frags HP

Sorry to disagree, but

Windows XP on NTFS still needed defragmenting. Badly.

I'm experimenting Win7 now, and I think it may be less important, but I still defrag my disks every month under the principle of precaution.

Microsoft COO: Our greatest enemy is old Windows

Beg your pardon ? A standing ovation for IE6 ?

Well, yeah, I guess. After all, IE6 single-handedly broke web standards so badly that 90% of web developer time was spent finding workarounds to make sales sites work properly.

That must be Microsoft's yardstick for success.

Now, can we please dispense with the age considerations ? Software is not a car that can rust and run down. Software will run for as long as the hardware works. Make hardware that runs for 100 years and the software will keep chugging away. Or, in Microsoft's case, bugging away.

The only reason IE6 "worked" for a decade is because Microsoft shat it out and was too lazy to do anything about updating it. Now, with all the alternates around and Internet suddenly appearing on Microsoft's radar, we get IE7, 8 and 9 in the space of 5 years, plus 10 coming up soon, which shows clear signs of panic in the Internet Exploder division at Redmond. That is NOT worth an ovation of any kind.

Apple patent: 'Pour' your data from iPhone to iPad

Pouring, flicking, blowing

Thanks a bunch for improving on the spastic, ADD-enhancing experience.

I can't wait to see all that gesturing in a crowded bus or metro. I am impatient to view just how many times a file will be transferred by a youngster who cannot understand that the transfer time is superior to the flick time.

Thank goodness that all this nonsense will never actually translate into a user interface requirement. Data transfers are to be initiated in a controlled manner, via keyboard for proper targetting, authorization and exchange, not by randomly jerking a thingy around.

Somebody keep the kids out of the workplace, please ?

OCZ fails to kill off Blue Screen Of Death issue

No problem here

I ordered my first 120GB OCZ Vertex 2 at the end of last April - it never worked. OCZ replaced it immediately and the replacement has been working flawlessly since.

Based on that experience, I just bought another one. The performance boost in Windows is nothing short of impressive - but that is, of course, SSD, not OCZ.

Nonetheless, I count myself as a happy OCZ customer - for the moment.

Kazaa founder Bermeister returns, with key cloud patents

"if only I could remember where that came from"

If only there was some sort of engine on the Internet that could allow searching for things . . .

Google and Microsoft sued over interwebs street maps

"A tiny Louisiana-based company"

Once again, the fundamental question arises : what is this tiny company making ?

The only products I know that allow me to view a map and plan an itinerary on my computer are Mappy, TomTom Home and, now that I have read this article, Bing.

Nevery heard of anyone else doing it, so I'll wager that this tiny company is nothing but a patent-holder waiting for just this kind of opportunity.

Could we please rewrite patent law to just include the phrase : "if you don't make anything with your patent, you cannot accuse others of infringing" ?

Pretty please ?

Before I snap and start bombing the companies that do this ?

Sony says no to YouView

Well duh

Sony is against anything out of its control that it cannot monetize in a proprietary way.

Stuff 'em !

Microsoft strategy chief quits Redmond

Not quite

When one leaves a legacy, it means that what the people left do is due to one's actions and influence.

Given Microsoft's legal history, Virgil leaves no legacy at all, because if his point of view was to work together without suing people, then it's one long failure.

It's a wonder he stayed there so long.

Facebook, Google, and the war to lock you in

Tell me

Do you really believe that those "options" you mention actually work ?

Facebook game outfit Zynga files for $1bn IPO

The wonders of mathematics

2 billion minutes a day boils down to 23 148 minutes per second.

Minutes per second ? Can we make a new yardstick out of that ?

Facebook promises 'awesome' launch next week

"I deleted my FB account and never regretted it"

And you honestly think that your account data has been deleted ?

LightSquared admits it will knock out 200,000 sat-navs

More and more billions

They get quite bandied about, those poor billions, don't they ? The GPS accuses LightSquared to cost the country almost $100 billion (why stop at $96, by the way ?), LightSquared says they'll generate $120 billion so it's fine.

Well no, it is not fine. If you kill 9 people to save 12, I doubt very much that the relatives of the 9 dead will appreciate.

In other news, piracy costs upwards of $1200 billion per year (following my latest guesstimate which is just as reliable as anything Gartner can say on the subject).

Man, thank God we have an economy so robust that it can just go on working despite all those billions going down the drain !

Office 365: Can Microsoft replace Microsoft?

I used to use MS Office 2000

But when I switched to Win7, it became a hassle to install properly. Every time I wanted to open a .doc, it would complain about something not being installed. The first twenty times I slotted in the CD, as per request, and got a complement of installation - at least that is what was said.

After that, I just cancelled the installation popup and worked as usual. When I got fed up with the bloomin' popup, I installed LibreOffice and it does everything I need it to do - intuitively.

And the rest of my family has no issues with LibreOffice either.

So MS Office is now permanently retired from my home PCs. And I don't see any reason to go back to it.

Yeah, but

The point is, you only pay once. That is very much the preferred regime for any private individual, and for many small companies as well.

Paying every month for the privilege of having someone in India respond to your support calls in gibberish is becoming more and more unacceptable. But hey, the guys that got the outsourcing idea in the first place are rich today, no doubt about that.