Posts by Pascal Monett

Portal 2

All Hail the Aperture Science Lab !

Proving that good, innovative gameplay is still possible in this world of endless, boring sequels to endless FPS clones.

Google gives Eric Schmidt 124,999,900% salary increase

I'd forego the raise

if my boss gave me a 400% bonus.

Of course, I understand that, in his stead, I would indeed be a bit miffed if I only got a bonus of $4. So yes, put my salary at umpteen million first, THEN give me the 400% bonus.

But really, all this is happening in lalaland and nothing to do with humans.

At all.

Scientists reveal eight-legged Jurassic beast

Tarantulas aren't spiders ?!?

I beg to differ, to they are very much arachnids, belonging to the Theraphosidae family.

Go scare yourself on Wikipedia, I can't read more.

New double-barrelled Taser unveiled

Is this the beginning of the Gilette razor syndrome ?

When will we see a 5-shot taser device ?

Will we get a taser gatling ?

Curious minds want to know.

Calling all readers: Want some new icons?

My choices are

1) a nice little donkey, viewed from behind, to signify that I think the idea/comment/article/whatever was written by an ass

2) a fairy in a woodland landscape, to signify that I think the idea/comment/article/whatever comes from/is written by some lunatic in lalaland

3) a pitchfork, preferably on a flaming background, to signify that I would really, really like to skewer the idea/comment/article/whatever and be done with it

Oh, and let's get rid of the Gates icons, replace them with Jobs icons and it'll be fine.

Thank you for your attention.

Top-secret US lab infiltrated by spear phishers – again

Incompetence & ISO standards

Seems to me that the vulnerability targeted was on IE, therefor without Windows there would be no hoopla.

A data "in the megabytes" is still quite enough to hold thousands of personal details, if not tens of thousands.

Lawsuit targeting RockYou data breach gets green light

Yeah, but

storing passwords in plaintext ? What idiot validated that part of the procedure ?

If I keep the key to my door on a hook next to the door, my insurance will rightfully claim that I have no grounds to be indemnified once the burglar has ransacked my house.

Microsoft's Word fight opens in US Supreme Court

Re:prove the vehicle was mine

I should not have to prove that to you but to the police, which is the case.

SCHEITERN: Scientologists want to friend schoolkids on Facebook

The rest of the religious bunch do not destroy your mind

Nor do they alienate your family and friends, nor do they require that you give them loads of money.

It is simple to make the difference between a religion worthy of the name and a cult that is out for you :

- a religion gives you its doctrine freely, and encourages you to come and listen to its scholars to gain deeper insight into its meaning, after which you are invited (not mandatory) to contribute to its church, all the while leaving you free to decide what your opinion is and how far you want to go

- a cult demands your presence, your money and your devotion to a doctrine that you must work towards in order to receive the full enlightenment, while convincing you that anyone who voices a critical opinion of it is working against your best interests which are to always give it more time and resources until you belong to it

The problem with cults is that people need to belong to a group, and a cult provides a cushy environment where everyone is certain that they are the same, guaranteeing to its followers that they will attain a superior status by following its rules.

A religion, on the other hand, requires critical thinking and personal interpretation, is open to debate on its foundation, its goals and its means, and generally does not guarantee anything in this life.

Frankly, I don't see how anyone with a modicum of intelligence cannot see that.

Google donates a billion cores to boffins

a unique volunteer computing grid ?

Isn't that what Boinc is ? With more than 300,000 volunteers ?

Are you suggesting that Google "stole" your idea ? Because if so, it seems to me that you're late to the party.

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

Viking Modular plugs flash chips into memory sockets

One thing bothers me

If you have a virus loaded into memory, and your memory is Flash RAM, how are you going to get rid of it ?

Sony Pictures opens wallet for Bond 23

Can I propose a title ?

How about "Meltdown" ?

Or "Swan Song" ?

Or even "End Game" ?

Updates galore in Microsoft's biggest ever Patch Tuesday

Windows Update still disabled here

I'll wait for any follow-up catastrophe articles before I enable it and download the latest ticking bomb from MS.

Indonesian anti-smut MP caught ogling filth

"We need to be cautious. We need to make sure we're not violating any privacy laws."

Disgusting. Because it happens to be about a disgraced Senator, caution is required. If it was Joe Vindaloo, he'd be in prison before anyone even knew about it.

Technology turns us into RAGING CRACKHEADS

24 hours ? So what ?

I've just been forced to go 5 days without Internet access or phone, due to my SFR box biting the bullet and having had to wait that amount of time for its replacement to arrive.

It wasn't fun, but hey, there are more important things.

ICO wags finger at York council after data breach

A quicker way ? In an aministration ?

Come now, they're not supposed to be quick, people would get used to that.

Besides, nobody took any documents away - they just left them on a photocopier, and someone else didn't check that it was his stuff, nor even whose stuff it was, and just copied it and sent it off.

That part bugs me a bit. To who were the copies sent ? To all newspapers, as per Standing Copy Order #17b§5 ? Or just internally ?

No, no, that's not it

They HAVE robust procedures, they just don't USE them.

Teens who listen to music a lot are at high risk of depression

I read while listening to music too

That's why I'm not depressed, just crazy.

Photoshopped image scam used in rogue Facebook app trap

Re:"facebook really has its good points"

Indeed it does. Principally it has diminished the amount of crap I get in my Inbox and replaced the spam with but a few Twitter, Paypal and Facebook alerts.

It would seem that spam and con artists are targeting Facebook and Twitter now, and that really helps me since I do not have an account on any of those sites.

So, for the fact that Facebook is drawing the morons to it and therefor the miscreants as well, I thank it for existing. Apart from that, I despise it and its maker.

Australia, give up your fixed broadband!

Wireless, the future ?

You mean, that radiative technology which gets me only 500kbps as soon as I move to the next room ? And 52kpbs if I go upstairs ?

You mean that publicly-accessible medium that anyone can snoop on from the street with the right hardware, and easily break into with its laughable WPA "encryption" ?

Surely you jest, hmm ? Either that or you work for Echelon.

Give me a shielded twisted pair and 8Mbps please. I'll take that over wireless any day.

Not to mention that, to listen in on my wire, you have to be physically attached to it - which is not easy to do from the street.

Oh, and in Japan they have an *average* connection speed of 60Mbps. That means that there are a lot of people with MORE than that - probably approaching Ethernet speeds. Wired connections are slated to reach the terabit per second range in the next decade or so. Wireless can drool all it wants, it'll never get there.

Single-patent lawsuit hits Apple, Google, Amazon, Priceline...

Just one question

What does H-W Technology produce ?

The basis, the very reason of existence of the patent system is to protect the owner for a limited time during which said owner can profit from his idea by bringing said idea to the market before anyone else.

So, where are the H-W Technology mobile phones ? Has anyone seen them ?

I don't think so. I think this "company" is just another troll, a wart on the economical system that should be excised with liquid nitrogen.

The very first check from a judge on any patent claim should be "does the complainant make anything with his patent". If not, hit him with contempt of court charges and throw him out.

Microsoft: IE9 not yet 'broadly' available

Obviously

Now that the race to be the best in the short term is lost, MS decides to bank on Auto-Update to reverse the situation in the medium term.

And that could work, for there are certainly Win7 PCs without Firefox that MS can push IE9 to.

Still, whatever numbers come out of MS now concerning IE9 "adoption" will oficially be due to Auto-Update, not to personal useage, meaning that a number of people with Win7/Firefox (like me) will probably be counted by MS in the IE9 camp because of Auto-Update statistical shenanigans.

In other words, MS has always lied, is lying now and always lie.

Business as usual, in other words.

Pre-release Windows 8 code hits PC makers

Hold on

Is Microsoft trying to change its OS creation schedule to match its OS patch schedule ?

Windows 7 followed the dismal failure that was Vista after barely two years. It has just started settling down in the market and MS is already making noise about a new version ?

Madness.

Crysis 2

Made for consoles and PC ?

So that most probably means limited AI, limited storyline and limited liberty of action. Oh, and enemies popping up as soon as you cross an invisible threshold, like in Unreal 3, which was a great disappointment.

Consoles are great for some kinds of games - racing or sports especially. Anything FPS or RTS has to be dumbed down horribly to fit the technical constraints.

And besides those considerations, ever since I played Half-Life (the original one), I never fail to be amazed and dismayed at any new game that comes out without the dynamic AI that characterized that game so well.

Half-Life came out in 1998. Since then, nobody has been able to even simply equal that title in AI depth and cunning, let alone better it. Half-Life 2 only did about as well, but that can be considered a compliment since no other title in existence has approached either title in AI efficiency.

AI history has been at a standstill since then, and no title that plays on a console is going to change that.

FBI asks for help to crack mystery code in 12-year-old murder case

That's exactly why they want to know how it works

Because then they can improve on the concept and make a new generation of ciphers.

Corporate hospitality is OK, says new Bribery Act guidance

But of course they will allow corporate "hospitality"

Because, really, it's obvious that serious business discussions always occur around sporting or media events like golf tournaments, football matches, tennis encounters and whatnot. That's where the real decisions are made. If they forbade that, the economy would grind to a halt !

Come on, people, be reasonable. You don't actually expect your elected officials to "work" from their offices, do you ?

RSA won't talk? Assume SecurID is broken

"our intranet page on the issue is very clear"

I'm sure that the hackers have read it and are in complete agreement.

Nokia talks Pure typographic cobblers

"a huge investment in time, skill and money"

Translation : lots of power meetings with heavy deciders, expensive restaurant and hotel bills, some international flights, plus maybe a thousand or two for the poor sap who had to write and re-re-rewrite the font rules actually doing the job.

Plus the inevitable high-level marketing party thrown once the one technical guy had finally finished the endless list of useless modification to make it look like Plus Sans.

Fire-quenching electric forcefield backpack invented

It is not a similar idea

The electrical field is not snuffing out the oxygen nor is it starving the flame - actually, nobody knows how it does work. I suspect house elves myself, but I have no proof.

On the other hand, I must admit that, as a crowd-control device, a vast electrical field seems to fit the bill perfectly. Much like an omni-directional taser, one zap and a hundred people hit the ground writhing. Yep, sounds realistic. Much more than a magical flame-snuffing wand.

I'd be curious to see a video of that effect. The flame-snuffing, I mean. The crowd-control video will show up soon enough on YouTube, I wager.

EU bodies schooled on ethical data-gathering

I cannot agree

I cannot agree that the names of participants in a meeting at any political level be kept secret. The basic notion of all European governments at this time is democracy, and the definition of democracy if government of the people by the people. Keeping names secret is a mockery of the very notion of democracy. The people have the right who is making the decisions for them.

On the other hand, I can only applaud the idea that personal data be kept secret unless authorized by the person. I would even go so far as to say that authorizations should be kept on a case-per-case basis - in other words, I want a new authorization request for ever attempt to resell the data.

My life is private, I have the right to keep it that way.

BlackBerry users get free remote wipe, backup and location

Just a thought

Has RIM tested this new functionality in unfriendly waters ? Such as a hacker convention ? Because if not, I sure hope they really, rreeeeaalllllyy did the use case and security profile correctly, else there will be blood when some high-profile CEO gets his little toy wiped without his consent.

Cloud says 'no'

Where's the problem ?

I'm glad to know that your company is putting its business secrets in the hands of cloud operators. Could you please specify which company it is you work for ? So that I know who not to do business with - after all, I'm not interested in seeing my private and credit card details plastered all over the web the day your cloud operator gets hacked.

Riding a bike can be done without touching the handles as well - right up to the split second you need your hands on the handles to steer around a sudden obstacle.

Virtual Facebook thief jailed for two years

Extreme punishment ?

I don't think so. His shenanigans led his neighbors to become suspect before he got caught himself. On top of that, he was already under a suspended sentence for hacking, so that's a relapse.

Jeanne D'Arc got burned at the stake for relapse. This guy got off lightly.

I floated a site into the cloud, and it didn't rain down in chunks...

nah

troll, more likely

Microsoft: IE9's web privacy hole? A feature, not a bug

I just love it

So the IE9 "do not trace" function has a hole that depends on TPL creators to not be abused.

Obviously, it's a "feature", because anything Microsoft does that the public does not like is never a bug and there's always important "public" (i.e. big-spending customer) support to justify it.

I'm sure that, if a general outcry against said "feature" is raised, Ballmer will certainly trot out the line that the "customers" wanted it. And he will be right, of course, albeit not mentioning that the "customers" he considers are not the teeming millions of anonymous users, but the select few business partners with deep pockets that made the requirement list (and screw the rest of us).

Download data versus piracy claims: the figures don’t add up

I totally agree

Your point is most interesting and I subscribe to it 100%.

If I were a politician and content creators came to tell me that 100% of the population are pirating stuff, then the obvious thing - WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS - is to legalize piracy.

And I would do it in an instant - well, right after having had a proper, earth-shattering public announcement drawn up.

Man, I would love to be in THAT press conference !

FTC sanctions behavioural ads firm over deceptive 'opt-outs'

"it will honour for at least five years" ?!?

Whaddya mean, only five ? And after that it will resume its cheating, sneaky ways ?

Who do they think they are ? Microsoft ?

Man do i appreciate AdBlocker !

Make streaming a felony: Obama

"Come on people, let's get real."

That said by a guy who is soooo far off topic it's comical.

But of course it is

Next, in the news, a new law makes it a criminal offense to cut someone off on the road.

The penalty is death by firing squad.

But hey, people, it's a *good* thing on the whole, because we can't have a world where people are so impolite to other people, now can we ?

Aussie TV production house takes on Apple

Partly ? No sir

They vet the apps that are published, therefor they approve them and are FULLY responsible for them.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Microsoft releases IE9 for chip happy Windows world

Re:"People don't want a browser more closely tied to the operating system"

Most people cannot even understand what you wrote there.

Not bashing, but it's fact that, for a vast majority of users, a computer is a black box and they haven't the faintest idea of how stuff works.

Telling them that the browser they use is more tightly integrated to the system than an other one is an argument that will just bring you wide-eyed incomprehension. As long as it works, it's good enough for them.

And that is why Microsoft can tout that kind of argument - it doesn't matter anyway and, to some, it might even be considered a guarantee of sorts.

It's only the geeks that rail against that - and Microsoft can afford to ignore the geeks.

IE6 to stop Faebook ?

Don't corporate users go through a corporate firewall that is something more than just a poor app running on a box ?

Meaning : don't corporate users have something more akin to a firewall rule for that ?

Feds charge 10 with running Nigerian 419 scam

Brain disengages when con is convincingly presented

Let's face it : none of us are millionaires, ergo, we all need money.

For some, all it takes is a promise, the "opportunity of a lifetime", or a really charming smile, and we give our life's savings to someone we have never met and will never see again. Lots of paperwork in small letters is very convincing as well. And if it comes out of a leather suitcase with a bunch of office letterhead stuff and small furnitures, then it can be easy to get hooked.

I do think that 419 scams require a special brand of stupid, but lets not forget : make something idiot-proof and a better idiot will be found.

The world population is seriously in need of lots of training in critical thinking. Maybe even just in "thinking".

Man sentenced for breaching former employer's computers

Lame

Attacking a former employer from home, without even using a proxy. No wonder he got caught.

I'm sure he'll have plenty of time to reflect on what he should have done to avoid that while decorating his house with "Renegage Rules" scribbles.

Meanwhile, his former employer should have been a bit more diligent in changing its passwords.

Google vanishes 'DroidDream' malware from citizen phones

"we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull"

Quite right old chap - and I would be irresponsible to put good money on a toy that has a lever like that that someone else can pull without my consent or even knowledge until after the fact.

I don't care what you think your reasons are, if it's MY toy, then nobody but ME gets to put something on it, or take something off it.

A truly responsible company would post a proper removal procedure for the offending app, not just yank it out without even asking.

People are supposed to be responsible for their actions, you know. Of course, that is the real problem.

Ten... fantasy swords you wish you owned

Who ?

Who's Only ?

Apple to Microsoft: 'App Store name is not generic'

It's simple, really

Neither "App Store" nor "Windows" should be allowed to have a trademark.

The fact that it is up to the USPTO means that common sense will not be able, as prior evidence proves.

US trade rep bashes Baidu for 'deep linking' naughtiness

The USTR

Now a proud RIAA/MPAA affiliate.

Euro court slaps down insurers over gender risks

Women paid less for the same job has been corrected ?

In what universe do you live, sir ?

Killzone 3

you didn't read that right

He's not complaining about having to kill things repeatedly, he's complaining about having to kill things in the same way repeatedly.

It's the corridor crawl that is the bad point, nothing else.

Apparently, there are a small number of scenarios which allow for different tactics (stealth, flanking), but these are too few compared to the rest, which is just wearing down the enemy before advancing to wear down the next batch.