Posts by Pascal Monett

Coming soon: Mark Zuckerberg the comic-book hero

"hardly anyone knows much about him"

I'd like to keep it that way. I already know more than I need to about that asshole, bitch.

Apple in 873-page legal claim to word 'Pod'

Why is there even a debate about this ?

If it's in the dictionary, then YOU CANNOT CLAIM ANYTHING ON IT !!

If it's not clear, then give me the whip and I'll make it clear to you in no time.

Mozilla Labs dreams of projected keyboard phone

Only one technological barrier really

The only thing that is really hindering this kind of pie-in-the-sky dream is the battery. Projecting light may not be all that expensive, electrically speaking, but the kind of holographic display in the picture looks quite energy-intensive to me.

In any case, it'll certainly put an increased load on an already severely limited power supply. Apparently, average talk time is around 4 hours now (source : http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/8069.html), with a few exceptions.

4 hours and all you do is talk. Radio is about the cheapest electrical application there is. You need very little power to send and receive. Set up a phone with holographic display and keyboard and you're upping the energy requirement by at least an order of magnitude.

So that means what ? Today's batteries would last 4 minutes ?

I don't know, and maybe nobody does, but I am sure of one thing : battery life needs to be dramatically extended before anything like this can give a day's worth of usefulness to the average user.

Sex, lies, and botnets: the saga of Perverted Justice

Perverted Justice, eh ?

Well they sure fit together, these two. The pervert and the vengeful nerd. I think they both need professional help as well.

Nvidia boss: cloud, ¡Si! Intel, ¡No!

Binoculars

Connected to the cloud. That's even a worse idea than GSM phones. Not only Big Brother will know where you are, but he'll also know what you're looking at.

I'd be scared if I thought it would be possible. Fortunately, I don't. In ten years time I'm sure wireless coverage will be better, but it won't allow you to have PC-anywhere 100mbps connections.

I would, however, be very interested in an enhanced binocular. I'd like to see what they come up with for enhancing it. Because, unless you have military applications, the most important thing in binoculars is the optics. And we all know that software zooming just loses precision on a portion of what you can see.

MS offers Security Essentials to small business

So now it is official

The EULA can be changed by a one-sided decision, and courts are still going to pretend that it is a binding contract ?

Bollocks.

I don't care if it is in the user's favor. A binding contract is one that cannot be changed without consent from both parties.

This just proves that the EULA is a farce.

Weather gets granular with GPUs

Just a thought

When our national weather service had not yet "upgraded" its system, the weather reports were, as I remember them, accurate enough to actually plan upon. In other words, if they said this week-end was going to see rain, you didn't plan a trip to the beach and, more often than not, they were right and you had no regrets. Well, sometimes you did, but more often you didn't.

Then they upgraded their system, and spanned their prediction time to 5 days, inserting a "confidence ratio" while they did it. It soon became obvious that, although they had more than doubled the computing capacity, they had also more than doubled the error margin.

Now, unless there are clear skies over half of Europe, we have trouble knowing whether or not it will rain tomorrow. Forget about a 5-day forecast - they haven't made one that actually panned out.

So what I'm asking is this : given the dismal failure France has already recorded in improving on its computing capacity, what steps are being taken to ensure that all this improved granularity isn't going to end up going the same way ?

Check Point kills scareware-style pop-up campaign

I feel like "proactively alerting users" too

ZoneAlarm is no longer an efficient anti-virus tool.

Use something else.

Word of warning

Comodo used to be a great personal firewall, and free.

But now they have gone the pay route, whilst still maintaining a free version for personal use.

The last time I saw that happen was with an anti-virus, and it ended badly since the company managed to patch so many warnings and popups into their dang little code that it became almost unusable.

I obviously fear Comodo will go the same route, since every single piece of security software I have ever seen go from free to paying has always ended up making the same mistakes on the free side - i.e. trying to force people to pay, often quite ungraciously.

Trident delay by the Coalition: Cunning plan, or bad idea?

Re:"The EU isn't even democratic"

Maybe that's why he said "based lightly off the model of the EU".

Lightly - as in the initial idea, modified by such and such considerations.

Facebook follows papal line on censorship

Re: "Incidentally, there are privacy controls"

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

Thanks for the laughs.

Go back to your Bible

God did not invent clothes - Man did.

1 in 10 Americans prefer colonoscopies to PC security

Ouch

If you can't tell the difference between marriage and video-assisted anal intrusion, you'd better tell your girlfriend now.

Before she finds out the hard way.

Not surprising at all

Anyone who's actually had a girlfriend and gotten to third base knows just how different a girlfriend and a pornstar are.

The you have never

witnessed the beauty of the ini file.

It is indeed

Kudos to you for having beaten the odds.

Basketball megastar accused of phone hacking

Grammar pedant calling Trevor_Pott

it's "write off", not "right off".

No way you can call mistype on that one, buddy.

Microsoft: IE9 will never run on Windows XP

While we're on the subject of removing...

Let's also do away with frontpage and netmeeting, two of the most useless pieces of software that can possibly grace a default install. And I wouldn't mind getting rid of movie maker either.

Why can Microsoft not allow those things to be a choice ? What on God's green Earth made them decide : "okay, we're going to make the netmeeting directory a functional Windows requirement" ?

Spot on

and run for the hills - the malware armageddon is officially announced !

In-house lawyers have no right to secrecy in EU competition cases, rules ECJ

Re:"companies [..] who conduct their business in a responsible and civilised way"

You will notice that those companies are generally small and the management of those small companies is a one-man affair, so management is directly in contact with the customers and the market.

If you think about it, when your livelihood is directly dependent on whether or not that customer who just left is going to come back, yes, you will behave in a civilized manner. And you'll most likely do anything you can afford to to make that customer want to come back.

Such rules of behavior do not apply to big companies, the ones that hire CEOs and lawyers. Those companies are soulless and committed to "maximizing shareholder value", which they do by screwing everyone they possibly can - including their own customers, up to a point.

There is no need to go about enforcing humanity on small companies - those that are not in tune with their customers die because the customers don't come back.

Big companies can put up with unhappy customers much easier than small companies, which has a tendency of making CEOs of those big corporations think that they can get away with any dick move they want. Unfortunately, they are most often right, because I have yet to see a major company fold because their customer base didn't appreciate some immoral decision.

Twitter facelifts its homepage

Perfect video

Exactly what I expected. It is 2 minutes and 2 seconds long, and the first minute and 13 seconds have absolutely nothing to do with the new interface.

In other words, more than half of this video that is supposed to show the new interface does anything but that. So half the video is useless.

Which happens to confirm what I think of Twitter.

Is US prudishness ruining the internet?

There's also a certain confusion with numbers

In some cases, a single complaint is enough to spark a change in policy - especially on the Internet. What I would like to understand is why a company can be aware that its user base is counted in tens or hundreds of thousands, yet one complaint sends its marketing department in a tizzy.

It would seem to me that a bit of objectivity is in order. If your user base is estimated at 200,000 then one complaint is insignificant. Actually, I would think that 2% of unhappy users is par for the course, meaning 4,000 complaints should be necessary before even starting to worry.

And of course, I mean 4,000 separate complaints, written differently from different IP addresses and posted at different times - stuffing Internet boxes is so easy these days.

'Hyperbolic map' of the internet will save it from COLLAPSE

Setting things straight

First : I have no doubt that there are very intelligent people who are indeed capable of pinpointing an operational issue in the functioning of the Internet. As such, given that these people know what they are talking about, there is bound to be a certain amount of problems that can arise in our daily use of this increasingly-indispensable tool.

Second : Given the amount of money generated by the Internet in all of its commercial activity and interests, I have no doubt either that this issue will be solved in one way or another without impacting my browser in any way.

Third : this is already not the first time an Internet meltdown has been forecast and, gosh, it's still there isn't it ?

Conclusion : this is not an issue for us normal people - alert condition martini dry, thank you for your attention.

Bollywood 'recruits DDoS hired guns to fight movie pirates'

Two weeks in India

Gosh, go to a 3rd-world madly industrializing country and complain about poverty. Well done. Left your sparkling, air-conditioned commercial malls and got culture shock, did you ?

Say, have you ever been to Los Angeles ? You know, in California ? Because there are two distinct sides to that city as well, and there certainly is a pocket of obscene wealth over there.

Mote in the others eye and all that.

US military builds laser backpack for 3D indoor mapping

My wishlist

I find this technology very interesting. I also happen to have an inordinate amount of interest in underground and ill-defined areas that stay out of sunlight.

Therefor, I fully expect that there be a wave of mapping endeavors that create accurate maps of such locations as :

- the Paris underground

- the Egyptian pyramids and famous tombs

- the Maginot line

- every major subway system on all continents

- all major public buildings (such as famous museums)

Once the mapping is done, the data should be integrated into an online exploratory website which allows people to "surf" through the various mazes and "see" what they would if they on-site with proper lighting.

Of course, I realize that there are stupid current conditions like terrorist alerts that will probably ban such mapping attempts in the name of security, but hey, I said it was a wishlist.

Wikileaks will soon post biggest military leak ever

Jusr curious here

but I have to ask : is Mr. Assange tired of living ?

Does he really think that he can continue leaking major military secrets and not be taken down like a rabid dog ?

Steve Jobs lectures devs, dodges antitrust action

"If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps."

Thank you, Apple, for finally saying in public that you are thin-skinned and vindictive. Now it's official.

Personally, I think that Apple would never have published anything concerning app rules if there hadn't been people trashing its behavior in the press. And that goes for a lot of other companies as well, probably most of them since very few companies have the balls to acknowledge an issue if they are not legally forced to do so (and sometimes, even if).

Sorry, but I can't agree with you

Of course, fart apps are not exactly what I would consider needed in any way, and I heartily agree with getting rid of them.

Unfortunately, the rule specifically says that Apple can remove apps from the store if there are many others that do the same thing. Fart apps fall under this rule, but any useful app that comes in multiple flavors can also fall under the rule.

It's a case of over-defining a rule which can then be applied to any number of arbitrary situations. You have an app that is competing (doing the same thing) as an Apple-sponsored app ? Poof, they can retire yours because there's already one doing it. Obviously, they're not to retire their own app, now are they ?

I don't like fart apps one bit, but this rule is not a good way to get rid of them.

I don't think there is any good way to get rid of them either, because maybe they actually need to be there. People made them, people downloaded them and people are using them, so why decide to remove them ? Because they are tasteless ?

I find many things tasteless. That does not give me the right to destroy them - much as might sometimes wish to.

Police, ACPO, public set to clash on filming rights

"the argument is [...] to secure evidence if voluntary sharing doesn't happen"

No it is not. The argument is whether or not the police have the right to bully people out of their rightful property under a flimsy pretext.

Every time I have heard about UK police taking people's cameras away (and this is far from being a first), it has always been in the same kind of circulmstances, i.e. the cop comes to the camera holder and states a spurious law reference before making a grab for the camera. I have _never_ heard that any cop just asked politely before citing specific law articles.

As such, Mr. Cloke, you can pussyfoot around the real issue as much as you like, but as long as you do so you are doing nothing more than aiding and abetting unlawful seizure against innocent citizens.

Some people are quick to draw parallels with certain fascist regimes when faced with such behavior, and I can hardly blame them.

PayPal update email 'violates own anti-phishing advice'

no real alternative ?

Beg your pardon ? Ever heard of Visa ?

I have never had - and never will have - a PayPal account, and I manage to buy stuff on the Internet all the time.

Of course, I can't buy where they only accept PayPal, but if that's the case well tough for them, I take my money elsewhere.

Apple issues moral regulations apps dev guide

Bingo

You just gave them the very excuse they needed. Congratulations !

Agreed

In the country that relentlessly describes competition as the prime benefit of the market, arbitrarily deciding that only one app can be allowed to do one thing is just begging for a lawsuit to lose.

The App Store is still under the jurisdiction of the law and Apple has no right to keep several file explorers, different MP3 players or whatnot to have a go.

I strongly suspect that this particular clause will be removed quickly, either voluntarily or by force.

Not that I care anyway, I'm not a customer, but this clause seems clearly illegal to me.

Apple flooded by Japanese iPod battery swaps

Re:How's that going to help?

Maybe, just maybe, those who are suspicious about their battery could open the case and check its number or something, then refer to an official web site listing the numbers of valid batteries that are on the market.

If not found in said list, people could then go and get a replacement battery.

But such an operation requires two things : a company with the guts to actually recognize a major potential problem (and torching a car is NOT covered by the EULA in my opinion) and do something about it, and a user base that is actually capable of critical thought.

Oh, silly me, we're talking Apple here. What was I thinking ?

Hardware hackers defeat quantum crypto

Well duh

So we have a possible vulnerability of a brand new, still lab-only technology, that requires a rather heavy financial outlay for materials, a degree in physics to exploit, and physical access to the receiver's end link. Once again the age-old rule of security comes to mind : if the enemy gets physical access, there is no security.

Given that this quantum crypto thingy is not going to be of any use outside high-level government, military and intelligence circles, I doubt that the impact of this "find" will be any greater than a change in procedure for the implementation technicians.

Game-addicted man scores rare win over software lawyers

EULAs are no good anyway

An EULA is nothing but a long-winded legalese-speak version of "we're not liable for anything fuck off".

An EULA is certainly not an AGREEMENT - there is no record of what I agreed to and there is no fixed version of a EULA for me to sign and for the publisher to sign.

No signature = no agreement.

On top of that, because of piracy and the rabid knee-jerk reaction to it, I cannot bring back a game or application that I bought and opened because stores all over say that, once opened, they do not accept returns. So I pay good money to get screwed if anything at all goes wrong.

I really fail to see how this totally illegal mafia-style racket came into being defended by courts.

CTOs warned to prepare for Windows 7 budget squeeze

Ah, Gartner

So they're still in the market selling ludicrous "forecasts" ? Oh well, one born every minute.

Twitpic pulls 50 Cent bum burger snap

Re:"You also don't get where he is without working, really, really, really hard"

Poppycock.

You get where he is by shouting really, really, really loudly and repetitively, until the morons start believing that your drivel is justified since you've been blabbering for so long.

Stockholm schoolgirls fined for bugging staff room

Re:"avoiding any feeling of insult"

You' re on the Internet, bud. There is no way you'll avoid insulting somebody.

Assange denies 'sexual assault' allegations

Yeah, it's bullet-proof . . .

but have you seen the latest bunker-busters that them thar Air Force jockeys can unleash on "strategic" targets ?

Intel's embedded security strategy faces tech obstacles

Huh ? Security in TVs ??

Good God please say it ain't so ! TVs are dumb terminals and should stay that way.

Any effort to grant them programmatic knowledge is just a security hole begging to be abused., or to imprint them with the ability to refuse to show the film we just bought at the store.

TVs should stay dumb, period.

That is non-negotiable.

Woman sues to force exposure of YouTube bullies

One thing is for sure

There are now dozens of videos entitled "Carla Franklin is sues Google".

One of them is only more than 2 minutes of a blurry still shot (a man and a woman on a beach, could be any couple) - I did not listen to the audio but it doesn't matter really since, if there is no positive identification of the individual, the words cannot be linked to the person.

Facebook login page still leaks sensitive info

Re:Lou Gosselin

"Get used to it; an email address can not, never has, never will be considered secure. It would be folly to pretend it is."

I understand the technical truth of your argument, however I cannot stand the idea that spammers basically have free reign to discover my email address because of the error (or insufficient protection) of a third-party website who _says_ that my data is private.

I still prefer the idea of a unique login error message like 'Permission denied. Please try again."

I know the lusers will find that maddeningly uninformative, but those who are consistently told everything they must do will never learn to pay attention anyway.

Apple fans drool over Liquidmetal widget

"ceramics which are [..] totally transparent to radio"

Gosh, must be great to have that kind of patent lying around.

Too bad they didn't think of actually using such a thing in making their Iphone.

Croydon Advertiser blows lid on 'sinister' brothel

Got it the wrong way around

The Croydon is actually a public service company, rigorously checking the morals of all companies who pass ads in their paper. Those who fail the test get exposed, in addition to having paid money for ads.

It's a moral win for everyone !

Isn't it ?

Police slam internet justice - then use it themselves

End of Cragslist personals

Hey guys, forget Craigslist ! Just go to the Met's website and you can pick TRUE professionals !

Verizon demos 1Gbps over existing fiber network

Just a small correction

>Brian Whitton, executive director of Verizon's technology group, put a marketing spin on the results. "This kind of bandwidth capacity will provide Verizon the ability to start meeting FiOS customers' needs by offering more bandwidth to support services such as email, Usenet, multiplayer texting and limited browsing in privileged areas," he said.<

There, reads better like that.

Microsoft's volume licensing site goes titsup - again

Wrong question, mate

The real question is :

"What is right with Microsoft ?"

It's a question of what still works, because making a list of what is wrong would take days.

DARPA funds Mr Spock on a Chip

A probability processor ?

Calculating the probability of something requires extensive knowledge of the factors that come into play, as well as their relative importance.

Referring to Mr. Spock, it has been demonstrated time and time again that, faced with a totally unknown phenomenon (the staple of T.O.S. episodes), you simply cannot state any probabilities whatsoever with any sort of scientific basis.

The processor is not going to be the thing defining the factors, now is it ? So how exactly is this "probability processor" going to work ? If it has to be fed all the parameters - which is the only way for it to do any statistical analysis - then there's a human that will be doing the work and the "probability" processor will just be a calculator, like any processor today.

It must be more complicated than all that, since there are so many much more intelligent people than me working on that kind of thing, but I'd like the description to be at least something I have a chance of understanding.

George Lucas names Star Wars Blu-ray release date

I still have the VHS

Quite worn out, I admit, but there is still enough detail to notice that HAN SHOT FIRST.

And, as has been outlined in quite a good argument somewhere else, making Greedo shoot first is a disastrous decision for Han's character. In the original version, Han went from being a true selfish smuggler to an actual good person.

With Greedo shooting first, Han goes from semi-innocent good guy to . . good guy, with a bit of selfishness in between that, all of a sudden, is not so comprehensible.

Way to screw up your own story, Lucas.

Hurd snubbed HP board to settle claims

What ?

Jodie Fisher is on Steam as well ?