Posts by Pascal Monett

Anonymous plans zombie Scientology protest

Religion vs sect

A religion is something you are entitled to embrace or refuse, and are free to leave if you decide that it is not fulfilling your spiritual needs.

A religion does not lock you in, does not pester you to come to service, does not stop you at the door if you do not contribute, does not incite you to abandon friends and family, nor does it stalk/harass you once you have decided to leave.

A religion is a spiritual matter and, as thus, can simply not "force" people into following it. Any priest/pastor/mullah worth his salt knows that.

Given this definition, if your "religion" demands that you hand over a significant part of your monthly salary, and especially if you are threatened with banishment if you do not comply, then you are in a sect.

If your "priest" continuously demonstrates to you that what you think you know about the real world is wrong, you are in a sect.

If your "community" repeatedly denigrates your relations/family and tells you to get rid of them, you are in a sect.

If your only goal in life is to live for the community, then it's too late, you've been brainwashed.

In short, a religion lets you live your life and enhances it with spiritual guidance, a sect destroys your life and, instead of guiding you, imposes its rules on you for the worse.

Defrauded punter says 'catflaps' to PayPal marketing stunt

Funny thing happened to me too

Just last month, someone used my credit card number to make a purchase via Paypal for 250€.

Now I don't have a Paypal account because I have never trusted them within a mile of my pocket, and I don't go out giving away my credit card number either - it was most probably found via a generator.

The only good thing is that my bank (a good and proper one) actually contacted me about the transaction, and I was easily able to explain that I cannot make purchases via Paypal since I do not have an account with them. I also stated that I never will and I asked them to block Paypal purchases permanently.

Unfortunately, it would appear that my bank cannot do that (yet) - but I did get my money back (and my credit card has been replaced).

Now I am left wondering what poor soul got screwed out of 250€ thinking he made a sale, sent the goods and got a chargeback in return.

Paypal really is the pits.

'Windows Cloud' to descend this month, says Ballmer

@Norfolk Enchants Paris

What do you mean we cannot "objectively assess" what Ballmer has to offer ?

Nonsense !

We've known Ballmer for years now, we can very quickly assess his words, and 9 times out of 10 they amount to just a lot of hot air.

Nothing coming out of MS these days is designed in any way to respond to the needs of users, it is always meant to respond to the need of MS - which is ripping off more money from anyone they can catch.

This cloud thing has no substance, and it's obviously nothing but a copycat announcement.

Microsoft promises, fails to keep things simple for partners

We want to make it [licensing] as friction-free as we can

I'll bet they do.

What they would like is to charge you directly even if you just looked at the box.

EU bids to dominate future nebulous buzzword

God help us all

Web 1.0 - someone makes a web site, you connect to it via computer and consult its contents

Web 2.0 - someone makes a web site, everyone connects via computer and exchanges inane, unfounded opinions on anything except the topic

Web 3.0 - someone hosts a website where everyone connects via computer to chat about a multitude of subjects without listening to anyone who doesn't agree

Web 4.0 - The website is your computer and the whole world is connecting to it to relentlessly post inane and offensive remarks about your furniture, interior decoration, hair style and clothing habits - whether you are connected or not

Web 5.0 - There is no more computer - everyone connects directly to your brain and you hear their stupid, useless remarks directly in your head, all the time

Music and pics coming to next-gen Nintendo DS

Not named yet ?

Perfect ! Let's start some suggestions.

For example, the Poo.

Okay, okay, I'm out already !

Developers to get Windows 7 pre beta next month

@Rich Turner

I think you are confusing encryption and DRM. These things are not the same.

You state that DRM is useful in a corporate setting. I highly doubt that. Encryption is though, as is controlling who accesses what on a server, but DRM does not serve in either function.

You state that DRM is used in the (Windows) OS to protect private data. That is not true either, once again it is encryption that is used for that purpose - and rather feeble encryption at that, given the ease with which hackers and other scum are able to pry the data they want from OS weaknesses.

DRM is used only where media is concerned. DRM is what downgrades a signal from movie file to screen if Vista is not 100% sure that everything is fine and dandy throughout the chain. DRM is what prevents you from installing that brand-new game you just bought, because the stupid protection cannot even recognize its own official disk. DRM is why Vista had so much trouble deleting files and transmitting files across the network, because each byte was being checked in case it was a pirated byte - and since the system had no chance in Hell of knowing, the whole thing was hopelessly bogged down.

In short, encryption and controlled access have all the virtues you mistakenly attribute to DRM, whilst DRM has only one : to royally piss of any honest customer (whereas pirates, ironically, are plague-free and can do as they wish).

I refuse DRM the right to exist on my computer. I do not have Vista, and if Vista II is the same turd, it will not do any better in my house. I do not play Spore and I refuse to buy any EA game until they abandon the practice. I have stopped buying music ten years ago, when all this nonsense started, and the only music I listen to is what I have in my existing CD collection. I have enough to do in my life without kowtowing to outrageous demands from organizations that act with an authority no one has given them.

Life has enough restrictions as is, I will not be imposed more in my leisure activities.

RIAA filesharing target Jammie Thomas wins retrial

Requiring proof of actual transfers

It's about time.

Requiring proof is, in my mind, supposed to be the basic necessity to condemn someone in a court of Justice. That this requirement has not been met until now is a shocking display of the lobbying power of that most-distasteful organization that is the Recording Industry Ass. of America.

And I seriously hope it will indeed cripple the diarrhetic flow of frivolous lawsuits against grandmas without computers and little girls in Primary school.

It is only logical that if you intend to get a $200,000 fine against someone who earns less than $50,000 a year, you should prove your ass off that you are indeed right and entitled to it.

The RIAA has done nothing of the sort. It has, however, amply proven that it can fire off lawsuits against anyone for the tiniest, weakest sliver of suspicion, and expect to be handsomely paid for its lack of work.

Death to RIAA !

Sun's solar wind hits 50-year low

"we are in a period of minimal activity that has stretched on longer than anyone anticipated"

Hmm, so much for those who want to equate "global warming" with increased solar activity.

But, as usual, someone will come along and claim the reverse - and who will the public choose to trust ?

Someone might want to make a backup of the records of solar activity - in case some governmental organization decides to fudge the numbers again to correspond to the perception of the day.

Or is it too late for that already ?

Net sleuths spot poker site cheat code

What is a "hole" card ?

Could it be "the whole cards" ?

I'm not a player, and less a gambler, but I've never even heard of a hole card, let alone see one.

</pedant>

Apple bans App Store heartbreak chatter

NDA after the fact ?

Where exactly did the developers sign that ?

I call bollocks. An NDA, as disgusting as the concept may be, is to be presented BEFORE handing out the information that you want to protect.

Sending an email that includes "this is under NDA" is not only useless and ridiculous, it's also probably illegal. I didn't ask for your stupid email, you sent it on your own initiative. You can't shout things at me and then take my arm and say "by the way, this is just between us, okay ?"

Somebody call the archeologists, public relations has become a dead science.

Royal Navy won't fight pirates 'in case they claim asylum'

a short drop and a sudden stop

It's a lot more difficult to request asylum when you're hanging.

Or when you've got a bullet through the head, for that matter.

What is the world coming to ? The remnants of the worlds' greatest Navy have all become yellow in a generation ? Since when does this kind of debate take place at the task force command level ?

It should be a debate in the political arena, where the softies can wring their hands repeatedly while the hardliners rebuff them with economic logic, then everyone stops for tea. Meanwhile, the Navy just keeps on blowing the buggers out of the water.

Meaning the pirates, of course, not the politicians.

Gay sheep romp turns Tyneside blue

Sounds like fanbois material to me

Even presented with hard proof, the farmer went off on a tangent and invented some other excuse to continue clutching to his beliefs.

Yep, that's a fanbois for you. Almost a religious integrist.

Boffin brews up 'Jurassic Park' beer

Better stay on alert

Soon the people that have sampled this jurassic beer will begin sprouting tails with pointy ends, a bone ridge on the head and extension to the jaw with an increase in jaw muscle. Their arms will shrivel to half size while their legs will double their muscle weight, then they will go on a rampage in the office and surrounding countryside, chasing down marketing execs at a blistering 25MPH.

Let me be the first to welcome our jurassically-modified dinosapiens overlords.

NASA, USAF in $30m hypersonic boffinry push

I've got to say it

"who slap the pendulous jowls of established wisdom with the gauntlet of disregard"

Priceless !!

Met Office: Global warming sceptics 'have heads in sand'

I'd like to see some real figures

I would honestly like to know how the climate is changing, unfortunately, there are a few things that prevent me from forming an educated opinion :

1) every time a claim is made, a counter-claim follows that "demonstrates" the opposite

2) it would be nice to consult past temperatures, but they have been fudged by somebody under orders from a so-called government body with an agenda

3) in my personal experience, the last twenty years have seen less and less snow where I live, but summers have been more and more lousy, rainy and cloud-covered

4) we've only been gathering data and modeling the weather for the last one or two hundred years, and thermodynamics is arguably the most difficult branch of physics to study and comprehend

5) nobody can possibly explain or demonstrate scientifically exactly what is the impact of human activity on the Earth's climate, outside of a vague "all those CO2 emissions have to be doing something"

6) modeling the climate of the entire world is a few orders of magnitude harder than simply forecasting weather at a given point - and they can't even do that reliably anyway

So, bearing in mind these points, I conclude that there isn't a chance in Hell anybody really knows what is going on and I think we'll have to wait a good, long time before anybody can effectively model the Earth's climate with any semblance of accuracy.

EA in Spore DRM climbdown

Switch to consoles ? Bollocks !

Switch to Steam.

Steam is Valve's version of online purchasing, and it works fine.

It works so well that if you have to reinstall your PC after changing mothrboards (wipe the OS and restart from scratch), as long as your Steam folder is intact all you need to do (once the OS is properly installed again) is launch Steam (hear that ? just launch it from the exe - no reinstall required) and input your personal access code and voilà ! All your games are once again available.

And you can play them as long as you like - no DRM hassle, no CD (he, he, they're download, remember ?) and no problems.

There's no need for consoles in such conditions. There is, however, need for Valve to become the default download platform of choice so that ALL new games become available via Steam.

And the crappy EA Downloader will become just a bad memory.

A very bad one.

US pilots will go to VR drone ops straight from training

Just a minute there

Given my hours of flight experience (fighter and helicopter) on BF2, I'm sure that I could hold a Predator flying level over an 8-hour shift.

I'd take the job, no problem ! I'll even stay in a nondescript, blue-coverall outfit - no need for shiny wings that I do not merit anyway.

Bill Buxton to change Microsoft from within, hug Steve Ballmer

Buxton is just a diversion

Whatever he says won't change the fact that MS is currently DRM-enabled and beholden to the MAFIAA - which means that Vista was doomed to be the pile of crap it is.

Mr. Buxton is just a PR bunny, spouting feel-good soundbites in the hope that some skeptics will actually be convinced by his charm. I seriously doubt that he has any chance of impacting development in a way that is favorable to the user.

The situation will only change when the major shareholders decide that the downward spiral would be best stopped by removing DRM and cutting the blubber that is continuously growing on the frame of the Windows whale.

And chickens will fly.

ePassport tests put biometrics through their paces

higher-entropy biometrics ?!?

Dear God, it seems that there's a new entry in the BullShit Generator. Either that, or the BSG has had a close encounter with the LHC.

If anything, these new biometrics is going to make things easier for high-tech criminals (forget terrorists - they don't need to pass inspection, they're already on site).

I can't wait for the day when some border control officer is going to be strung up as a scapegoat for letting a dangerous criminal through.

"Do you acknowledge having allowed Mr. PsychoticMurderer to enter US territory ?"

"Well, yes, but his passport said he was Mr. NiceGuy:"

"But his face, did you not look at his face on the Wanted poster next to the window ?"

"Yes but his passport said he was really Mr. NiceGuy ! It checked out ! Honest !"

All the biometric craze is going to do is give properly-equipped criminals with gold-plated, steel-armored excuses to get into whatever country they want. The more tech we add, the more we risk blinding border controls with over-hyped "impossible to falsify" claims.

Remember : the Titanic was there first.

Did the width move for you, darling?

Almost fine for me

No really. The layout is fine, I can still find my way around, I'm okay with it, really.

But fixed width ? "greater control over the look and feel" ?

In a word, BOLLOCKS !

Fixed width has nothing to do with controlling the look and feel, and everything to do with making a computer screen behave like printed paper. Makes the managers feel better because they think their "control" actually has an impact on how I peruse the site.

Well it doesn't. And you could have just as much control by fixing the width of the side columns and leaving the center column proportional - that way us users that read other publications than The Sun could continue using our widescreen TFTs to their maximum extent.

Fixed width ? EPIC FAIL.

For rest, carry on. I'll be back.

EU wants to add another notch to ITA belt

Good Lord !

The EU hammered out a proposal and it's been 12 YEARS since anybody did anything with it ?!?

Talk about European time !

At this rate, by the time they actually take any decision it'll be next century.

Great efficiency there, people, just great. If I handled my job like that, none of my customers would get a program to test before I retired !

Hey, that gives me an idea . . .

Gemalto glues DVD onto a SIM

Eco friendly ?

Sorry, but any company who's main product is a chunk of plastic is off the green list for me.

Wall Street shudders under Lehman collapse

Move to Russia

Bollocks. The banking system is riddled with the kind of mentality that allowed this sub-prime fiasco to happen in the first place. Moving won't help.

The only thing to do is make financial managers of all walks understand that you cannot indefinitely make money out of thin air.

There are enough examples already to make that a basic point in financial studies.

1) The Internet bubble (Y2K people, not that long ago) showed that pretty websites and free deliveries did not a business case make. That mistake cost billions to idiotic investors (hey, it's financial Darwinism, right ?), so they went on to

2) Enron and playing both sides of a virtual issue against each other under the guise of "insurance". Throw in a large chunk of "creative accounting" and you end up with hundreds of thousands of 401K plans shot to hell, and people old enough for retirement having to go on (or get back to) working. That is a lot less fun, especially since this time the victims didn't actually have anything to do with the problem.

And now we have

3) Banks, the very staple of the economy, those who guarantee the concept of money in the eye of Joe Public, who start going for virtual gains as well. The sub-prime crisis is nothing but an Enron-style Internet bubble - lets put this down as an insurance problem and get people to subscribe - something no banker worth his Armani suit should have underwritten.

The whole economy is permeated through and through by the mentality of "let's invent some insurance for this and we'll be rich", forgetting that insurance deals can be called upon to be realized. The insurer does not always walk away with the pot.

It is high time we removed "insurance" from financial deals and left it with insurers. Banks should be banks, end of story.

Robot airliner anti-missile escorts proposed

Re: KAL Flight 007

Bad example for three reasons.

First of all, KAL Flight 007 was at cruising altitude when it got shot down, so it was neither taking off nor landing, which therefor puts it out of reach of terrorists.

Second, it was shot down by Soviet fighter planes, which does not compare to ground-launched missiles of any kind.

Third, and most important, it wasn't terrorists that downed the flight, it was the military forces of an independent country - which puts the means to the end way out of reach of terrorists as well.

I mean really, if any country decides to shoot down a commercial airplane, do you really think there is a chance in Hell that the hapless passengers have a chance of making it back home alive ?

The subject is terrorism, not state-sanctioned termination. You can argue that the then-USSR was guilty of a terrorist act and I will heartily agree, but you must also admit that the USSR had a bit more tools at its disposition than any terrorist organization has or will ever have.

Apples and oranges, sir.

Child abusers adopt blackmail tactics

Isn't that progress ?

Instead of catching them on not-always-obvious grooming charges, the cops can now do them in for blatant hacking and extortion - crimes which are rather easier to judge.

I'd say that qualifies as progress.

Northrop offer supersonic robot stealth raygun cyber-bomber

laser 9/11 ?

Sure, a planefull of fuel exploding in a tower would certainly not be enough - the conspiracists had to imagine lasers to "melt" the steel supports.

What they won't come up with.

I'm surprised nobody has accused aliens. Not "in" enough anymore, I suppose.

Google's IP anonymization fails to anonymize

Browser fingerprints ?

What on Earth is that ? When I surf on a page does my browser mark its unique serial number or something ?

I use Firefox v2.0.0.16, like millions of other people. Are you saying that one can target my specific session based solely on "browser information" ?

I'm sorry but I simply cannot believe that my browser in itself can be used to sort out my data from someone else using the same browser on a different IP address.

Blame game over United Airlines stock crash rumbles on

Storm in a teacup

If the Tribunal is certainly in a bad position, given that they complain about spidering but do not take the measures to stop it, I think that the only people to blame are the speculators.

Personally I am convinced that the good one will have realized that UA was not in a position to go bankrupt. They will have followed the downward spiral, and started to buy shares when the price fell low enough.

Now that the overblown mistake is on its was to be corrected, these astute speculators will have sold for a profit (like the first commenter apparently did).

This simply validates the fact that Wall Street is not for the simple-minded idiots. It takes a steel nerve and a steady head to not flounder, and that is certainly for the best.

So I don't really care who the masses want to pin the blame on. The speculators that sold in a panic are the only ones to blame - and they have already paid the price.

That is the one good thing about speculating : the idiots always lose.

I fail to see why that should change.

Disclaimer : I have no stock of any kind.

Hilton documentary reveals hidden side of Paris

"to see a new side of her"

Wait, there is a side of Paris we haven't yet seen ?

In another dimension, maybe ?

French storm the bastille over 'Sarkozy's Big Sister' database

As a French citizen

I must say that the fallacy by which it was "not useful" to have a public debate over this point is perhaps the most irritating point.

My government tried to sneak this very important monstrosity through the legal process, and now that it has been called to task it acts all innocent.

Sorry, but that just doesn't feel right. Putting a new twist on "if you have nothing to hide . . ", my countrymen are now demanding to know just what it was the Fillon had to fear.

Personally, I am happy to see that sometimes the French are indeed capable of actually noticing when their government tries to pull a fast one.

On the other hand, I have little doubt that said database will exist anyway - with or without approval from the population.

Ah, democracy. It's a nice dream.

Motorola gets down with the kids

"pause a show and continue watching elsewhere"

Good luck getting a DRM scheme to work with that.

Yes, there was a viable liquid bomb plot

my dad was an Organic Chemist

That is the main difference between most of the commentors on this kind of thread and you, then : you actually have a rather good idea of the subject matter and can therefor follow the article, understand its conclusion, and make up your mind on whether or not the author did his job right.

What astounds me is the amount of people who will not hesitate to comment on anything and everything as soon as it bothers their limited preconceptions of the universe, without knowing the most basic thing concerning the subject that got them so riled up.

It can be funny sometimes, though.

EA Europe struggles squeezing out Spore

It's EA, people

And It's online too. So that gives me to gold-plated reasons to not spend my money.

I'm boycotting EA since they so thoroughly screwed me with BF 2142.

Crimeware giants form botnet tag team

Re:logged by Da government

It may be logged, but what makes you think that it is done for your safety ?

It's just done so that, the day you complain too much, the black helicopters can swoop in and take you for your one-way vacation to an undisclosed location in a torture-practicing country.

Logging is done to capture terrists, and if you ain't happy, yousse a terrist.

You copy ?

Yahoo! shares! hit! five! year! low!

Easy peasy

It sure is a lot easier to increase shareholder value by 25% when you've already knocked it down 50%.

It's morons like that that make me think I could screw up the job just as good as he does - for half the price !

And thank goodness all the whiners that complain about all! those! exclamation! points! don't have a chance in hell of seeing any change. Keep it up, guys !

Seriously.

EU parliament says yes to hydrogen cars

@Cindy Lewis

I'll believe your PR piece when I see the goods available for sale and have the independent reviews that analyze your "solutions" and agree with your take.

Until then, I'll remain skeptical about any vendor that promises to have found the ideal solution.

Please do not take it personally, I really would like to get out of fuel permanently.

MS doesn't set world alight with Office Live Workspace

Re:please explain yourself

No explanation needed - as soon as your connection to Microsoft's servers fails for whatever reason (Internet down, ISP offline, Microsoft offline, virus cutting you off, DoS attack, ...), I'm sure you'll find some reasons on your own.

Medical isotope scarcity as Dutch reactor goes titsup

RE:muslim extremists have penetrated the media

Utter and unmitigated bollocks.

The media have no need to be taken over by any kind of extremist to go all hysterical over nothing - its been doing that for over a century without any kind of external influence.

Blaming extremists is all nice and good, but what do you do when you've finished nailing them all to the wall and shooting them dead, only to discover that the press is as hysterical as it was before ?

Oh yeah, I forgot : you invent another exterior threat.

Stupid me, I always think that solutions should be applied to problems, not to urban myths. That must be why I'm not a manager.

Blu Christmas coming, format fans forecast

Nothing wrong with Blu-ray ?!?!!

What are you smoking ? How about remote shutdown ability ? How about intrusive and unwanted DRM from the company that has a documented history of totally crap DRM implementations ? How about the need to replace all of my video elements for this crap to work because of HDMI restrictions ? How about simply too expensive for what it's worth ?

I have a video library of over 400 DVD titles, all legit. I will go for upscaling before I start forking over the cash to replace all that.

Hell, I don't even have Dolby at home, I'm on stereo Bose speakers.

I'll upgrade that before I buy an entirely new video room.

Blu-Ray is certainly great for the young whippersnappers that don't even have their own appartment, or barely just left their mothers' house, but for anyone over 35 that is not subject to the Gotta-Have-The-Latest-Shiny-Toy syndrome, it's not worth it - yet.

Judah 'Visual Voicemail' Klausner sues Google, Verizon, Citrix...

In other words

This Klausner guy is a parasite on society. To have a patent and not use it for production should automatically make the patent invalid.

Makes me suspicious that this guy does not have a working product for one of his 25 patents. I wonder if his patents are not just all a bunch of pie-in-the-sky word fillers, without any actual code to work with.

Remember that a patent is supposed to accurately describe the entire process, so that ANYONE can reproduce the object of the patent ? I wonder if his patents are that precise and, if not, I wonder why the Patent Office insists on granting patent applications that do not follow its own rules.

Scumbags punt Trojan with baby kidnap lure

One step too far, most assuredly

A message like that could, I think, be construed as a threat and thus, I believe, fall under the jurisdiction of the FBI, which is a sight worse than being in the crosshairs of local law enforcement.

I wonder if anyone could try and get the feds in on this to catch the spammers and, if so, woe to the ones who live in the States !

Pirated movie downloads offered as Zango sweetener

Why is this surprising ?

Scum partnering with criminals is normal as the sun rising in the morning.

Dollar surge helps software vendors soak customers

"VMware strongly disagreed with such a notion"

Well gosh, they would say that, wouldn't they ?

Apple confesses MobileMe vanishing contact bug

What's that ?

So Apple first adopted Microsoft hardware (the Intel platform), and now it has also adopted Microsoft debugging tactics ?

What next, a special iPhone Reset edition with a Ctrl-Alt-Dell button ?

Ex-Googlers reinvent web search

"illustrate the vastness and the variety of the Web"

Well let's see, the web is comprised of 35% junk (pics of pets or kids), 30% porn, 20% news, fake news and tech news, and the rest is either purely commercial or useless.

So if your search site wants me to discover the 70% I'm not interested in, don't bother.

Emirates takes delivery of its first A380 super jumbo

Quietness

Not to rain on the parade or anything, but "quiet" applied to any kind of self-propelled airplane whatsoever is very much pure nonsense.

I am quite ready to salute the achievement, and the A380 may be quieter than its predecessors, and it may even be quieter than any other commercial airliner in use today, but the use of "quiet" to qualify any one of those flying behemoths is simply ridiculous.

Just ask the people who live under the landing path.

Oops - SF prosecutors put city passwords on public record

So now he "could have"

Looks like they're going to try to tack some pedophile charges on him next. And $5 million bail ? How many people did this guy kill already ?

I don't know the hows nor the whys, but SF sure is starting to walk on thin ice with this kind of stunt.

American data pimper exposes ad equation

"the prevailing industry practices"

I am sure they did, since said industry practices mainly include screwing the customer as deeply as possible without any forewarning, then bringing up a lengthy, impossible-to-read pseudo-legal document if any complaints arise.

Yeah, they certainly followed prevailing industry practices. I'm sure Al Capone did as well (as soon as he finished writing some new ones, that is).

There are times when I really wish I had some C4 and knew how to use it. I'd show them what "opt-out" REALLY means !

Sabre-rattling Europe threatens US diplomats with visas

They should indeed

I'm all for Americans being subjected to the same hassles that they impose upon others. Should have done that the very day they started it.