Posts by Pascal Monett

Northrop enters US Army monster raygun lorry race

Big stompy robots

Hmmm. Big and stompy. Yes ! Bring on the Mechwarriors !

Researcher crosses swords with Google over XSS 'flaw'

Not all that important

I don't use proprietary more than I have to, and I only use Google to search. I avoid the bloody toolbars everybody has added - there is nothing there for me and I trust no proprietary, closed-source developer more than I absolutely have to.

And yes, I am missing out on Google Maps. I know. Life is a bitch, isn't it ?

Dolphins abandon Bay of Biscay

Call to the moderators

Could you please, PLEASE ban for life any loser who whines about "no IT angle" when the section the article is published in is not IT anyway ?

Get their logon and LOCK IT OUT. Get their IP and prevent them from signing up again. Ban them from reading the site even.

Remarks like that only prove one thing : the guy has nothing to do here, he can't understand what he's looking at. So be nice to whatever is left of his brain cells and don't show him the awful letters that so confuse him.

And if he never comes back, well good riddance.

Girls prefer pink: official

My statistics classes were a while ago

But I do seem to remember that, in order to have a representative portion of the population (for election poll purposes, for example), the sample studied should be at least 2000 individuals strong.

Taking that as a given, it follows that this "study" is lacking around 88% of its required representivity, thus its credibility is at the 12% level, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5%.

So, if I am to re-read the conclusion that boys do prefer blue and girls do prefer pink, viewed alongside the fact that it is 10% reliable, I don't have a problem with that conclusion.

Personally, I like blue. My wife likes green. My daughter's room has just been redone in bluish pastel tones (on her request).

Yep. That fits in 10% reliability all right.

Students get lecture on ID crime

What ? Security comments from a bank ?!

I would accept comments from banks on securing my personal information much more readily if banks did not give full access to their client databases to consultants who have the despicable habit of getting their laptops subsequently stolen.

More personal information has been lost by banks this way, more people have been put at risk, than any number of post-it notes tacked onto a screen will ever manage.

Warner Bros to remake Enter the Dragon

What was that ?

"it'll be pretty nigh on impossible to make a bigger hash of it surely"

Ah, the naiveté of youth. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing that Hollywood cannot trash more thoroughly, including its own worst flops. After all, it's the trying that counts !

Sometimes they get it wrong and make a pure gem of beauty, but those mistakes are quickly corrected.

NASA: no fix needed for shuttle

"I am an engineer with intimate knowledge of the situation"

You're anonymous, which puts your credibility on the issue at a hair's breadth above - well no, actually your credibility is strictly zero.

As for me, I just hope the crew gets back safely. I agree with those that say that a 2nd burn up would be the death of the Shuttle as well as of the crew, and I agree even more with those who say that the NASA we have today is a far cry from what we had in the Apollo days.

NASA is extremely security-minded ? In fairy land, I'm sure that's true. Just as Iraq had WMDs.

NASA is run by beancounters nowadays, that and political, career-minded rats. Not scientists. Scientists would ensure that there is a 100% efficient method to repair tile damage and use it when necessary. I cannot think that Scientists would play dice with the lives of even one person.

But NASA is not run by scientists these days. The Challenger event has proven beyond doubt that scientists - having given the warnings and protested during meetings - were simply ignored by the ruling class. We saw the result of that.

I just hope we won't see it again.

'Law and Order' cop accused of child porn possession

One thing cracks me up

"establish when and how the images came to be on the computer"

I'm sure there are people who actually think that that is possible without a shred of doubt.

I mean, nobody who wants to plant false information would think of changing the date on the PC before creating the files, now would they ?

Tesla electric supercar may be delayed

How what ?

"The biggest shock though has to be how a company producing a product like this, in low volume, with high bought in content and which hasn't actually shipped anything could possibly employ 250 people?! What are they all doing? Unless it's mostly marketing and legal departments, and only a minority are actually involved with the product."

Well, maybe they're employing a few engineers and technicians ? Like 200 or so ? People think making a car is easy, but that's simply not true. Every new model is different in its size and shape, and therefor in its mass and the way mass is distributed. That probably makes for changes in behavior on the road and thus, creates constraints when testing for proper braking power and all the rest. Then there's the specific issue of cooling the batteries, ensuring that the draw fits the usage and possibilities of the batteries, not to mention innovations such as finding the most cost-efficient way of recharging them during the trip.

It takes a lot of manpower to solve all these issues, and there are a lot of intelligent people that work in the automotive industry. One can only hope that some of those are working for this company.

RIAA: Pay as we say, not as we do

There are no Spitzer's left

Nowadays, we only have the Gonzales type - the one that condones torture. With that kind of prosecution, it'll be the 10-year old girl or the 60-year-old grandmother that'll get the bug gun, not the RIAA.

Remember : the RIAA is just doing the same thing as Halliburton or Diebold - it's putting its weight where it can - against the simple, defenseless citizen. The whole Justice Department is supposed to be there to defend the citizen, but said Department is much too busy with the whole-guilty-until-proven-innocent thing to bother. But don't worry, soon the whole country will have torture as part of the regular police interrogation techniques and answers WILL be found.

Ex-CA boss Kumar checks in for 12 year sentence

Who would ever employ that crook ?

Hmm, let me make a list : Diebold, RIAA, Dell Customer Service, Iraq Department of Justice, or Libya Minister of Economics, to name just a few.

Many Facebook users expose all to strangers

Isn't that nice ?

So, dear customer, we have specifically made a social application that you have subscribed to on purpose, but actually you can't trust either the application, nor the users, nor even the management, if you value your privacy.

Have a nice day.

Nokia gets into user-created crud content

Oh great !

Wonderful, a Nokia-centric happy slapping database for Nokia users by Nokia users.

Yay ! Progress !

SCO 'disappointed' as shares plunge 70 per cent

victim of IT Roadkill ?

Nope. No way. SCO is not a victim at all, unless you consider victim someone who steps on toes, kicks shins and sucker-punches everyone in the playground until three guys twice his size get annoyed and treat him to some toilet shampoo.

I have absolutely zero commiseration for SCO, its lawyers, its management, and anyone that has ever been employed since McBride took the helm. SCO has done nothing worth anything since he got appointed CEO, and now it is vulture bait, which is only justice.

I fervently hope the SEC is going to go for the jugular, because I'd really hate to see Darl live on with his immorally gained millions. I also hope he will never be CEO again, because in my view he certainly doesn't deserve it. As for the criminals that abused the name "lawyer" that worked for SCO, they should be all pursued for contempt of court and baseless lawsuits.

HANG 'EM ALL !

Oh, and concerning the poor multinational corporations that gave up the dough for an SCO "license", don't waste tears on them either. These are multinationals, making billions and practically above the law whenever they feel like it. That they didn't have the balls to tell SCO to piss off means that either the CEO had an agreement and the license was kickback money, or that said CEO is simply a spineless git that has nothing to do at the helm of tens or hundreds of thousands of employees.

Boffins simulate plasma-eating dusty 'life-forms'

Okay, they reproduce ?

Oh my goodness, all that kinky stuff going on all over the Universe and not a spycam in sight !

US Customs gets kill-droids for Caribbean

Have you ever talked to a CBP officer?

Never without a bag over my head.

Spammers debut FDF spam

Concerning pump and dump

In a previous thread on this very site, someone talked about having analyzed pump and dump stocks. What he did was, as soon as he received a stock spam, he went to look at the price and logged that as if he had bought 1000 shares (they're penny stocks, so a few bucks in all).

Then he went back a few days later to find out the new price. One stock in over forty tries had a positive result.

This report (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=920553) is not the thread I mentioned, but the conclusion is quite clear :

"Before brokerage fees, the average investor who buys a stock on the day it is most heavily touted and sells it 2 days after the touting ends will lose close to 5.5%."

Future looks bright for video ads

"you can get more attention and more interaction from the viewer"

Oh you'll get my attention all right. I will do my utmost to get a filter add-on for my browser, or remember to not go to that site anymore if I can avoid it. At the very least, you'll gt a mouthful of names and words you wouldn't want a child to hear, all carefully directed in your general direction, give or take the precision of an ICBM.

Media and marketing directors are all of the same ilk : they believe with fanatical strength that people want their "products", but they would most probably go nuts if they actually had to see ads like us in all the everyday activities that they have.

The day I will accept ads in every aspect of my life is the day they have giant screens along golf courses that yell "targeted" ads to the players all day long.

Halo 3 hits one million pre-orders

I'm with Finnbar on that one

I do not have a console at home, so I've put a blanket over my hopes of playing Halo 2 for years. Now it's out, but only on Vista. Sure, Microsoft, take me for a moron (we all know you do). Crysis is coming out on XP and Vista and you want to lure me to Vista with a game that's years out of date already ? Frankly, all that gaming I've done has not yet burned out my neurons, as you seem to think. Besides, DX10 is so artificial that my sides hurt from rolling on the floor laughing about it. You'll be putting DX10 in XP soon enough, I wager, especially given the dismal uptake of the latest bloatware you're desperately trying to shovel down our throats.

So totally outdated Halo 2 is finally on PC - albeit Vista only - and I'm supposed to get excited about Halo 3 ? That will be available on PC when again ? In 2015 ?

Man, 2015. I can only dream of what the sequel to Crysis will be by that time.

Net bride Aussie kidnapped in Mali

Not to get suspicious

But frankly, I would already have doubts if I were to pick up a Natasha in Bamako. I don't know what range of first names they have over there, but Natasha sounds much more Russian than African to me.

On the other hand, the mail above is spot on. There's experience there, and it shows ;-).

Google's permanent video sales less-than-permanent

you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos

That is why I am very wary of purchasing video/music content off the Web. Sorry, but Google is always in Beta anyway, so I don't think handing good money for a beta product is a good idea.

In any case, if I do, one day, after suffering severe concussion and massive loss of neuron connections, purchase online film, I will at least ensure that the actual data stream is downloaded to my hard disk and played from there. That way, with a bit of luck, if my vendor does indeed pull the rug like that, well after screaming and biting and kicking a whole lot (preferably dragging the vendor to court), I can maybe find a hack to make the files playable without vendor approval.

Statistically, I think I should find what I need.

The great Passenger Name Record sell out

Repetitition of attempts

"Previous attempts at this type of data gathering, "Total Information Awareness" and the proposed airline security system CAPPS-II, met with public opposition and were cancelled"

In a perfect world, the politicians should have tried once, noted the public outcry and concluded that the citizens simply DON'T WANT data gathering.

Instead, the politicians think along the line of "well, we didn't get through THIS TIME, so we'll TRY AGAIN a different way".

The fact that the very idea infringes on private life has no bearing whatsoever, of course.

Pascal.

Ex-MI5 agent Shayler claims to be chav messiah

And so it begins

"I believe no planes were involved in 9/11"

And in fifty years, there will be people who won't believe that the Twin Towers ever even existed.

Why is it that there always has to be a group of people that deny every important thing that ever happened in History ?

More importantly : why is it that some people are so adamant at dismissing the Holocaust, refusing the Gulags and now doubting the two planes, and yet these same vocal dissenters are not marching in front of the White House every day to protest the lies told by Bush to the entire world ?

Apparently it is a lot more fun to discredit the truth instead of protesting against political muckiness.

Project Hostile Intent plans 'non-invasive' DHS brainscan

We already have facial recognition technology

Well, technically, yeah, and its reliability is nowhere near what is needed to prevent massive queues or scores of false positives. It's not because it has been trialled somewhere that it is good. Actually, everywhere it has been trialled it has also been taken away due to much too many false positives.

If the government was really intent on airline security, they would make a list of what Israel's El Al does and compare to a list of what we are doing. The day they do that and promise to make the required changes is the day they will actually be serious about security. The rest is just salad dressing.

Russian firm targets wooden phones at posers everywhere

drastically overpriced

So Vertu is drastically overpriced, making these only moderately overpriced.

I imagine that there are millions of people that are tired of paying £20000 for a stupid mobile phone. Ah ! Such is the hard life of those who have to go to Sotchi to get a decent sun tan.

Well I paid €89 for my mobile, and I find it was largely enough. It's a Samsung d900i, and already on the camera side it has 3 megapixels. And as far as looks are concerned, I think mine looks just as good. Seems like I saved £4950 ! And a dolphin !

Malware license agreement tells it straight

It's a shame, really

The EULA is supposed to be a "contract" between the maker of the software and the buyer.

If that is true, then the EULA is the only contract mechanism in the world that does not obey the simple principle of commercial law that the rest of the world abides by, namely that no contract clause can be changed with explicit consent from both parties.

As such, it is indeed a shame that the only software maker to actually write an EULA like it should be is one that actually follows through on it with great diligence.

Is AV product testing corrupt?

@Dr. Bontchev

"if you put a Joe Luser in charge of administering a Linux box, he will screw it up just as surely as a Windows box"

Now that is a golden nugget of truth if ever I have seen one.

For me, all AV is wrong from the start anyway. Security should be done by allowing only known processes to run, not by running anything first and checking it's okay second.

But hey, the industry has to pander to grandma Higgs just as much as has to suit Professor Sprout, PhD. Schizophrenia is never a good thing to have.

Ban texting while driving, say Americans

Existing legislation

Whatever exists is not sufficient. By definition, the wording is never precise enough to cover the current issues.

On the other hand, in an ideal world it wouldn't be "the people" who would need to grasp the difference, it would be enough that the police and judges be able to give proper arrests and decisions.

It should not be necessary to have a law against texting so that a cop can arrest someone who is not paying attention to the road. But such is the madness of our times that no one can accept "driving dangerously" as a valid charge. No, it has to be "driving without his having hands on the wheel due to smoking a cig, texting on his Blackberry and shaving in the mirror".

And anyway, if we took a good look at our existing laws, we could most probably find a valid interpretation of it to sanction any socially deviant attitude, but that would mean that our elected Parliament officials would officially not have anything to do - which would in turn mean that nobody would have any use lobbying them, and THAT would mean the end of a nice big flow of moolah.

Can't have that, now can we ?

PC buyers: 'Vista Capable' machines weren't Vista capable

The fuss is

"The budget PC doesn't run the Premium version, but the sticker doesn't say anything about running a Premium version"

The sticker says Vista, and if people are clueless enough to buy spamvertised products, then you can hardly expect them to differentiate between OS versions, now can you ?

We'll never get alien telly, says Zagreb boffin

Logic missing here

"SETI is only looking for signals in a narrow band at 1100mhz that is not efficiently attenuated by water vapor in our atmosphere. So none of our TV is actually getting out anyway."

I'm fine in learning that SETI is only looking in a given bandwidth, but how is that related to our TV signals ? And just what allows Mr. Anon to state that stars are evenly distributed in a 100 light-year range ?

I believe out TV signals are getting out just fine and have been for past thirty years. I also believe that, 30 light-years from here, any alien civilization cruising by would have to have quite sensitive equipment to detect, decode, and analyze I Love Lucy., or The Price Is Right, or Dallas, or . . now I pray they don't have the possibility to do that.

Free download empowers black hat hackers

"Giving people a tool that makes the creation of malicious code easier is just not a good thing"

I'd object to that based on the fact that such tools already exist anyway. Making a good one that can be used by whitehats and security-minded people is just balancing things out.

Now lets not get carried away in comparisons (why on earth are we mentioning nukes and MAD ?). The subject is on securing code, not saving human lives. As far as I can see, a better tool for securing code is a good thing. Anything can be used for bad, so if good can be done better, it's a positive thing.

FaceTime exposes prospect contact info

Another one bites the dust

Another "security" firm slapped right in the face with the inadequacy of its own procedures. It would be funny if was not sad. Unencrypted files, open access to anyone with a keyboard and a clue - that's not called security by any stretch of imagination, guys.

Oh well, one can hope that, after the scapegoat hunt is over, they'll have at least learned a lesson on security and how not to approach the question.

USAF seeks control of aerial kill-bots

"Simply because we're smart enough to avoid having to go into close combat"

There's nothing smart about the USAF, it is a tool and has a job to do, just like any other part of the armed forces. The point of the article is that the job could be given to another corps, and the tool transferred to another competence.

Personally, as a civilian, I find remarks like that a bit offensive. The Army is not stupid because it "throws bodies at the problem until it is solved". The Army needs men because airplanes do not conquer countries, just likes ships cannot control a government. It is the men that do that.

Given that fact, the Army is indeed the most important force of all, and Air Force, Navy and Marines should realize that their sole reason for existence is to ensure that the Army gets where it needs to go without suffering casualties along the way.

Google to rescue Linux from Microsoft lawyers

I can't believe it

I cannot, for the life of me, imagine for one second that anybody is taken Microsofts claims seriously. No really, after SCO and years of legal hide-and-seek that finally exposed three lines of comment as sole grudge, can anyone actually believe that Microsoft has a leg to stand on ? Not to mention that we're talking about a company that has used absolutely every underhanded tactic in the book, and probably some that are not in the book, to "acquire" the code it wanted, whether or not it had a license for it.

No. The SCO business has amply demonstrated that the FOSS community is not liable to anyone. Microsoft is not going to change this.

Besides, this is the company that has patented the use of the "msgbox" moniker. Nobody else is supposed to use that in any programming language. Congratulations, Microsoft ! That really helps advance programming !

Governator vows to appeal ruling striking down video game law

It's all just fun and games

Pointing and laughing is all we can do when it comes to the USA and its quirks. Let us not forget that, in the immortal words of Robin Williams : "the Pilgrims were people that were so stuck up the English told them to get the fuck out".

With a history like that, it'll be centuries before they can act normally. Meanwhile, we'll get a lot of laughs like this.

Fake e-cards signal massive DDoS attack

This certainly demonstrates something

"demonstrating a strong ability in its authors to trick recipients into clicking through so they become infected"

Not really. This Storm worm proliferation demonstrates mostly how gullible and infatuated with themselves people still are. On the other hand, Internet access has only been widely available for quite a short time - the vast majority of users have 2MB or less of pipe (there is still 13% with only 256kbps). So Internet is still in its infancy, and many, many people will still get caught by this.

It will take a few decades more before the majority wisen up to the fact that receiving an email from a perfect stranger is NOT normal and most often NOT wanted. Meanwhile, botnets will flourish.

Mega-planet spotted orbiting fading star

Density of cork ?

and orbiting at a few miles from its parent star ? How many football fields is that exactly ?

More importantly, with a density like that, how can it possibly keep an atmosphere when it's being bombarded at such short range by the power of an intergalactic nuclear fusion plant ?

Boffins flick Quantum vacuum switch from suck to blow

The Potential for Lizard Abuse

This is where we get the first indication that the ROTM is actually our lizard overlords who, having seen the future, are determined to do what it takes to preserve their little gecko cousins - including wiping us out with speed-crazed Renaults if that's what's needed.

Thanks for the warning, Lewis. Now, where is my pickaxe ? I have to start digging that underground bunker in my back yard. Maybe I'll also raise a few geckos, just to prove that I didn't harm them.

Orange dismantles Bristol Tower of Doom

Re: Rain

Nowadays, just about anything can constitute "Incitement to Religious Hatred" - including the fact that I just mentioned it.

Yahoo! denies! China! claims!

Well, Chris

You're new around here, and that is not a question. I suggest you do a quick search for Yahoo on this site - you'll find that your suggestion was already taken into account about five years ago.

Gosh, El Reg can see five years into the future ! Now I know !

E-voting gets bitch-slapped in Calfornia

I have got to agree

I'm glad to see that other countries have sensible voting practices, Mr. Turner.

I live in France and manual ballot casting and counting are the norm. It works fine, and we have never had to recount seven times.

There are obviously some criticisms at every vote, and there is a tribunal to deal with any frauds that may come to pass (such as registering dead people to vote - yes, it's been done in France as well). All in all, it is a very reliable process, and does not cost an arm or a leg.

I wonder if there is some secret agenda in forcing these unsecure machines upon voters. It's almost as if some evil power wanted to undermine the results of an election in order to impose a candidate of its own choosing.

Pascal.

Wife of Rambus CEO outed as message board troll

built on "publicly available information"

Yeah, she just happened to have read every single relevant article the minute it came out.

No chance that she be the origin of a few tidbits, published so that she could blog about it ?

NBC muckraker gets hacked at Defcon

Well I've just watched it

And I have to say that there is a reason why professional cameramen are called "professional". For Heaven's sake, the guy recording that video could hardly keep a stable image on the podium, so imagine what it was like to "chase" someone !

Yep, shots of the floor, the ceiling and just about anything except the object of the "chase". Chase that was quite subdued by the time it got outside. I don't know about inside, since it was WAYYY to dark, but when outside, it would appear that the chase went at a leisurely stroll. She was even talking on the phone !

I was expecting hordes of angry geeks running with caffeine-filled rage. What a disappointment !

Maths might tell us how kids learn language

Vocabulary is just as important as grammar

Without vocabulary, you will not have much to say even if you know how to say it. I'd say vocabulary is more important than grammar. I was raised in the USA until age 11, when I followed my divorced mother back to France, learned French, and went through the French school system.

The irony is that I left the US school system in Junior High School and right when we had started studying grammar, and I was integrated in the French school system the year after they had finished studying French grammar.

So I know how to speak, read and write in two languages better than many, but I don't have the faintest idea why. I can tell someone if what he wrote is correct or not, but I can never justify my opinion. It's always a "gut instinct".

The one thing that helped me was my voracious reading appetite. I love reading all kinds of things, and that brought me a vocabulary much greater than the SMS-toting kids have today. It also probably showed me all the grammar stuff that I missed in school, but absorbed through the millions of words I have read.

So, in fine, I would say that vocabulary is more important than grammar.

Now, concerning this article, I am rather disappointed about the science of it. We are told that the researcher determined that his simulations demonstrated the mathematical tendency of learning better with large words. Great ! Now how were those simulations programmed ? Do we now have a precise mathematical model of brain function ? I doubt that, so what was his computer model programmed with and how is that relevant to the subject studied ?

It's easy to program a computer to give the results one wants to have. What guarantees that that has not been done here ?

Pascal.

Social networks to replace imagination and be woven into clothes

I like that one

I'll keep that in mind. Second Life : The Tamagochi world.

Fitting.

Cassini to make third Enceladus flyby

Spend money on something that saves people lives

Saving people's lives. You mean, like being able to evacuate the planet if ever a large asteroid is on a collision course ?

I'm sure that the funding of a certain Christopher Columbus probably got the same kind of reaction. Spend money on something that will save our country, like agriculture ! Stop wasting money on useless explorations projects that will bring nothing !

With that mentality, the USA would never have seen the light of day. Then again, that just might have been a good thing, who knows ?

Judge ruled against NSA surveillance in US

Spying where no terrorist is suspected

Sorry, but you're wrong there. The Bushies suspect terrorists EVERYWHERE, including the car trunk, so that argument does not hold.

Xerox job losses on the cards after all

Come now, is this supposed to be a surprise ?

I mean, really, it's not like this is the first time, now is it ? What would be much more surprising would be to learn that Xerox DID actually stay true to its word and relocated everyone.

In times of merger, restructuring or major strategic shifts, employees fear for their jobs with reason : because it has been proven time and again that even profitable companies have strictly zero compulsion to keep their employees.

Heck, the biggest ones have laid people off just to improve the year-on-year profit ratio.

Google: Kill all the patent trolls

I agree : patents not used should be discarded

And I'll take it a step further : companies should not own patents, only individuals should. Companies could hire individuals to innovate and file patents in return for a (limited) right to use the patent, but companies would not own the patents, only the right to use them.

Thereby, a company would still have the incentive of doing research, hiring the quality people to do it, and benefit from it by being able to produce the goods and profit from the idea, but they could no longer attack any patent (not having one), and no patent not in use could be used to attack one in use.

It can still work, we just have to put companies back to their rightful place : an engine that promotes economic stability and activity for all the population, and not an excuse for the few to pile on the riches.

Second Life will dwarf the web in ten years

Man, I can just imagine

the size of the bowl of white they snorted before coming on stage. Second Life is nothing but a sexual playground - and people have been screwing around with each other since the dawn of humanity (otherwise we wouldn't be here).

Now I know that computers and virtual worlds are the most important thing bar none in some people's sad lives, but for the vast majority of the world, screwing around for real will always be better than punching the snake in front of a bunch of pixels.