* Posts by Diane Miller

24 publicly visible posts • joined 7 May 2008

Evil plot to control souls via Wi-Fi thwarted

Diane Miller

Didn't any of you notice...

...that the picture accompanying the "apology" was a woman in a tin foil hat? I don't believe they were actually apologizing. Whether they created the original email or not, I can't say, but either way I think they're simply generating some publicity and having a little fun in the process.

Verity Stob and the super subjunction

Diane Miller

@Squarebob

Would it properly be !!!!! !!!!! !!! or !!! !!!!! !!!!! ????? ????? ?????

Mentally ill file-sharer had 'low self-esteem'

Diane Miller

Recorded for posterity?

I'm sorry, guys. I see a distinct difference between recording something off the television to watch later - maybe much later - and uploading dozens, hundreds or thousands of songs to a P2P network for others to download. Maybe that's just me, though.

Got a buck to send M Night Shyamalan to film school?

Diane Miller

@Aaron Em

>...the third most hackneyed cliche in all of science fiction.

OK, I have to ask: what are the first two?

Diane Miller

Hmm

"he just has terrible scripts" - so he's a bad writer.

"can't get good performances out of actors" - so he's a bad director.

"thinks he is a wondrous genius (etc)" - so he's a pompous ass.

But apart from that, he's a good filmmaker?

Serial hacker admits breaching Federal Reserve computers

Diane Miller

Absolutely right!

We should only be using REAL 1s & 0s. These cost-cutting measures have gone much too far!

Prepping the great Windows 7 migration

Diane Miller

Or

You could ditch IE all together...

Dear US gov: Stay the hell out of Silicon Valley

Diane Miller

"Yes, government is good for many things..."

Why, yes, it is. Things like... umm, well, like...

...

I'll get back to you on this.

Hitachi quietly slips in new, big hardness

Diane Miller

Amen to that

The first HDD I ever used was a whopping 10MB, and I remember wondering at the time how I would ever use so much space.

God that makes me feel old...

MS freebie anti-virus scanner auto-downloads provoke more anger

Diane Miller

@Mr. Willetts

How many times has a new piece of malware been released that's detected by, say, Avast and Symantec but not by anyone else? (Just an example, of course.) That's why competition in AV software is a good thing. If there were only one engine out there, it would be much easier to write malware that avoids detection.

Palin email hacker asks judge for leniency

Diane Miller

@Chris Hatfield

Umm... no, she didn't. She emailed pictures and so on to some friends who happened to work for the Alaska state government. Even Rubico admitted there was nothing in the email account that he could use against her.

I take it you've never used a webmail account to contact co-workers outside of the work environment?

Men suffer most in recession

Diane Miller

@Sarah Bee

Thank you, Sarah.

If the methodology of the report is as you all SURMISE it to be, then you're absolutely right and the conclusions are worthless. I note, however, that you're all jumping on the "obviously it's the effects of childbirth" bandwagon without bothering to check the report itself. Theorizing in advance of the facts is a capital offense.

Texan cooks up deep-fried Guinness

Diane Miller

@VTW

So, the Brits are the only ones who know how to cook and what to eat? Meaning no offense, as I'm rather fond of Britain, but I'm thinking "not so much".

Royal Society opens inquiry into why kids hate tech

Diane Miller

Is programming a fundamental literacy?

>>Is programming still a fundamental literacy for the modern age?

As a teacher and programmer - no, and it never was. I don't need to be able to build a TV set to watch Doctor Who.

That having been said, someone else pointed out that a little knowledge would be a useful thing, and that I agree with wholeheartedly. It's amazing how many students run through my math classes with no idea how any of this works. Somehow, computers just "know" what to do.

Craigslist 'killer' kills himself

Diane Miller

@Andus

In so far as I'm aware (my degree is in physics, not law), evidence in the States is never automatically destroyed except by explicit court order. It can be lost by acts of God or sheer incompetence (which, I suppose, is also an act of God), but outside of that all evidence is preserved for some rather lengthy period of time. It can be sealed so that no one can see it without the aforementioned explicit court order, but that's a different thing.

Private lessons

Diane Miller
Joke

I'm not certain

... on the exact distinction between "God" and "root". Could you elaborate?

El Reg marks Steve Jobs for termination

Diane Miller

On behalf of Americans everywhere

... I'd like to apologize for my fellow countrymen without senses of humor. Or, I suppose, senses of humour. Take your pick.

Radiation warning labels for deadly mobes!

Diane Miller

@AC re: mileage

As may be, but if we assume straight linearity in the power, a 1.2kW hair dryer is 600 times worse than a 2W phone. I do spend 5 - 10 minutes a day with my hair dryer. 10 minutes with a hair dryer, then, is equivalent to about 100 hours with a phone. I don't know anyone who spends 100 hours a day on the phone, although I'm sure Mr. Gore can find someone.

NASA moon-bomb probe strikes rich seam of fruitcake

Diane Miller

As a woman

I'm personally embarrassed by some of those coments. Would that I could convince myself they were jokes...

/facepalm

Before Pong, there was Computer Space

Diane Miller

I've seen those

My brother told me about one of those machines in one of the first shopping malls, Southland at Hayward, California. Apparently it sat in the mall just outside of the Woolworth's. It was weird enough looking that he conned my parents into letting him try it for a dollar or two while they were shopping. I was about five at the time, so my memories are limited.

I ran into my own version of this visiting my grandparents in about 1982 in the video arcade at Bell's Amusement Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It wasn't a bad game at all, and not nearly as hard as this makes it sound. I wonder if it's still there...

BBC's TV detector vans to remain a state secret

Diane Miller

License fees verses commercials

If I ever watched any of those "doctors telling [me] about irritable bowel syndrome", I might agree with you that license fees are preferable. Fortunately, that's why God made DVR's.

King Arthur was English 'propaganda', French claim

Diane Miller

"reduce his pride in his land"

I'm not British, so perhaps I'm not entitled to an opinion, but I honestly can't imagine anything the French could say that would - or should - affect the average Brit's pride in his land. Consider the source, and all.

Son of 419 victim contacts El Reg

Diane Miller

@Chris Walker

In my heart of hearts, I agree with you that only the deeply stupid fall for 419 scams. Nonetheless, the fact that these scams are *still* going on just proves that there are a very large number of deeply stupid people in the world. The Internet turns us into one large village, with an enormous number of village idiots.

AMD now has 'more than allegations' against Intel

Diane Miller

I don't think he's misrepresenting the argument

In the first case, I think he's simply pointing out that a perfectly reasonable volume discount plan could look like an anti-competitive exclusivity agreement. In that case, AMD would be making the accusation on reasonable grounds, but there would turn out to be no substance to it.

In the second case, I think he's simply expressing doubt that Intel would go so far as to insert such nerfing-functionality into their compilers. I'm less sanguine about that one, but it should be easy to test. AMD must have copies of the compiler floating around - pick one and reverse-engineer it. If the bad functions are there, they'll be found.