Posts by Morely Dotes 939 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007
"Maybe security do need to take everything seriously but there's a point where some common sense should come into the equation!"
If they had common sense, they'd be holding down a real, productive job instead of making strangers take of their shoes.
The US Administration has profited greatly from inculcating the gullible with the "War on Terror" and the UK government has seen that and enviously tried to outdo Bush & Co.
Only the stupid and the deliberately ignorant can fail to see that the "War on Terror" is in fact a war on the free citizens of both nations, and a bald-faced attempt to abrogate the freedoms guaranteed by the blood of the generations that have gone before, as far back as the Magna Carta.
There's nothing remotely funny about the modern Schutzstaffel.
"The US Navy will attempt to shoot down a ... satellite" is GWB's cowboy terminology. the Navy will do no such thing. What the Navy will do is attempt to break up the satellite so that, as it *continues* to fall into the atmosphere, most of the pieces are destroyed by reentry friction.
The fact that the USA currently has an illiterate chimp in the White House, shitting out press releases, does not remove the obligation that journalists have to check facts and attempt to use proper terminology. I wouldn't expect that of *\_The_Sun_'s hacks, but El Reg usually does a better job.
If a user somehow finds a way to exceed the already-throttled uplink speed provided by Comcast (it was capped at 256k last time I used Comcast), then it's reasonable to lower that user's cap to 128k *IF AND ONLY IF* the T&C has been printed on dead tree material, mailed to the user via certified, return-receipted mail, and contains a specific provision for a permanent uplink speed cap in the event the original cap is somehow circumvented (and if the "violation" ocurred at least 90 days after the certified delivery).
If Comcast can't provide the bandwidth they promised when they sold the service, then they are legally, morally, and ethically obligated to obtain sufficient bandwidth to "deliver the goods" as promised.
Throttling a specific *type* of service is completely unreasonable, and appears to be evidence that Comcast's management is taking money under the table from the RIAA and MPAA.
But that's the type of behavior that helped me make the decision to dump Comcast. I've never looked back.
(And hardly the first, I am sure.)
Put Parliament into space - all of them, voluntarily or not. Once they are there, they can vote funding to develop a means of returning them to Earth, or not, whatever they please.
I have often proposed that if we in America can put one Senator into space, we ought to do it for all of Congress, and the Administration as well, for much the same reasons.
The Grey, for obvious reasons.
Funny how that works.
I give away at least 10 copies of Linux every week. I also give away "Software for Starving Students," from softwarefor.org, because even Windows users need to be taught that there *is* such a thing as free-of-charge software, and that it's every bit as good (or in most cases, better) than the commercial stuff that's sold in shiny landfill-destined plastic boxes.
Education works. Thing is, the educator needs to know at least one more lesson than the student does, and Microsoft has a dismal track record in that regard.
"But the big question is micrometorites and space debris - I am just not sure how much protection you are getting in a Bigelow inflatable bungalow. Nor how much cosmic ray and radiation shielding exists."
Not much less protection than the ISS, really. Anything big enough to make a dangerously-large hole in the inflatable habitat would also be dangerous to the ISS; it's the internal atmosphere that really stops the micro-sized bits that do penetrate the outer shell. Make a double hull (which I would insist on, if I were going up) and there's less danger in the bubble than there is in a commercial airliner.
I suspect that the Bigelow Bubbles are in a low enough orbit that the same magnetic fields that protect you from harmful radiation in London, will also protect you in space. Haven't checked on it, really.
No, it's not totally secure. Nothing is.
Linux is simply more secure than Windows because of major design differences; if operating systems were compared to, say, a mosquito net, Linux would be a mosquito net with a few small holes in it, while Windows would be a mosquito net made from chicken wire.
I'm sure the receipts will be a great comfort to your survivors, after the plods kill you, execution style, for "suspicion of carrying a concealed unlicensed audio file." And, as a bonus, they'll have your DNA on file, too. Until they lose the data because some git sent it through the Post without any tracking applied.
"So instead of wrecking the atmosphere with carbon, we have to dispose of lots of lovely radioactive spent fuel with a half life measured in millenia. Sweet!"
Dear fuckwit: That radioactive material is *already* here. All we need to do is bury it deep when we're done with it (since we dug it up in the first place) in a reasonably-stable salt formation, under, perhaps, Nevada, or London (since that's clearly also useless wasteland).
Blizzard has somewhere around 10 million subscribers for the World of Warcraft online game, and they can manage to do their regular maintenance starting at 3 AM Pacific Coast time.
I'm reasonably sure RIM has more than 10 million Crackberry subscribers. Either they have severely underpriced their services, or they can afford to start (and complete) system downtime during the wee hours (and perform a test run on a hot spare server, in case there's still some nasty surprise lurking in the patches come "upgrade" day).
Yes, it's "just" email, and as a sysadmin I think (actually, I *know*) that it's not a life-threatening issue. However, RIM appears to have knowingly and deliberately ignored even the most basic principles of good network management.
"What's wrong with the shuttle" is not that "the shuttle isn't exactly reliable" but that only half of it was ever built. Please see http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/shuosals.htm and http://books.google.com/books?id=Te1HNZN6ah0C&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=%22space+shuttle%22+original+design&source=web&ots=8JBNHiA6np&sig=FTUOM_wUfh7kAjWvMD5vchRkOfo
Because the "fleet" has been reduced by two vehicles (both disasters being directly caused by the removal of the reusable lower section, and replacement with the SRBs and external fuel tank), there simply aren't enough flights left in the design life of the Shuttle to divert it for recovery of a malfunctioning military satellite.
I'm sure the military would very much prefer to get their bird back; it just can't be done, due to the US Congress choosing dollars over human life (14 dead astronauts saved how many billions of dollars? And cost how many more?).
Ah, then there's a get-around for the VCRA, isn't there? Just spray-paint your real gun some unrealistic colour, such as International Orange, and you can carry it anywhere you like.
No, I'm not kidding. It's time UK citizens once again had the ability to defend themselves from uniformed terrorists.
"mobile spam will prompt [subscribers] to change providers or opt out of mobile advertising and marketing opportunities"
Awww. Will the poor widdle scumbags trying to sell snake oil to the cellphone subscribers find themselves (rightly) regarded as subhuman parasites, to be shunned and reviled?
Good!
The Jolly Roger, because it's also the marking on the bottle of rat poison, which should be fed to all "marketers" at birth.
As an IT professional supporting offices in BC, Quebec, most of the US States, Chile, Europe, and Australia, I would rate the Canadian services the least honest in their dealings with customers, and that's quite something. Even Comcast in the USA is less prone to deceptive advertising.
Paris, because, unlike telecoms salesmen, she doesn't really know if she's lying to you or not.
"No lethal injections needed. Birth rates go down as people get richer. Happened everywhere people have indeed got rich so far."
As a rule, poor nations are agrarian, and have a high infant mortality rate. As a consequence, the birth rate is higher to (1) compensate for the high infant mortality rate, and (2) increase the available number of "free" fieldhands helping Dad (and often Mom, too) on the property.
Overcompensation is the rule, leading to overpopulation. Want these people to stop having a dozen kids per couple? Make them "rich" by their standards (or "poverty level" by Western standards) and they won't see the need for 12 kids.
"Website glitz is a poor metric for application performance"
I must disagree. In my experience, website glitz is a reliable metric for application performance - but it's an inverse relationship. So, compare VirtualBox and Microsoft Windows. Which one has the glitzy website? Which one sucks? Oh, look, it's the same answer either way!
Feel free to substitute Macromedia/Adobe, Norton, McAfee, or any "big name" software publishers for Microsoft Windows in the above comparison.
As for the snide comments by the El Reg hack - well, what can you expect, really? Journalism 101 doesn't usually teach tech savvy, after all, and it's common among the illiterati (is there a semi-literati?) to deride that which they cannot grasp.
"put DRM into every file in windows"
No worries. In the unlikely event that ever happens, the number of people telling MS to piss off forever will convince the developers to start releasing for other OSes (Linux, Solaris, BSD, OS X, maybe even OS/2, it still works, after all).
Well, I suppose the NSA had better send the "suicide" signal to all that Cisco kit that China has, then. Wouldn't want China's Government to think the "Great Firewall of China" was being used to spy on them.
Just cut them off, and eliminate all the spam the PRC's government-owned servers are relaying for American spammers at the same time. Two good deeds for the price of one!
"What's interesting (and infuriating), is that cable companies invariably offer much faster speeds in the areas where FiberOptic lines are available"
Speeds up to 30Mbps down are available for Verizon FiOS in my area. Comcast cannot offer more than 10Mbps down because the DOCSIS cable modems are physically incapable of anything faster (and in reality, offering more than 5Mbps down is a good way to get sued for false advertising).
I had Comcast's service. I dumped them for DSL which was advertised at 3Mbps down when I moved. It was, in fact, 3Mbps. Comcast was claiming 6Mbps at the timr I dumped them. Actual measurements showed somewhere in the 1Mbps range. When it became available, I moved to Verizon FiOS, and I now have 15Mbps down and 2Mbps up. Actual measurements show this to be pretty accurate, even during "peak hours."
Best advice I can give: Dump Comcast if you have any other practical choice.
"It took Edison 100's of attempts before he got a working lightbulb."
And recent rumour is that he stole that design. What's documented is that Francis Upton was actually the "engineering lead" in the practical incandescent bulb design, not T.A. Edison.
http://www.unmuseum.org/lightbulb.htm
"it always amazes us Brits that despite the dazzling array of no-expense spared kit, Americans can't hit the right target."
Yes, it's a good job the British forces never make mistakes, isn't it?
http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/12/18/british-troops-kill-danes-in-friendly-fire/
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3774/
Sorry, I don't have links to any British-initiated friendly-fire incidents earlier than 1471 AD.
Friendly fire incidents are always tragic regrettable. Arrogant gits such as Tawakalna, however, make one wonder if sometimes they aren't accidental, and maybe even sometimes justifiable.
In the event you get a letter form the BSA, the proper response is to replay (via certified mail, return receipt required) to the effect that "All employees and/or agents of the Business Software Alliance (also including anyone currently or previously employed by this firm but reporting to the BSA, either openly or surreptitiously), their family members, heirs, and assigns, are permanently banned from our premises, with immediate effect, in perpetuity. Our premises include but are not limited to the physical plant(s), Internet Web sites and other network servers, desktop and laptop computers, and any electronic correspondence and traffic sent from or destined for computers operated by or on behalf of our business. In the event you beleive our licensing to be inadequate, you are invited to pursue that belief through proper law enforcement channels We reserve the right to forcibly eject any BSA agents from our premises and invoice the BSA for the costs involved is so doing."
This is most effective if one's licensing is in order. And using free open-source software is recommended to avoid having to deal with odious licensing arrangements, of course.
Cult: A group superstition which is rejected by the rational.
Religion: A group superstition which is embraced by the otherwise-rational.
Superstition: A belief which is contrary to demonstrated facts, or which cannot be tested in any way,
To my mind, there's no difference. Moonies, Catholics, Republicans, Christian Democrats, [insert your favorite dead horse] and Wikipedians all believe in things which are clearly contrary to facts.
BT should charge third-party ISPs, such as Tiscali, 125 Pounds Sterling to unbundle the line in the first place, then let the customer come back for free if he so chooses. If an engineer isn't required to "rebundle," BT gets to keep the dosh.
The sooner Tiscali goes titsup, the sooner the Internet will be free of one well-known virus farm, and the leeches that own it.
"That potentially presents a major problem for the first brigade of Linux-based FCS vehicles expected to be introduced in 2015. Linux-based systems have a limited ability to communicate with Microsoft-based systems. And interoperability issues aren't something you want to deal with in a war zone."
That comment is incorrect, and in the wrong sequence. The correct phrase is:
"Microsoft operating systems are deliberately designed to limit their ability to interoperate."
Linux follows industry-wide standards. Microsoft does not. Furthermore, there is little or no actual communication problem between Linux and Windows; "file shares" (aka SMB) work, ordinary TCP/IP network traffic works, SQL queries work, remote desktop clients and servers on both sides work.
Your article throws FUD at people who don't know the truth about Linux and industry standards. I prefer to think that's caused by ignorance, rather than malice or corruption.
"world's most obnoxious telco"
I'd disagree on that point. AT&T has done far more to annoy me than Verizon ever has (and Verizon nearly destroyed my business, so I certainly have no reason to love them).
Otherwise, insofar as I can follow the Byzantine twists and turns of the bidding process, a good article.
It should be note, Sir Runcible Spoon, that Microsoft's "security" patches traditionally install new security holes, to replace the old ones. Ergo, lack of "security patches" is not important. Use a real, hardware-based firewall, and the various and sundry proven third-party security products on your XP PC, and you'll be as safe as anything using an MS OS can be.
"Mystery of the vanishing printer. My HP laser printer sometimes just dissappears... Then it has to be re-installed from scratch. Very annoying."
John, that's not a Vista issue. It's the reason we stopped buying HP printers at $DAY_JOB (well, that and the complete dog's breakfast they've made of "customer support"). I am only guessing, but I think HP has outsourced their driver development team to SE Asia, and as a result, the drivers are now, to be a bit charitable, shite.
When you change to another brand of printer, you'll find the problem vanishes.
The problem, Tim, is that WGA has a habit of deciding that perfectly-legitimate installs are "pirated," and Microsoft has wisely decided that they can afford to risk a little piracy, more than they can afford to risk a class-action lawsuit for "sale of merchandise unsuitable for purpose" if their pet WGA happens to shut down the wrong organisation's business-critical systems.
Of course, there's a counter-argument (that no one in his right mind runs business-critical systems on Microsoft OSes), but it's bloody unlikely that MS' lawyers would want to advance that in their defense.
See http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/7/21/4722 and http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070124-8690.html for more background.
"Yahoo's services are largely rubbish too, I don't see what Microsoft intends to gian by buying another 3rd rate service."
They intend to gain control of a large number of Internet users who have already been involuntarily moved to Yahoo's online portal and mail servers by AT&T.
Unless net neutrality is forced by law, Microsoft would then have the *legal* ability to prevent their captive audience from ever seeing Google.
And that might be just enough leverage for Microsoft to firmly establish the monopoly they so strongly desire - total control of the "customer experience" (read: Microsoft decides what you can see, and what you can't) on the Internet.
I.T. professionals have know for decade(s) that airborne contaminants will settle on the lens in an optical drive and degrade performance; in extreme cases, they can totally disable the drive's ability to read discs. It also affects DVD players and video tape recorders (although VCRs tend to wear out the heads, which are not optical, long before contaminants are a problem).
Cigarette smoke (or candle smoke, or cooking vapors, etc., etc.) is something that is *expected* to cause problems.
Protect your drives by covering the console/PC with a non-porous material when the power is off, and keep a good-quality air filter running near the electronic gear at all times.
"Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a competitive choice"
To what, the manual Rolodex? Microsoft's "searhc engine" migh be more aptly named the "pull something out of my arse and call it a result engine," and Yahoo hasn't had a viable search engine for years; too many irrelevant results, and no serious effort (nothing effective, anyway) made to prevent spammers from poisoning the results.
Or does MS want to consolidate the MSN Live/Hotmail user base with the Yahoo Mail userbase (thus alienating both groups)? Or perhaps the Yahoo Instant Messenger users can be convinced to bugger off along with the Windows Live Messenger users?
I don't know what this is all about, but one thing I am sure of - it's all smoke and mirrors, intended to distract attention from the *real* monopolistic move that Ballmer has planned.
I swear, I first read "Latinate rebranding" as "Latrinate..."
That's as may be, but, "Vialtus moves beyond 'speeds and feeds' to focus on finding solutions to business problems through a suite of managed services," tells me that Vialtus is going to focus on solving *their* business problems ("We need to make shedloads of money fast, without any investment") and play fast and loose with terms like "unlimited" (which means "extremely limited, and capped at our whim"). And when they promise you 10Mbps downstream, you should expect to see 256kbps. Unless, of course, you have already exceeded the secret bandwidth limit for the month, in which case 9.6kbps is going to be closer to the truth.
"A good 50% insisted on continuing to repeatedly ask about train times and only rang of in frustration when the operator essentially refused to answer their query."
The poor fire service operator should have replied, "we're terribly sorry, but British Rail has canceled all trains today because the scheduling office has been deluged with calles from useless tossers trying to report fires."
You have premium rate numbers that are in the same prefix section as ordinary users' numbers...
And you apparently don't have number portability; that is, here in the USA, once a number is assigned to me or my business, I can take that number with me wherever I go (mobile, at least; obviously, if I move my business to a different area code, I don't think I can take a complete 10-digit landline number with me).
Frankly, the whole concept is baffling. The UK and Europe are usually so far ahead of the USA on technology of this sort, that I'm left wonder if Paris Hilton managed to get a job designing your dialing system.
"[A] number of the defendant's statements - such as ... his obsession with security - can be reasonably viewed to demonstrate his consciousness of guilt."
So, then, shouldn't every member of the Department of Homeland Security be up on charges of terrorism? Oh, and Misters Bush and Cheney, as well? After all, they are clearly obsessed with security.
What do you mean, "That's different?" *HOW* is it different?
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