Posts by Jean-Luc Peurière

Bill Buxton to change Microsoft from within, hug Steve Ballmer

Very telling

The fact he does not answer on the ribbon question is very telling.

The changes that need Ms are radical, not evolution, and this can only happen if they start by assessing what is crap and what is ok to keep. Yes, there is some good stuff in windows (well hidden).

Wont happen.

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

That is not the first attempt to such a database

The first attempt date back from 1974 (SAFARI database), and the uproar was such that il leaded to the creation of CNIL which was empowered to check that all databases are complying to the law (public and private companies ones), and strong privacy laws were adopted.

In 2004, the CNIL power to oppose against government policies was reduced to only giving an advice.

Here the government wanted to not even publish the creation to Journal Officiel (Where all laws and decrees are published) and put a secret blanket on it. CNIL opposed to that, but could not oppose the database itself.

Strangely we could oppose succesfully to such files when no privacy law existed, only what the constitution gives, and now, with strong such laws enacted, the government try to pull a fast one ? This is democraty ?

safeguards is the real problem

Being French, I follow that quite closely.

Actually, the uproar is not so much about the file existence per se, but about safeguards. One similar tightly regulated file (STIC) exist already, but it gather a lot less information (and only on people actually involved with a police inquiry) and its consultation/use is recorded and reserved to law officers. There was already problems with that one (you can be added to it just by being the victim or a witness, rate of errors is high), but there is clear procedures about who, when, how.

Here, such safeguards dont exist at all, in fact the file existence was known only when the CNIL delivered a negative advice. CNIL teeths having been pulled out, its advices are not anymore mandatory to follow and the government tried to push the decree while everybody was on hollydays.

Also the link to other files is explicity seeked.

Customs raids tech trade show

the true question

is are the customs female officers issued the bullet-proof bra the reg reported earlier ?

Internet Explorer - now with 35% less FAIL

Acid

@Ben Brandwood :

dev builds of Opera too, and Omniweb. Well the latter use webkit so not really a surprise it does as well as safari.

21 on Acid3 ?

Really a shame, even if Acid 3 looks in the dirty corners, not in main stuff like version 2 did.

Aussie school trials use of gadgets in exams

nothing really new

Open book exams are nothing of new.

I had some in metallurgy and fluids mechanic some 20 years ago.

The key is of course to not request a digest of the course syllabus but a real understanding of the subject. And this kind of exams are i think better to rate students than a pure memory exercise.

Now, the idea of asking the sources too is quite well thought.

ISO rejects Office Open XML appeal (redux)

Those who lose are users

A standard must meet some requirements :

- be a full description of the subject. OOXML fails that

- be the most orthogonal possible. OOXML fails that

- be implementable by everybody, and if patents are involved only RAND royalties. Only M$ can implement OOXML because only them know what formatlikeWindows98 means. Patents involved are not even described

- reuse existing standard. MS created 2 new competitors for SVG in OOXML.

So sorry, but the problems are real and not the inventions of people hating MS.

ISO procedures were gamed to get to this result.