Posts by The Indomitable Gall

BBC newsreader kidnapped by Phillip Garrido

Andy C, be patient!

Wait till you get home -- it's better that way.

It's aaaaaaaaalll in the timing.

Sony writes up UK e-book viewer plan

USB!

If they make a model with a USB host port that I can stick a keyboard on, they've got a sale. I love my eeePC, but it ain't got an eInk display.

Commodore 64 emulator hits iPhone

@JoeFish

Yeah, but I wasn't talking about World of Spectrum -- a better retrogaming resource you will never find. 100% legal and the work of a very dedicated, hard-working bunch of people. Sadly I never did find anything from the MIA list in my cupboard, but it was fun looking!

WoS, we salute you!

Legal stuff...?

" And it's official. Well, as official as its gets when it comes to Commodore these days - the original company went bust in 1994, and it exists as little more than a brandname today. "

Read that as *nothing* more than a brand name. The C64 ROM images were never sold by CBM's liquidators, and are now mostly orphan works -- this includes the character set ROM (which you can clearly see has been included in this bundle), BASIC and the KERNAL routine code.

While most coders eschewed KERNAL routines in favour of writing their own specialised code, I'm pretty certain that at least some of the games included in this bundle use them.

So the app is technically infringing, and while no-one's quite sure who is legally entitiled to sue, it would appear most likely that the rights have reverted to the original coders. In the case of BASIC, that's Microsoft. I'm guessing that the solution coming soon is a separate abstraction layer emulating BASIC in the app, rather than running BASIC in the emulator. BASIC being so slow on the 64, there aren't many BASIC progs out there that really need accurate timing. A non-cycle-exact emulation would be sufficient for most purposes.

Oh, and @Aron... C64.com isn't any more legal than any other so-called "abandonware" site. They've not sought permission, so they ain't got no permission to distribute the games, which means they're basically operating illegally.

Why teachers fear Callum, Chelsea, Connor and Crystal

Where?

'Cos I'm sure that "Connor" is far more well-behaved in Northern Ireland where it's a pretty common name among a certain segment of the population, similar "Callum" in Scotland and the other half of the NI population.

Regardless, the uselessness of this list is underscored by the fact that we already know that being middle class is the biggest preindicator of classroom success, and these names are all (English) middle class.

CRB checks can take years to complete

1,606 days != 4 years and 5 months

No, I know what you're thinking, but I'm not from another planet. This calculation assumes that there are 365 days in a year and 7 days in a week. There's only 5 days in a week as far as the civil service is concerned, so that application presumably took a bit over 6 years.

Custard Creams can kill: Official

Statistically reliable...?

I'm wondering if this isn't just the order of popularity of said biscuits. I mean, the more we eat, the more likely we'll have an accident. Custard Creams are probably the most popular workplace/social club "tea break" biscuit because they come in massive great packs of 40, 80, 100 or more for pennies, whereas the Jaffa Cake is fairly expensive and comes in packs of 12 or 15.

Cookies are really two different things -- they're the "new doughnut" in that you can get the big chewy onesas a special Friday treat from the baker's, Millie's or Marks & Sparks, but there's also the very different crunchy ones that come in packets that aren't really any more expensive than things like Hob-Nobs. These little crunchy ones also come in the big tins or tubs containing a selection.

Oh, what's in these "Family Favourites" boxes? Quite often the following:

Custard Cream, Cookie, Wafer, Bourbon, Oat Biscuit, Digestive, Shortbread, Nice Biscuit, Chocolate Finger, Sandwich Cream (plain+chocolate coated), Jam Shortbread Sandwich (jam ring, Jammy Dodger, Happy Face)

Did they account for this? The data to hand strongly suggests that they didn't....

Labour calls for free Wi-Fi on trains

On the wires...!

There's a fairly substantial electrification process going on up here. Some kind of induction system on an extra wire ought to do the trick.

Google acts to quell critics of book deal

How many reps...?

Well, given that there were 194 recognised non-US countries at last count, these two non-US reps will need to be experts in the copyright laws of 97 countries each to be able to properly represent non-US interests.

German boffins invent steel Velcro

@Charles 9

" Another possible example: business or store name signs for leased lots and building units. Since the unit/building can potentially change hands, you don't necessarily want something that's bonded to the building for all eternity. "

Ever heard of something called a "screwdriver"...?

What's the military angle?

Come on, if Lewis wrote the article it's clearly military. Spill it: are they intending to make flat-pack gun emplacements with this stuff?

Newport Networks goes titsup

Switch and router biz...?

Is that like a 21st century "switch and bait"?

YouTube Lad from Lagos gets a bite

Aye, as they say, right.

Even in the first video it's clear that the black bloke's English from his accent (listen for words with a non-prevocalic R and for words with TH), and in hissecond vid his accent's almost like a bad attempt at French.

I'm sorry, but if someone wants to advertise in the Reg, they should be paying you. I put up with adverts because they pay for the news, but when you waste journalistic time and column bytes blithely reporting on transparent hoaxes like this for free, is it really worth it?

Apple security lags (again) with critical Java patches

Tiger predates Leopard

But they're *both* predators, not prey....

German inventor gushes over portable women's weebag

"Do not swallow the super-absorbent crystals."

Quote from the website:

"Do not swallow the super-absorbent crystals."

Just imagine having your stomach juices superabsorbed!!!!

Street View applies extra blur to Swiss

Only in Switzerland

So they're only doing it in Switzerland because of Swiss number-plates.

Great. It would appear to have escape insular American notice that all Swiss can, and most at some point do, drive across the border into France, Germany, Austria or Italy. They can even carry on driving and find themselves in any European country.

Database billionaire trampled by elephant

No apparent reason?

Ok, maybe it's not readily apparent, but I'd bet 1 to 100 that the elephant or one of his family has been targetted at some point by poachers.

Whether he was reacting to the presence of humans or the smell of diesel, the lesson is the same... stay away from elephants -- they don't like us any more.

Germany says 'nein' to Google book deal

@Roger Pearse

Roger,

You've missed the point. It's not that they're not wanting to be included in anyone's library, it's that they're saying that it's unfair that a bunch of American authors have been allowed to say "pay us and we'll let you use other stuff for free that doesn't belong to us" and claimed that this is best for all authors.

As has been stated before, "orphan works" includes by default pretty much anything that has been published anywhere in the world, but has never been published in the USA.

The settlement was made to the benefit of a fraction of the supposed class, at cost to the vast majority of members, and it is only right that governments should stand up and say that their citizens are not properly served by this. Isn't that what we pay them for? Why aren't our guys saying the same thing? Don't we pay them enough? Even after the second home?

Orange predicts death of bosses and birth of P2P offices

@Darius

Darius,

If your real PA wakes you up by whispering in your ear, I can see why you need her to organise flowers. Your wife must be livid!

NY residents sue for $100m over phone masts

To be fair...

To be fair, it is stupendously ugly in a retro-80s-pay-and-display-machine sort of way. Would it really hurt to put a bit of thought into an aesthetically less objectionable design?

Feds break Apple's code of App Store silence

In defence of Apple...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/27/canadian_privacy_commissioner_facebook_changes/

Defence rests.

Lord Mandelson wants mobile internet fix

@CraigRoberts

Once again, I feel it needs pointed out that the country does not vote for a Prime Minister in this country. It is not a presidential system. The prime minister is theoretically chosen by sitting MPs, but there is now an assumed choice of "the party's man" and no-one is asked to vote directly. The question would only be open in a coalition.

If your "I didn't vote for him" line made any sense whatsoever, it would make coalitions constitutionally impossible. It is to be assumed that the majority coalition partner would get the top job, but how could they as the people represented by the minority partner "didn't vote for him", so he would be without a majority.

So give it a rest. Once and for all (at the risk of being unfairly dismissed):

WE DON'T VOTE FOR PRIME MINISTERS.

EU consults on problems of digitising libraries

Surely...

The traditional prerequisite for publishing a new work in the UK has been to deliver copies to 5 central libraries for registration. I believe the point of this was to ensure that a work would never be irrecoverably lost. It seems logical to extend this model into the electronic realm. Any new books produced should also be provided in electronic format, and any in-copyright works that are scanned should be held by those same libraries.

This would maintain the status quo, but help it catch up with technology.

Intel says data centers much too cold

CRAC dealers...?

You just couldn't leave it alone, could you?

Snow Leopard - what doesn't work

Now you've done it!

That's trade secrets, that is!

Burn in litigious hell, El Reg!

Boffins render full HD million-point animated hologram

2D resolution...?

Surely a 3D picture has a height, width and *depth*...?

Blazing laptop of death claims one

Another solution...

...remove the battery.

When I'm at home, I take the battery out an run off the mains. Charging and discharging kills battery life. Attempting to continue charging a full battery (which most laptops do) kills battery life. Charging a battery, and more importantly attempting to continue charging a full battery, generates a lot of heat. Even if this heat reaches the shut-off sensors for the processor, switching off the processor doesn't stop the source of the heat: the battery. In fact, by making more power available to the battery charger, a heat cut-out increases the risk of the battery overheating and setting itself alight.

Probably.

(I am not a chemist or an electrician.)

Sharp intros 5in ARM-based netbook

Stopitstopitstopit

I've already got two netbooks -- stop tempting me!

US music publishers sue online lyrics sites

Re: Why? Madness! WTF? etc

"Have you ever actually known someone that would go out and purposely BUY just the lyrics for a song (be it via sheet music or some other form)?"

I used to have ambitions as a pub singer (when RSI was threatening to make any other job impossible.

I now own quite a few songbooks, and in general the most important bit is the lyrics, because in many cases they're not pronounced clearly on the recordings. You don't have the same problem with tunes.

Plus, the lyrics don't belong to the performer, but to the writer. Sleevenotes usually only contain lyrics where they were written by the band -- the band forego the possibility of extra royalties from the printed material in order to make a more appealling product and increase sales. The increased sales benefit performers more than writers, so most professional writers do not license their lyrics for sleevenotes as they want to sell more songbooks.

Basically, it's someone's work and fair dos -- they want paid.

@Paul 125

" From what I was taught at school, its illegal to photocopy lots of music, but you can copy it by hand free of charge. "

Not quite. What you're talking about is out of copyright stuff like Beethoven, Mozart et al. The tune is in the public domain, but a particular publisher's typesetting is in copyright, so you can copy the tune freely, but not the typesetting. With music that is still in copyright (Beatles, Stones, Rogers & Hammerstein, Jackie Wilson etc), copying the tune is still technically infriging on the writer's copyright.

Huge 'vampyrus' bats being hunted to extinction

Oh my God, they killed Kevin! you b@st@rds

Come on, I can't be the only one who was thinking about the Fruit pastilles adverts....

Sony posts 'Daily Edition' e-book reader teaser

But will it have...?

A wireless eInk Linux box would be something special. All it now needs is a few cunningly concealed pins connected to a USB host chipset and you would have something very special indeed.

Or...

Is SDIO a software or hardware feature? Could reflashing the device with a suitable custom distro give us an SDIO-enhanced pocket computer? And will anyone ever actually bring out an SDIO USB host adapter?

Aussie birds 'desperate to copulate with brainy males'

Duff science.

Right, so knowing the optimum conditions for sexual success, they interfered with the natural conditions. In their artificial environment, only the cleverest could achieve the optimal conditions. This doesn't say anything about the inherent brain-factor in mate choice.

What they need to do is revisit next year and determine if the same birds that managed to repair the bowers to optimal or near-optimal f*nny magnet status do well when some irritating snotty student doesn't go depimping their rides on them.

Channel 4 to go 3D

3D TV is stuffed

Problem is, there's no such thing as "a TV" any more.

Your CRT is interlaced. True interlacing, where a pixel's a pixel's a pixel.

If you try using polarised light or shutter-lenses, you've got to think about Plasmas and LCDs and persistence of colour output and variable refresh-rates and rescaling and and and...

Sadly, colour filter is the only truly "portable" standard.

Apple to offer own-brand HDTV, claims analyst

iPass on this one....

"An iTunes TV Pass offering unlimited pay monthly access to the library’s content archives could also launch within 12 months, Munster said, effectively replacing a consumer’s monthly cable bill."

Unfortunately, as your cable operator is probably also your broadband supplier, this sort of thing would not discourage those very same "fair use limits" that have hobbled internet video distribution up till now.

It also wouldn't encourage said cable broadband providers to introduce differential pricing -- imagine selling someone something that makes your main money-making services obsolete. Not a sound business decision.

What's needed is a complete separation of carrier and content, so the carriers can make the efficiencies that are best for the consumer, rather than for the content provider....

US women protest for the right to bare

Re: What did you expect?

@AC

"Then again, believing that your team is "best" regardless of what evidence lies before you is blind-faith in the same vein as the existence of a god."

Same goes for working-class socialist types who still vote for Labour....

Beer.. cos.. well.. working class and that.

Dan Brown is most unwanted author says Oxfam

Re: Revolving door?

You know, Anonymous John (if that is your real name), it's actually cheaper (free) to get the book from your local library than from Oxfam.

Furthermore, as he's not their best-selling author, clearly they have more copies coming in than going out, so unless Dan Brown's books are so far removed from literature and so close to pond-scum that they have evolved the ability to reproduce asexually, Oxfam is getting many virgin copies.

Maybe by Guy Fawkes Night they'll have enough copies for a bonfire. All we need is an effigy of Tom Hanks to stick on top....

Apple applies for in-call music swapsies iPhone patent

There may be something new here...

If I'm not mistaken, they're talking about using a shared connection available to multiple applications. That's new... ish.

Is it non-obvious? I don't think so. At the moment we're happy with multiple concurrent connections for a reason: allowing external apps to use a connection initiated by a different app is a security risk and messes up the whole idea of trusted connections and certificates.

The only reason Apple think that they can get away with this is because of the closed app-store environment -- technically every app should be trusted. However, if they fail to stop jailbroken phones from using this technology, they've just opened one hell of an acute attack vector....

Music downloads greener than buying CDs

Re: If I get this right

@Tony Paulazzo

"you're saying that pirates are saving the planet? Wonder if that would work in a court of law?"

Let's moot it:

Prosecution: So, you say that you downloaded these 5 gazillion tracks in order to save the planet.

Defendant: That's right.

Prosecution: I would now like to point the court's attention to the exhibit 6D, an extract from the defendant's "blog". It says, and I quote "These big labels don't know what's good for them. I use downloads to discover new music. Since I started downloading, I've bought more CDs than ever before." I put it to you that you download merely for your own avarice, and that you will simply tack on any excuse that you believe justifies your selfish actions.

Orbital skydives to follow inflatable heatshield success?

What's the HP angle?

That's "Harry Potter" not "Hewlett Packaging^H^H^H^Hrd".

You know, broomsticks, quidditch, cloaks...?

HP strikes back on charges for 'free' Windows 7 upgrade

Daylight robbery.

Ok, a postage and handling charge is one thing, but this is a fair bit north of a reasonable charge. It certainly shouldn't cost 10 times as much to send out 10 copies as to send out one.

And Microsoft shouldn't be shrugging their shoulders on this one: they should have done this by electronic distribution. Their choice, their fault.

Online minor marketing law marked web's 'worst'

Re: It's broad if they suggest "Marketing".

@ Cardare Anbraxas:

" You gather information that could be used for marketing immediately such as IP addresses, browser, any loaded frameworks, engines or plugins, version of OS, screen resolution and many many more. "

So tell me, Cardare (if that is your real name), is my browser version medical information in your world, or is it just considered "personal"?

ProStor makes new money from old data

Further info needed.

So why should the enterprise go for ProStor rather than simply buying an external SATA dock and a stock of SATA drives?

What's the deal-breaking tech they're bringing to the table?

Japan torture flick sickens UK film censor

Publicity and downloading

Yes, so people will download it.

But the guys who wrote the thing won't profit from it.

The thing with films is that they're commercial ventures -- they get made only as long as the money's in it.

BlackBerry Curve 8520

Hooray!

No more crappy underresponsive trackball. But given that all the basic functions of a Blackberry expect click-click-up-down, why not just have cursor keys...?

Zombie plague analysed by Canadian maths prof

Lighten up!

To the (surprisingly few) who've made disparaging comments about this paper: lighten up!

They're having a laugh while exploring the extreme limits of current epidemiology models. They could have made their own doomsday scenario, but this is far more engaging.

And for those who've made disparaging comments about *that* name: quite right. If he wanted to write papers about zombies, he should have called himself Rooobert Smiiiiiiiith.

Apple won't take tablet to September iPod event, says mole

mmm... tablet....

http://scruss.com/tablet.html

Researchers forge secure kernel from maths proofs

Bartenders (re: 'c' code ?)

@ vincent himpe

What's your point? The bartender's problem is a matter of "blinding with science". It's works by assuming false premises, and expressing them in such a matter-of-fact way that the listener takes them as given.

In fact, I've been asked variations on the bartender's problem without actually knowing the answer themselves. When I explain how it works, I sometimes find they're so trapped in the illusion that they refuse to accept the answer. (Are you one of these...?)

The thing with computers is that yes, they are reliant on valid input, and false premises programmed in can be a stopping point, but if they have all the appropriate information, their lack of a brain means there's no psychological tricks you can employ to convince them not to explore the full search space.

Directgov farms out web content across Europe

Abroad...

"But the downside for some is that potentially sensitive government data ends up cached abroad. "

How many EU countries have weaker data protection than ours? (genuine question)

Jetpod 'flying taxi' inventor dies in prototype crash

RIP.

Condolences to family and loved ones.

He had the guts to put himself in the way of danger rather than a test pilot -- that makes him one of the good guys in my book.

Dell boxes VGA cable to within an inch of its life

Re: Meh

"Who uses VGA cables anyway"

Well at least analogue video has graceful degradation (hence colour changes when he wiggles the cable). Your HDMI cable either works or doesn't. That's digital for you.