Posts by Charles 9

Emergency declared at second quake-wracked Japanese nuke plant

Japan knows a thing or two.

Japan is one of the most earthquake- and tsunami-aware countries in the world. Considering its geography, the bad luck of such an unprecedented incident (an 8.9 hasn't been felt in Japan in recent history, so no serious information to work with) has been tempered significantly with planning. It's just that, in this case, even the best-laid plans go awry, especially when you get big tsunamis right after the quake: not giving people a lot of time to head for high ground.

To answer your question, people have been researching seismic isolation and other earthquake-mitigation strategies for decades. Japan and California keep trying out new ways to keep the shakes from toppling buildings and the like, and considering the magnitude of the quake, it seems it's been helping. Japan knows it has to live with earthquakes, so it plans for them (think of this: the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge crosses a seismic fault line). Odds are the nuclear plants were built with seismic isolation. It wasn't so much the quake that's putting the plants on the brink but the flooding from the tsunami (blame that on lack of data: Japan hasn't had to deal with a tsunami this big in recent memory; California has that problem every so often as well).

Spooks' secret TEMPEST-busting tech reinvented by US student

Infrasound...

I was thinking the same thing. Long-distance sub-sea communication is probably INFRAsonic in nature rather than ULTRAsonic. Besides, large animals such as whales are more naturally capable of producing infrasound. On land, elephants use the technique as well, IIRC, sending infrasound along the ground.

Canonical pares Ubuntu down to 2 editions

There IS an Live DVD

It's just for the sake of simplicity that they don't leave it for world+dog to run into. CDs take less time to download, which is handy for people with less-than-optimal connections. But if you look here (http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/DVDs/ubuntu/11.04/alpha-3/), you can try out the latest Natty Narwhal build in a live DVD (down on the bottom).

Don't forget the "sudo".

Since most packages need admin/root permissions to install. but the point is well taken regardless. Barring a network fault (which can stymie ANY system that relies on network downloads), you can pretty much download whatever packages you need from a terminal (including lynx, if necessary).

Patent attack on Google open codec faces 'antitrust probe'

And don't say MacOS, either...

...because Microsoft killed IE on Mac eight years ago. IE is only available on Windows platforms, which means you have to "buy in".

And that can get people killed.

Just because everyone is charging into a known fortified position doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Just because it doesn't occur to them to sneak around to try to flank them doesn't make it the wrong thing to do. If someone doesn't think "outside the box", someone on the other side will to potentially devastating effect.

Tearful NASA salutes space shuttle Discovery

Don't worry.

Cleaning, repainting, polishing, etc. are normal when any craft is given the most dignified of final journeys: preservation as a museum craft. Discovery becomes the first space shuttle to be retired with dignity, and it's fitting that it will now take its place among the showpieces at the SNASM.

Football goal-line tracking tech delayed

You should see a kicked ball on a high-speed camera.

First, a football isn't stiff and rigid. It's somewhat malleable, and when propelled at velocity tends to distort a bit while in flight. Second, a football has the misfortune of being approximately the size of a human head, which is itself rather round. Third, the ball may not be the only thing passing through, nor may it be passing by itself (think a ball being propelled in by a diving head--the sensors may see the combination player/ball as one object and certainly not as a spheroid).

The big issue with goal-line tech is distinguishing the ball from players, which isn't as easy for a computer to pick out as you would think. Rugby, tennis have the advantage that the judgment calls deal with where the ball touches the ground: a relatively simple task. Cricket judgment calls usually are about contacts (why Hotspot and Snicko are used) and ball trajectories in an uncrowded setting (the pitch must be clear during a delivery, so Hawkeye doesn't have to factor in foreign bodies in its trajectory projections). Baseball doesn't employ Hawkeye-like tech officially but unofficial trackers again face an uncomplicated picture because the positions of the players during a pitch are confined.

To be fair...

...the challenge IS considerable. Consider simply the basics.

1) You're trying to track a slightly-malleable ball capable of being propelled from the body at considerable velocities. This means the ball changes shape from moment to moment, and there is no reliable way of determining the shape of the ball within the ball. This is critical since the physical ball must cross the plane of the goal line to count. This basically rules out in-the-ball tech.

2) For a goal to count, the ball must pass an invisible planar segment comprised defined by the goal line on the ground and the metal frame of the goal. Since the ball can score while in midair, ground-based tech cannot be used.

3) The goal plane does not extend beyond the goal frame, but players and/or the ball may pass the goal to one side or (for the ball) high. Players passing the goal to the side can block any camera aimed down the goal line. Since goal-line scenes (especially in situations like corner kicks) can get crowded, players could pass both sides of the goal at once, so having two cameras (one to either side) could still miss. The ball being able to sail over the crossbar precluded using any overhead camera; sooner or later, a ball WILL hit it.

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EU agency calls for clear consent on indelible and zombie cookies

Demographics.

It's how they pay for the back-end stuff (since they get no extra from the OS, and app store have their own expenses). Oh, and you gave the explicit blanket consent when you ran the OS for the first time (I know that's true for Android, and I know Apple knows its legalese). Otherwise, it wouldn't let you through to the home screen.

YOU threw the lure...

...so YOU reel it in.

You made the case it can be done reliably without cookies (and by extension without other techs such as JavaScript which may not be available/enabled on the client end). So spell some of them out. Oh, and putting the session into the URL? Isn't that ripe for hijacking and MitM-ing?

There are legitimate uses.

The average e-tailer shopping cart uses cookies, and IINM it's rather difficult to implement practically any other way (because shopping sessions could cross browser sessions)...unless you can offer a better suggestion?

http://www.straightnorth.com/blog/7-timely-shopping-cart-techniques-meeting-your-e-commerce-goals

Self-erasing flash drives destroy court evidence

How about something simpler...

...like arson?

Dear US gov: Stay the hell out of Silicon Valley

And wasn't it LACK of government intervention...

...that resulted in more than a few of the most-remembered financial disasters in recent memory? The collapse of a private bank whose name happened to spark fear that the United States itself was collapsing (known to be a factor that led to the Great Depression)? The S&L scandal of the 1980's? The collapse of banks supposedly "too big to fail" at the turn of this millennium? And IIRC, most of these failures were mainly due to moves made by the banks/institutions themselves, not by the government, who essentially had to clean up the mess they made AFTERWARDS.

Operators to get new SMS 999 obligation

To each his own, I guess.

Me, I'm on a two-year contract, but in my case it's more or less a wash. I'm paying $20 more per month than I would've without contract (though not directly through my current provider--it would've been through an MVNO), which when spaced out over two years comes to $480...right in the neighborhood of the current asking price for my Android phone. And I was able to walk out the door with my new phone (I paid $200 up front, but I'm also due the whole lot back), so all in all, I'm not complaining too much. I did my homework and eventually made an educated choice. And the length of the contract doesn't bother me that much since I wouldn't want to consider a replacement phone for at least two years in any event.

I can appreciate the need to put at least some controls on these contract deals, but don't forget that they still provide affordable buy-ins for people who may not be able to otherwise get good phones up front. It's up to the more savvy out there to know the other options out there (for example, there exists a US GSM MVNO who will do the triple unlimited--voice, text, data) at a reasonable price.

Oracle: 'Eight Android files are decompiled Oracle code'

Not true.

Java ME wasn't what Google wanted. It was too limited. It was Java SE that they wanted: the Java that's gotten supported enough and mature enough to have common ground. But Sun/Oracle said, "No way! Full-blown computers only!" So Google was in a lose-lose. Java ME was too finnicky, and Java SE was Verboten. So they went to the third option: since Sun/Oracle didn't want to play, they took their ball elsewhere.

You forget the declarations.

Those declarations are order-independent. Different ways of thinking can EASILY result in a different arrangement to an order-independent grouping because it's less a matter of objective logic and more a matter of subjective style.

It's like taking the four queens of a deck of cards and having people arrange them in whatever order they feel. The odds of two different people putting them in the same order starts to drop because each person can think differently and may have a different sense of arranging things (in other words, a different style). The end result will still compile the same no matter how you arrange them (just as quad queens are still quad queens no matter how you arrange them).

But LINE FOR LINE?

I mean, you would expect two different programmers working independently on the same thing to do at least SOME things differently. If nowhere else than in the private declarations, which IIRC are mostly order-independent. Yet the two examples are shown to match line-for-line, including the declarations.

Facebook reviews smut policy after slave site uprising

Do we forget...

...that, as animals, we possess a little something called "instinct" (I know, the Church doesn't like to talk about it since it doesn't like to think of humans as animals, but how else can you explain the similarities)? The desire for the opposite sex and so on is mostly down to the instinctual need to reproduce. Somewhere in there is probably also the knowledge of what it takes to do the job. After all, it doesn't take any parental coaching for most other animals to figure it out. It's just that our base of knowledge tends to provide the concrete know-how a little quicker.

Google opens curtain on 'manual' search penalties

Barrier of Entry

The trouble is that when you have a very dominant player, they can leverage their size to squeeze out competition. That's the danger of monopolies (especially de facto monopolies that come about simply through the capitalistic competition process). Barring the upstart holding a BIG trump card (like a revolutionary natural-language search system), it's hard to unseat a monopoly in the normal way.

Sony threatens to ban PS3 jailbreakers from network

How about playing with Linux...

...to perform media encoding? Or raytracing? Or some other high-performance computing application where it can spank even quad-core x86 processors?

There's a reason the US Air Force chose a PS3 cluster for its work: cheap high-performance computing.

And don't mention GPUs because they have their limitations (Why can't you encode high-quality H.264 yet using GPUs? Because motion estimation is space-divergent--bad for GPUs).

Windows 7? Nah...

Windows 7 IIRC only runs on x86. The PS3 runs on a POWER-based CPU. Linux works because you can compile Linux for POWER.

Point is, it WAS DECLARED.

This may not be true in America, but I'm pretty sure that, in Europe, once you advertise a feature, you must DELIVER on that feature or you're plainly-and-simply engaged in False Advertising, which is a CRIMINAL offense. So How will Sony respond if European courts start levying charges of False Advertising on them--or worse, demanding back taxes because, without OtherOS, the PS3 can no longer be considered a personal computer--and therefore ineligible for the tax break (might this form of chicanery also be prosecuted criminally as a form of tax evasion)?

Microsoft finally says adios to Autorun

Never seen it.

I've actually seen GENUINE porn left in the parking lot. Whether it had malware or not, I don't know because I usually don't throw video DVDs into my computer anyway (especially not these kinds). They get sent to dedicated players (usually my portable one).

And what about all those...

...for whom trying to FIND the CD drive is an adventure (remember, this is Windows, not MacOS or most Linuxes--the CD drive does not magically appear on the desktop when you insert it). Plus I have to wonder why AutoRun is so truly, despicably evil in the disc world (now, I can see it for USB devices and so on--those are too easy to tamper). If a miscreant has access to the files that end up on the "gold" copy that eventually gets pressed, that's indicative of a bigger problem. Plus, such a miscreant can booby-trap more than just the AutoRun. What about the Setup.exe itself? And other program files within the disc? Since you need the Setup to install the program anyway, you'd be damned either way.

Patent attack launched on Google's open video codec

They wouldn't care.

If they signed onto MPEG-LA, chances are they don't have an interest in WebM so wouldn't care about being locked out of access. What this could do is polarize the market, make everyone take sides, with no fence-sitting allowed.

There's also another possibility.

Since Google bought On2, they also bought their patent pool. The worst kind of fight you can have in this kind of landscape is patent-holder vs. patent-holder. But because H.264's advantages are starting to slip (the quality hit is not that great, Android will support WebM soon, and AMD and nVidia don't need to do much to support WebM in hardware), the only route they have left is their trump card: their patent pool. It's just bad for them that Google has its own trump card. Odds are this is going to become a patent war and will head for the courts. Odds are, no one's going to emerge from this unscathed, but since Google isn't charging money for the use of the codec, they have less to lose if a few of their patents get shot down, so long as they're not beholden to MPEG-LA (OTOH, MPEG-LA could lost monetary control of H.264 if key patents of THEIRS get invalidated. In a worst case, if Google emerges with a patent that predates one of MPEG-LA's and still holds, MPEG-LA could find itself infringing on Google).

Better get out the flak vests and riot helmets, folks, 'cause this one's looking to get ugly.

Sony tweets 'secret' key at heart of PS3 jailbreak case

One problem...

They may have economies of scale on their side, but they have a ton of things going AGAINST them. R&D, development costs, hiring talent, marketing, pressing costs, etc. all add up to exorbitant development budgets. Little wonder a number of notable developers have collapsed/moved elsewhere/been bought out this generation.

It's like the drug market. Trying to find the next miracle drug is the hardest and most expensive part (not to mention the thing that takes up most of your precious patent-exclusivity time). Making the darn things (once you know the formula) is the simplest (this is why drugs are patentable--otherwise, there'd never be an RoI on them, and no incentive to make new drugs; the nature of those things being treatments rather than cures is another discussion altogether).

iPad TWO: What, already?

Fine print.

From another article: "Steve says that iPad will offer ~140 hours of continuous music playback provided the screen display is turned "off" while the battery will last for ~10 hours if you use it for reading books. Steve says that the iPad chip [A4] doesn't use much power but the screen does. I guess the numbers would be similar for web surfing as well."

Video playback is likely to drop the number somewhat. Anyway, it has its issues in daylight conditions. The screen's the big battery-killer of most portable systems, and a color e-ink screen (one that only consumes power when it updates and doesn't need a constant backlight) will really help in that regard. Plus the displays are reflective and better suited for daylight operations. Yeah, I know this means they'll be harder to read at night, but so were paperbacks back in the day.

Call me when an iPad...

...or any other tablet, for that matter, gets some form of color e-Ink (Mirasol, electrowetting, etc.) and as a result has a battery life good enough for most of the day.

Norway to probe Sony's PS3 Linux 'downgrade'

Sony: We never advertised OtherOS.

THAT will be Sony's defence: that OtherOS was simply a bonus thing, an easter egg. Unless people present print or otherwise legally-enforceable advertisements from Sony itself that specifically mention OtherOS, then Sony can deny that OtherOS was ever a feature of the PS3. This would likely defeat the "fit for purpose" argument (because there was never a purpose for which to be fit) and the "feature removal" argument (because, technically, it wasn't advertised as a feature).

Fifa to give goal-line tech a shot

Given that some thought.

Although an overhead camera seems like the ideal solution, I sense two difficulties. First, being higher up, it can be subject to winds which can cause it to swing and lose its accuracy. Second, and I think potentially more dangerous, balls have been known to fly high of the crossbar. Put a camera up there and, one of these days, a ball's gonna score a hit on it so hard it'll either break the camera or otherwise alter its angle irreperably.

Now, rugby's replay system generally isn't nearly as complicated. The Try Line is mostly out in the open and easy to shoot at from multiple camera angles, plus the ball has to touch the ground to count, so the third dimension's mostly a non-issue. However, a football goal is bordered by the posts and crossbar. Those and the net interfere with any camera. And the ball can score by breaking that plane created by the posts and crossbar...anywhere within. Ground goals aren't the problem; it's the ones in the air that are so hard to judge, especially since most cameras provide a poor picture of depth, making the angled shot useless for a midair check. Whether or not FIFA adopts a tech, I think this makes an interesting challenge for the tech companies involved, and it may find uses outside the pitch.

Just curious, but are any of the techs being tested using stereoscopic cameras? Those might have a better shot at figuring out depth.

Newest PS3 firmware hacked in less than 24 hours

Tough to do.

IINM Sony uses up-to-date implementations of SSL using high-bit-count keys and SHA-1. As noted previously by El Reg, SHA-1 has been compromised but, to date, not broken yet. And the computational power needed to pull it off by brute force (even at present) skirts the physically infeasible barrier.

But still...

...but what about the old games? They still have the old broken signature system, and you can't apply the new signature system to them (since they exist on read-only media) without a (pretty big) whitelist. So how do you keep hackers from simply using the old signature system?

So...

The firmware update needs the root key in order to run. Otherwise, to quote Spike Milligan, you'd be trying to "open the box with the crowbar you will find inside". Which means someone savvy enough can DISASSEMBLE the update (and it has to be offline because it's going into discs as well) and tear it apart. The new key will be in there somewhere. Once they learn that new key, it's back to square one.

Plus you can't retire the old keys. Otherwise, you can't run old games. And whitelisting can be prohibitive considering how many games and apps already exist for the PS3. Not to mention a rooted PS3 can simply "fake it".

Thing is...

...to upgrade 3.55 (which HAS been taken apart top to bottom), you need to authenticate it with 3.55's key. Basically, you need the old key to put in the new one, but doing so allows the new one to be extracted, doesn't it?

Correct me if I'm wrong...

...but since the PS3's root key is fixed and sits at a level below the firmware, how can the firmware be blocked against a rollback by use of the root key?

Consumers urged to step up wireless security

Problem with Home Routers.

Some are old, others can't seem to handle both high traffic and WPA2 without gasping for Hertz. I have to keep mine off because it otherwise slows ALL net traffic to a crawl. And on the last router, turning on deprecated WEP tended to cause it to fall flat and reboot itself every 5 minutes. And I'm not currently in the market for a replacement router (besides, none of the affordable ones I've seen can do IPv6 yet--just in case).

Republican reps push for mandatory gun ownership

Actually, there have been a reason for that.

IIRC, in the past, private fire companies and police agencies started blackmailing potential customers by employing tactics normally associated with the Mafia (Buy a contract with us or you never know what might happen to your house, hint hint). It was a case of capitalism and competition gone haywire, and everyone was doing it in a desperate bid to earn enough money to be viable. The government was pressured to act, and the end result was to establish de jure monopolies on those services...by running it themselves so that there was a chain of responsibility in case things went wrong.

Mind you, I could be mistaken, but that's what I read once.

WTF is... wireless HDMI?

Broadcast MPEG-2 has limits.

According to HDTV specifications, the MPEG-2 broadcast stream is limited to 19Mbit/sec. That's only enough for a 1080i60/30 stream. You can handle a 1080p film (at 24Hz) OK, but anything faster than 30Hz is beyond using broadcast HDTV. Not to mention the most likely candidate to break that limit, gaming, will probably involve timing issues (because it'll take time to encode MPEG2, even on the fly) that could affect the gaming experience.

Court orders seizure of PS3 hacker's computers

Actually, I AM entitled.

You see, your example of backing over someone is covered by OTHER LAWS. As long as I don't mess around DIRECTLY with anyone, I should not be held criminally responsible for ANYTHING. My toys, my rules. If I wake up the neighbors with an overdriven amp, that's Disturbing the Peace. If I monkey with my well and mess up the neighbors' as well, that would likely be Criminal Negligence. If I back into someone and hurt them, that's either Criminal Negligence or Vehicular Assault, depending on the severity. But if the only person I affect is myself, then it's none of your business. Or would you like your fundamental right to property compromised further?

Too late for that.

Last I heard, Microsoft's been courting him. And I think they'll be able to top anything Sony could offer.

Thing is, the stable door isn't all the way open.

IOW, the horse hasn't escaped yet. It still isn't possible to install custom applications onto a stock PS3 without hacking it in some way. The big problem is there are only two avenues for installation normally, and neither one has been hacked yet (Game discs have a hardware lock, and downloads are protected by Sony's SSL key, which is still unknown). All Sony needs to do is release a new firmware that reinforces this restriction by making sure no other installation method can ever be opened again. Don't be surprised if they remove the firmware-by-USB route (thus killing the jailbreak keys), make all future firmware updates go through SSL (thus killing the man-in-the-middle approach), and prevent any form of downgrading, even by Sony itself, once installed (thus killing using Service Mode to downgrade it to a hackable version).

US Navy puts stops on server spending

Not so easily controlled?

What's easier to secure? One central location or hundreds of peripheral locations?

Are disk drives beginning to spin down?

Probably just waiting for the next generation.

As experience shows, the first generation of a new popular form factor leaves a few holes. In this case, the iPad doesn't read well in daylight and hasn't got the best working life in the world. I'm pretty sure they're waiting for the second generation of tablets with Mirasol/electrowetting/other form of quick-refresh color e-Ink displays which make them more daylight-readable and easier on the battery when they're not being pushed.

Memo to Microsoft, RIM, Nokia: Quit copying Apple!

So, basicaly, it's win or die.

Capitalism (what I call "Winner Economics") at its most cutthroat. Though I favor Android at the moment, I won't show long-term favortism towards any of the mobile companies, seeing as how things are moving too fast for any loyalties to mean anything for long.

Raygun dreadnought project reports 'remarkable breakthrough'

Real birds can be scared off.

Most birds know better than to stick idly around when particular noises abound...such as a sound that might occur when a bird's about to be grabbed from above. Point is, there are ways to humanely make birds scatter--usually through the application of sound or directed air.

Directed air would divert even a bird bomb (since it'd have to behave like a bird), and since it would ignore a sound-based chaser, it could be distinguished from a real bird.

Utah to honour Browning M1911 semi-automatic

Then ban the human body as well.

Or lest we forget that people can train themselves to be lethal even while completely unarmed. That's right, the human body can itself become a lethal weapon (from something as simple as the ol' unscrew-the-neck to a martial arts kick placed in just the right spot).

One problem...

"I don’t know about you, but I think everyone everywhere should be allowed to own a gun. I also think that they should not be allowed to carry it in public, concealed or otherwise. I believe that it must be stored in a locked container, with it’s ammunition in a separate locked container that uses a separate key (or combination.) Transport within a vehicle must be in a locked container with the ammunition in a separate locked container. That’s called safety. It prevents accidents. It prevents children getting their hands on it. It prevents people who haven’t had gun safety training from getting their hands on it."

Thing is, unlike your plasma cutter or the like, there come times when you need to whip it out on a moment's notice. That's why police sidearms are loaded when they're on duty--safe one moment, facing an armed assailant the next. Now, before you say they're professionally trained and assigned to do their duty, remember that they're only so many of them and so much territory to cover. Thus the several minutes between calling for them and them arriving. I don't know about you, but those few minutes can seem like an eternity if your house has been broken into...or worse, if some assailant has his sights locked on you--IOW, you can face the same problem as the cops. Sure, you'll have accidents, but accidents are a fact of like. After all, you'll also have precocious children who learn about how locks are opened (just as I learned that I could use the chair to climb up to the kitchen counter--I was only five when I learned how to open combination locks and which key to put into the car's ignition).

Blow himself up?

The gun massacres of the last twenty years pale in comparison to two or three (IIRC Natural Born) Americans with a truck, access to fertilizer, and enough knowledge on how to improvise ANFO. Plus, like I said, Black Powder has been around for ages and involves just three common ingredients.

Put it this way. Would a homicidal maniac be less inclined to go on a rampage if he/she had less access to firearms? Or rather, does the prevalence of firearms simply make it the implement of choice?