Posts by Brian 62

Microsoft man saves drowning woman

No sound

Drowning people don't make noise, since they generally have their mouths full of water and are using their arms to try to stay afloat instead of splashing.

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good headline though.

'Leccy price hike: Greens to blame as well as energy biz

Calling captain obvious

The whole point of the Green movement has been that we are not actually paying the real cost of energy. Switching to renewable green energy means that costs will obviously go up somewhat, as you now wind up paying more of the cost for solar, wind, etc...

What everyone forgets is all the other costs associated with cheap energy like coal and oil... pollution, health problems, etc... that all need to be paid for by everyone through high taxes and insurance rates.

TV sitcom opens up the world of penetration testing

"security experts" need to shut the hell up

I'm tired of the constant pessimism by "experts" in a field when a show comes out about their field. Do you really think cop shows are accurate? How about lawyer shows? Or even family sitcoms?

Security experts need to shut the hell up and be grateful that an attempt is being made to raise awareness with the public about their field. Hopefully it will be entertaining, and that is the main goal. There were also people complaining about CSI, but it got a lot more people interested in science than there were before, even if the show was not technically accurate.

Apple patents 'net-booted' OS contraption

Patentable?

How is this patentable? We've had network booting for a very long time. Is the only difference that it's going across the Internet instead of local LAN? That would seem to be quite a small distinction.

Apple Facetime flings out frightening random calls

Hackers

Sounds like some hackers are probing the Facetime system and triggering false calls.

Fanbois end Judas Phone 'Death Grip' with, um, SIM tape

Not a recent phone

If you've only ever had phones with antenna on the top, you've got some pretty old phones. Almost all antennas have been moved to the bottom of the phone for a while now because your head would block a lot of the signal if it were on top. Also, your head will absorb the radiation, and FCC rules (USA) specifically test for this. Moving the antenna to the bottom, as almost all modern phones have done, help to reduce this problem.

The main problem is that the antenna is directly exposed to human contact. Most other phones have it hidden behind some plastic, which insulates it from changing electrical characteristics.

Penguin chief: Linux must 'out fabulous' Apple's iPhone

Obvious?

Wow, way to state the obvious. Did we really need a "luminary" to explain to us that Windows Mobile is not a viable competitor anymore? Was it ever, really?

Superslim iPhone 4 enough to fend off Android?

megapixels - dead horse

Can we please stop harping on the "low megapixels" thing? Everyone who's been in tech for at least 10 years knows that the megapixel race is well and truly bogus, and higher pixels actually result in WORSE picture quality. Jobs even addressed this in the keynote by describing how they made the pixels bigger to help maintain image quality.

It's now only left up to the Press (you guys) to stop perpetuating this myth, even when you do it only in a list of bullet points to try to make the list look more impressive.

Google's WiFi snoop - who knew and who didn't?

Who ... cares?

The real question is "who cares?" This is a totally over-hyped story. Even though it sounds like a lot of data, it was collected with the vehicles were moving. Even sitting at a stoplight the most it would be was a few minutes connected to each hotspot. So that means it's howevermany GBs of tiny little fragments of data, not a single stream from one source. Maybe enough to figure out 1 or 2 people's email address, but certainly nothing else. Google knows more about you from their ads showing up on every web site than they could ever get from this data.

Oh, by the way, it was only on *public* wifi networks. Even the weak WEP encryption would have thwarted this "attack". Anyone on these networks has no right to get upset about it.

Latest iPhone 4G leak reveals A4 CPU

Main link down

Link to taoviet is down. Still working via Coral Cache

http://taoviet.vn.nyud.net/showthread.php?t=16471

Twitter: It's the end of the sysadmin as we know it

Stuff it

John can go stuff it. This speaks more to the current trend by hotshot developers to look down their nose at the "lowly" sysadmins (and making ridiculous comments like this from that erroneous perception) than it does to what sysadmins actually do.

These same people would probably be surprised to know that most sysadmins know many things about many things because that's the nature of the job... even though all you think we do is swap tapes.

Apple rumored to put beefy iPad on diet

A break, please?

We've had to endure of "rumors" about the damn iPad coming out for at least a year now. Can't we have a week off before we start the rumor mill about the /next/ rumored Apple product?

Administrator access: Right or privilege?

Systems are not designed for this

Giving admins access to only what they need at the time is a great idea, however systems today are simply not designed for this, and that's why it doesn't work. Admin tools are designed to assume they have full access to everything, so as a result that's what they need. If there was some sort of model in place that allowed finer-grained control, then something like that could be a reality.

Wikileaks video shows US gunfire on Reuters staff

Hindsight?

Don't you think you should be *sure* about it before killing 10-14 people? I think it's you who is too comfortable behind your chair, maybe already desensitized by fake violence we have all around us every day. It sure is easy to look through the camera of a helicopter or UAV and have it seem like a game where you shoot first and ask questions later.

An no, most rules of war do not allow one to shoot upon the "enemy" who shows up to care for the wounded or pick up the dead.

iPad nearly had video conferencing?

no

No way in hell it would have something like that.

Buffy's heart gets wrong kind of flutter from Google Buzz

Slurry?

I think you mean a "flurry of messages", unless of course the messages arrived in "a thick suspension of solids in a liquid". But hey, maybe they did. This Buzz thing is full of surprises.

Apple video shows Flashed iPad

Can't believe..

This is a total FAIL of the blogger who came up with this. ALL ADVERTISING VIDEOS HAVE "SIMULATED" VIDEO SEQUENCES, as it is extremely difficult to record a video of something showing a video.

The screen sequences were probably recorded on a desktop computer with a full browser, and that is what you are seeing. This probably wasn't even done intentionally to confuse people, just an oversight by the video editors.

Survey shows strong demand for Apple tablet

Buy what?

So people are lining up ready to buy something they have no idea what it does, how it works, or if it's even useful for any purpose they might need it for? Certainly a useful survey.

5-megapix 'iPhone 4' set for June?

itouch?

Is this mystery manufacturer the same one that makes the ipod touch? Seems like an explanation for double the camera orders. Either that, or iPhone 4 will also have a front-facing camera that could be used for video conf, and the rear facing one for pics (though something so ugly as having 2 cameras in 1 device doesn't match Apple's MO)

Lawyers scared of computers

Agreed

Yes, this is clearly the case. Any excuses about data protection or forgery are just that -- excuses. They are just finding any plausible legal reason to stymie the ability for the opposing side to be able to easily search for evidence. At some point this has got to be considered impeding an investigation.

Verizon snuffs Google for Microsoft search

Yes!

Yes, this move is excellent! I'm sure someone can now easily make a case for more regulation/oversight with the telcos, and I bet this comes close to overstepping the common carrier provisions.

This is going to blow up in Verizon's face just like comments from AT&T cause Net Neutrality to become a real issue. They will wish they had left well enough alone.

SF's rogue admin finally gets day in court

Peers?

A trial by peers in this case should include tech people in the jury. It's pretty clear that anyone from the "general public" would not have any understanding -- or desire to understand -- even the simple IT issues that will be raised in this case. Most likely he will be judged based on the juror's previous experiences with IT people (which for most of them is probably some guy at Best Buy or phone support from a long way away), instead of on the merits of the case.

Crooks 'too lazy' for crypto

Fake windows install

Might be better off to keep the HD with an unused version of Windows on it on that netbook. Then it doesn't raise any red flags and they can search all they want and find nothing.

Intel aims 30W Nehalem at 'microservers'

Central storage?

Ahem, you do not NEED central storage for virtualization... sure it's nice, but not strictly needed. If you don't have it, you get the same reliability as a single server with local storage, which is exactly the same as one of these things...

Will Intel's Braidwood threaten SSD uptake?

Replies

@Mr ChriZ:

Think a little less linearly, and you'll realize that only part of the OS, the files used daily for booting, drivers, etc..., need to be on the flash. It would be silly to store theme files and sample video clips on there, and surely even Microsoft is smart enough to figure that one out.

@deegee:

After it burns out, the answer is: so what? Most people are replacing computers much more quickly than 5 years, and even if they didn't, performance would just revert back to "normal", non-cached variety. Most motherboards also have a soldered battery to keep the CMOS alive, and eventually those fail too.

@Cameron Colley:

RAM goes away when you switch off the power.

Linux guru: interface innovation is the challenge

Small changes

@Anonymous Coward: There is a technical definition, and then the colloquial definition, of what Linux is. It will serve you and the rest of the Net if you assume that every time an article says "Linux", they are using the colloquial definition, not the technical one (unless the article specifically says "Linux kernel"). You don't get to make the rules on how a language works, no matter how logical your argument may be.

As far as the article is concerned, I have to agree with some others here. Linux should not be pushing the boundaries of user interface. It really just needs to lose weight. Most of the buttons seem big a bloated, when compared to the slick looking widgets in other OSes. Themes are not a solution, they just push the issue off to the users.

Rogue admin charges cut to size

Bus driver

I wish we would spend more time looking for this bus driver who keeps hitting sysadmins instead of spending tons of money on backup systems and documentation.

Is Google spending $106.5m to open source a codec?

Clearly to save money

With the amount of money it costs to run youtube, a new, freely available and highly efficient codec would drastically reduce their bandwidth bills. 1 month of the savings would be more than enough to pay for the acquisition.

Boffins design ferroelectric Flash cell for 'super' SSDs

I'd be rich...

Wish I had a megabyte for every announcement of some obscure research that promised to fix all my storage and memory ills. I'm sure I'd have enough to boot Vista from an SSD by now. Save the announcement until there's a real product I can buy.