* Posts by Rob 5

187 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Jun 2009

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Acer suffers terrible let-down after unexpected withdrawal of Wang

Rob 5
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Re: El Reg headline writers...

Truly, it was teh awesome!

One of last few iPhone 5Ss STOLEN from within MASSIVE POLICE CORDON at Apple Store

Rob 5

In other news...

... Police are staking out the victim's house, in the hope of nabbing the thief when he comes back for the chap's finger.

Botched court doc outs Google as respondent in national security flap

Rob 5

Re: i have not yet received any nsl todate,

I could tell you whether I've received any, but then I'd have to redact you...

US court: Dell can't hound debtor with robocalls to her mobile

Rob 5

Re: PAY UP!!!

One way of doing that is to open an account with a foreign exchange service (UKForex, for example) that has an account in the same country as the bank account that you're moving funds from. Then you do a simple domestic online transfer to your intermediary, which then handles the international leg.

Incidentally, US banks don't use IBANs and most don't even have a SWIFT or BIC code either, meaning that "ordinary" international transfers often run through a chain of correspondent banks before reaching their destination. As I said, primitive.

Rob 5

Re: PAY UP!!!

I have no experience of DFS, but the poster makes a point that's worth expanding upon for British and other non-US readers.

The US banking system is a primitive mess, as are the customer-facing sides of the finance departments of most corporations - out of date and populated by morons.

"Mistakes" regularly happen, redress is limited or non-existent and there's no equivalent of the Direct Debit Guarantee over here. Further, it is impossible (in many, if not all cases) to do the equivalent of paying by phone with a debit card - that's where the intermediaries come in, with their "convenience fees".

For most people it's not a question of if but rather when they'll get screwed over due to somebody else's cockup. And that's before we come to some of the other tricks, like banks systematically rearranging the chronological order of withdrawals, so as to maximise penalty charges.

Not to labour the point, but bad as the UK retail banking industry is, what with PPI misselling and the like, if that's all that you have experience of you have a massive culture shock coming the first time you deal with the mess that is US retail banking.

Climate change even worse than you thought: It causes war and murder

Rob 5

Is using that word a prerequisite these days for getting funding?

Often, yes. In this case, however, it's being used as a signal to fellow travellers. As Steven Roper points out, below, the study is a pretext for further curtailing individual freedoms. The reference to "anthropogenic" tells another bunch of fascists that the authors are "on-side" and should be supported.

Rap for rap chap in crap rap app flap: Jay-Z blasted by privacy bods

Rob 5

Re: An app to play one album

It would work for me* - I'm set up to both play and record 8 Track.

* If I liked Rap, that is...

IT design: You're not data, you're a human being

Rob 5
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Re: 32 comments and not one reference to The Prisoner?

Oh, you nailed it - I was commenting more on the failure of the commentariat to pick up on the reference.

Rob 5

32 comments and not one reference to The Prisoner?

I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!

I am not a number! I am a free man!

Yorkshire police lose 9,000 guns in rogue BOFH database blunder

Rob 5
Coat

Re: "abysmal record when it comes to firearms licensing"

In the UK, NRA also stand for the National Rounders Association, the governing body for the girls' game Rounders.

Though I suspect that wasn't the usage that you're referring to.

Doctor Who? 12th incarnation sought after Matt Smith quits

Rob 5
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Re: Slightly off the wall

Alexander Siddiq's a pretty good idea, now that I think about it. He's even already played a doctor, in STDS9.

I met him, once, in an airport lounge - very nice bloke.

Moss reanimates after 400 years in DEEP FREEZE

Rob 5

Re: Moss reanimates after 400 years in DEEP FREEZE!

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who immediately thought of the IT crowd.

James Bond inspires US bill to require smart guns for all

Rob 5

Re: Really?

"There are no background checks if you buy from a gun show. There are places where background checks are weak"

Two problems here:

First, your statement displays ignorance of the facts. Most vendors at gun shows these days hold FFLs (Federal Firearms Licenses) and are required to conduct NICS checks on buyers, even at gun shows. The only transactions in which background checks are not carried out are private sales between individuals, where state law permits such. In those cases it is the nature of the transaction that eliminates the NICS check, not the venue.

Second, your implication that universal background checks, even for private party transactions, would be desirable displays ignorance of economics. Given that there is no practicable mechanism for an individual to obtain a NICS check on another individual (and, given privacy concerns, nor should there be) the imposition of such a rule would leverage existing gun dealers into the position of gatekeepers over all transactions. This would inevitably lead to rent seeking, with "transfer fees" increasing dramatically as happens whenever government grants one group a monopoly. This effective increase in the price of all used guns would, in turn, drive up the price of new guns, creating a spiral which would inevitably lead to the situation in which only the rich could afford guns, as mentioned above.

Rob 5

Re: Just political bullshit

Mr Manning has hit the nail on the head. For those less well versed in US Realpolitik, here's a brief explanation.

Guns are what is known as a "wedge issue" (abortion is another). Both main parties, The Crips and The Bloods, use wedge issues to good effect.

The process is as follows:

1. Some incident leads to a wedge issue getting heavy rotation in the mainstream media.

2. Congresscritter mouths some empty bollocks related to said wedge issue. It doesn't have to be practical, sensible or even desirable - just related, even tangentially.

3. That portion of the electorate on one side of the issue puts what little critical thinking ability that it has on hold and unquestioningly supports said critter, regardless of any other evil that it may be doing. Simultaneously, said critter gets heavy rotation in the media on the back of the original incident.

4. ?

5. Profit!!!

As I say, they all do it and the electorate rewards them for it - so there's not much hope of any change any time soon.

Chocolate Factory chucks out Checkout

Rob 5

"Yes i am suprised they have ditched Google Wallet..."

I think you may be confused. They are ditching Google Checkout but keeping Google Wallet.

FWIW, the migration has already started, internally. My last but one payment for Google Voice was processed via Google Checkout, but my last payment (a couple of weeks ago) was processed via Google Wallet.

Jailed Romanian hacker repents, invents ATM security scheme

Rob 5

Re: Erm.

Yes and the specs for ATMs in the UK mandate "mag stripe fall back" in addition to a PIN reader.

That's not always implemented, though, as I found out the other week...

Rob 5

Re: On the subject of ATMs

OK, but why are drive-through ATMs labelled up in Braille?

Congress: It's not the Glass that's scary - It's the GOOGLE

Rob 5

"The big concern is COVERT recording, and that horse has already bolted."

I'm not sure that that's correct. It seems to me that the real concern is *ubiquitous* recording - as promytius points out, our society is built upon certain assumptions, which ubiquitous recording coupled with Internet dissemination would shatter.

How do you buy somebody a surprise present, when footage of you buying it is going to pop up in their rss (or whatever) feed? Now consider going to the clap clinic, the oncologist, the local nick to whistleblow on some criminal who knows where you live, or no end of other activities.

David Brin has published utopian visions of "the recorded life", see any amount of dystopian SF for a counterpoint.

Pirate Bay cofounder to run for European Parliament

Rob 5
FAIL

Re: Is he the neo Nazi one?

Oh really? Tell me, how long have you been reading my mind and what steps have you taken to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Principles?

Rob 5

Is he the neo Nazi one?

Or was that a different one?

Copyright minister admits: Google has better access to No. 10 than me

Rob 5

As that bloke in "Lord of War" was fond of saying...

... "I prefer it my way."

Rob 5
Boffin

Re: Solution

" This is Capitalism after all"

No it's not. Capitalism is about open competition in free markets. The word for what we're seeing here is "Corporatism" which has, in the past, been a precursor to Mussolini-style Fascism.

Google's $1 fiber deal will cost Provo, Utah $1.7m

Rob 5

Isn't this what always happens...

... whenever we let government, at any level, spend money? They piss away a shed load on an ill conceived and pooply* implemented idea, then spend even more on giving whatever value they didn't destroy to some politically connected kleptocrat.

The only surprise is that we still let the fsckers have control of anything more valuable than the biscuit barrel.

* This was, of course, a typo made while attempting to type the word "poorly". I was about to correct it, but realised that the typo was more accurate and expressive than the intended word could ever be.

MasterCard stings PayPal with payment fee hike

Rob 5

Re: It's like watching Fred West and Ian Brady having a fight...

You could swap either name out for Peter Sutcliffe and the sense of it would remain unchanged. They were all very bad men.

Rob 5

It's like watching Fred West and Ian Brady having a fight...

... I don't really care who wins, as long as they seriously harm each other.

Health pros: Alcohol is EVIL – raise its price, ban its ads

Rob 5

It's 9AM on a Saturday morning here...

... and that feed of shite has just prompted me to put down my mug of coffee and have a shot of tequila.

Wankers!

Look out! Peak wind is coming, warns top Harvard physicist

Rob 5
Happy

Re: I'm shocked, shocked...

Well spotted! Similarly, "is is" should have read "it is".

Rob 5

Re: Hardly a scientific approach.

Statistically, is is though. Since almost everything that government does tends to enrich the politically connected few at the expense of everybody else, it follows that "science" which supports a government programme is more likely to be fabricated at the behest of vested interests and therefore false, while that which opposes it is more likely to be honest, since it has no bunch of crooks to please and therefore stands a better chance of being correct.

Rob 5

I'm shocked, shocked...

...to find that it was all just another con-trick, transferring taxpayers' money to politically collected developers in exchange for naff all of any value.

El Reg's 'Chuck Norris' faces down charging elephant

Rob 5

Re: I hate Chuck Norris.

Really? He speaks very highly of you.

Asteroid miners hunt for platinum, leave all common sense in glovebox

Rob 5

Re: How much for how much?

"The back of this here envelope suggests the PGMs would be a by-product of making structural metal alloys. You don't run a business for the by-products, but they can be nice to have."

That's a very good point. By way of an earth-bound analogy, copper refiners like Asarco currently make a tidy extra profit off Gold and Silver. Those metals are present in such small quantities that it wouldn't be worth processing the ore just for them alone, but when they fall out of the copper refining process they're almost free money.

State of Minnesota bans free online education

Rob 5

It's Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy

... in action. Again.

FTC offers $50,000 bounty for robocall-killing tech

Rob 5

Re: Subscriber service class

Very informative - thanks!

I had been about to praise this initiative as reminiscent of the old X-prizes, but from what you say it's a previously solved problem and therefore redundant.

Google adds 25 million grey building 'footprints' to Maps

Rob 5

Isn't the whole "OMG!!!The Terr'rists!!!!!" thing getting a bit old by now?

Take away bad drivers' mobile phones, they still crash their cars

Rob 5

despite the existence of perfectly-good laws on "due care and attention" already

^ This.

The solution to any given problem is rarely passing a new law. But we act like it always is, because that allows politicians to be seen to be "doing something". The new law usually turns out to be ineffective, or worse, but by then we're wetting our pants over the next manufactured "crisis" and don't care.

Publishers, Apple bend over for EU eBooks probe

Rob 5

Charlie Stross

Has a take on the US side of things that's well worth a read.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/04/understanding-amazons-strategy.html

Hong Kong visitors get all-in-one guidebook and phone

Rob 5

Calls to mobiles

Presumably the difference is that the countries to which calls to mobiles can be made are "called party pays" countries (I know that the USA is) while the ones to which such calls can't be made are "calling party pays" countries (I know that the UK and much of Europe is).

Can't really blame them. They'd have no chance of staying in business if they had to eat unlimited UK mobile termination charges.

Capita ITS ditches UK job cuts, offshoring dream

Rob 5

Six Sigma?

Are Capita ITS going into manufacturing, then?

I spy: Drug drops and foxy couples

Rob 5

Scorpion Stare

When will the firmware upgrade implementing Scorpion Stare be available?

Lawyers: We'll pillory porn pirates who don't pay up

Rob 5

Re: How is this not extortion?

Whether it is, or is not, Blackmail is a very interesting question. Just this morning, I read a rather detailed blog on the subject, by Prof. Volokh, admittedly addressing US rather than German law.

http://www.volokh.com/2012/08/21/blackmail/

While I know little of German law, I can't help suspecting that the hints about prioritising "touchy cases" might prove to be their downfall.

RIP Harry Harrison: Stainless Steel Rat scurries no more

Rob 5

Re: And the first steampunk

"A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" - Indeed, Sir!

I met him once, very briefly, when he handed me a camera and asked me to that a photo of him with a friend.

He shall be missed.

SHOCK: Poll shows Americans think TSA is highly effective

Rob 5

Re: Frequent flyer mileage

"Unless the participants fly at least several times a year such a poll is just useless."

Agreed - experience is necessary for having an informed opinion.

The problem is, a survey of frequent fliers would likely return the opposite result to that wanted by whomever commissioned this survey. Just look at all the ranting on Flyertalk, for example.

Console content can cause crime, claims cop

Rob 5
Coat

Re: Battle Raper

OT, but this reminds me: People are called "Smith", because one of their ancestors was a smith. People are called "Wainwright", because one of their ancestors built wagons. What's the origin of the surname "Raper"?

Daily Mail group in screeching U-turn on parody tweet persecution

Rob 5

Re: Good news

There is, of course, an exception to the exception; namely when said theatre is actually on fire.

Oi, missile boffins! Stop ogling web filth at work - Pentagon

Rob 5

The shape of ICBMs

Colin Powell tells a story about a signing ceremony for some disarmament treaty or other, where they had a US Minutman (IIRC) and a USSR SS-20 on display.

Apparently his wife's first comment was "Why is theirs so much bigger than ours?".

Ten... alien invasions

Rob 5
Facepalm

And another thing

It's "leeching" not "leaching", unless you're claiming that JP has a business extracting metals by converting them into soluble salts in an aqueous media contained in Niven's cellular membranes.

Which would be technologically impressive, I'll grant, but is probably not what you were trying to say..

Rob 5
FAIL

Pournelle

Come back when you've gained a couple of PhDs (back when that was hard), been an advisor to a US president on SDI and other stuff, been Barry Goldwater's campaign manager, started the world's first blog (before the word "blog" existed and which is still going strong today), written a shed load of successful novels in your own right, edited Survivalist magazine, been a contributing editor/columnist for Byte (which you're probably too young to remember) and a shed load more that I can't be bothered to type and say that.

We'll still think that you're an idiot.

Russian K-force operatives cuff suspected Carberp trojan bank raider

Rob 5

Re: Russia's MVD "K" Administration

"Oh, by the way, I know that Народный Комиссариат Внутренних Дел is spelled with N, not M :)"

I know that too - hence the "I'll get my coat" icon. Still, at least somebody got my feeble attempt at humour. :)

Cheers

ЛПБ

Rob 5
Coat

Russia's MVD "K" Administration

Would that make them the MKVD?

Super sushi-bot churns out 2,500 rolls an hour

Rob 5

The next time you're in San Jose

The Doubletree at the airport has very good sushi. OK, that's by the standards of hotel sushi, but just being in the People's Republic of California takes that up a notch.

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