Posts by Steve 13

UK Man cops to £500,000 iTunes royalty scam

@thecake - It's a UK Case, not US

The UK doesn't really do punitive damages, there haven't been any copyright infringers in the UK fined hundreds of thousands of pounds.

US Navy achieves '100 mile' hypersonic railgun test shot

dropped a decimal

It's 3.15 minutes, not seconds, my mistake.

Whoever voted the post down could have just posted a correction instead though!

You do have to wonder if you could hit a moving target with that sort of delay though. Even assuming 100% accuracy, they only have to change course or speed by a small amount in that 3 minute window and you'll miss by a good margin.

@Nigel

I was just wondering about the time taken to cover 200 miles at mach 5. Turns out it's about 3.15 seconds.

Assuming that it's fired accurately in the first place, I doubt that a 3 second warning, even with automation is sufficient for any naval target to move significantly.

I'd hazard a guess that even with computerisation it's actually pretty difficult to land your mach 5 slug in a space the size of an aircraft carrier though, so I guess like the gun battles of old, multiple shots would be exchanged (assuming the target is capable of returning fire at 200 miles range).

As an anti aircraft or missile system, presumably a variant firing many much smaller projectiles would be developed. At closer ranges (ie within a couple of miles) even a high G missile couldn't avoid being hit.

World of diamonds bigger than the Ritz discovered

Methane?

What mass is this planet in order to be able to hold onto an atmosphere whilst that close to it's parent!

Feds arrest man who juiced Google's 'just be evil' search

Firearms @Donald Atkinson

http://www.nraila.org/gunlaws/nyc.aspx

NYC does allow for the private ownership of handguns, so unless it's actually been stated somewhere that he didn't have a license I guess he won't be facing any additional charges for this.

If convicted though presumably his license will be revoked.

The year's best... laptops

Y Series

Low voltage CPU and 3 generation old graphics... It's £700 cheaper, but not really in the same playing field as the Z Series...

Best 13" with decent graphics?

The Dell XPS 13 and HP Envy 13 were both discontinued... And there is no Alienware between the 11 and 15 sizes... So what is the best 13" core i, SSD fitted, discrete graphics laptop on the market? The only option I've found is the Sony Z and it's a very expensive option!

Crazed reindeer stalks, attacks Scottish woman with antlers

she attempted to beat off the crazed caribou

Intended innuendo, or accidental?

Gov decides not to have scientific advice on drugs any more

email your MP

If you think this is the wrong thing to do, do something about it

http://www.writetothem.com/

Okay, it may not work, but at least you'll have tried.

Diary of a Not-spot: One man's heroic struggle for broadband

HAM

Is it not possible to use some sort of radio kit that's actually designed to work across several miles, rather than something designed to work within your house?

WiMax maybe, or just some sort of Walkie Talkie type transmiters?

Pure Twilight DAB/FM radio and dawn simulator

Light frequency

Aren't most of the products similar to this (dawn simulator stuff) using SAD lamps instead of some multi coloured LEDs. Half the point (I wanted to say the entire point, but it's not true) is to relieve SAD symptoms and to make waking up more 'natural' than just an irritating beeping when it's time.

I've had one of the Philips versions with a daylight bulb in it, I don't know if it does any good, I do notice that I wake up before the beeping starts, but normally only to turn my face away from the light... Maybe that's more pleasant than being bounced straight out of deep sleep by the alarm though!

'Looking and acting like an employee' didn't make him one

did the judge

Referr to his tax status? By the sounds of it he was probably paying tax as if he was self employed. In which case I'd have to agree with the judge, he can't have it both ways.

If the decision had gone the other way, I'd have hoped that HMRC were waiting outside the court room to slap him with a large tax bill.

@Aristotles Horse - on the contrary, his tax status would have been determined by his employment status, and by the sounds of it he engineered that status to reduce his tax. Then it came back and bit him. He's only got himself to blame.

Money for nothing – and your (gambling) kicks for free

@AC 12:48

The guaranteed win is in the fact that once you've bet and won or lost, the bonus £25 or whatever it was is now yours, assuming that the EULA lets you withdraw it after just one flutter. Even if your odds aren't perfect, you still get to walk away with £20 (or some fraction of the original offer).

Google sued for scanning emails of non-Gmail users

it's more like

His loving mother having given permsission for a 3rd party to open and vet her mail in advance and then them doing so.

Ie completely within her rights as the recipient of that mail and non of the business of the sender anymore.

The sender didn't have any contract with google or the recipient, the recipient has a contract allowing google to scan the mail. That's okay, as it's their mail to do with as they wish.

baseless

Once the email has left your box and arrived with your recipient, it's up to them what to do with it. Since they're using googlemail, they've clearly agreed to allow the mail to be scanned in order to target ads. The sender has no right at that point to control what is done to the email.

Presumably this lawsuit will go nowhere very quickly.

How I used Space Shuttle tech to insulate the living room

@JDX

They aren't air tight, you'd suffocate, they are well sealed and have low natural air movement, which normally means that they are supplemented with a mechanical ventilation system, often run through a heat exchanger with a bypass.

So in the winter you loose little heat through air movement, and in the summer you push warm air out and pull ambient air in, if you've thought about it, you pull the air in through a ground source heat exchanger (long pipe under ground) and it comes in at 10 degrees C all year around, free heat in the winter (when the ambient air is <10) and free cooling in the summer (when the opposite is true).

@Stu

Blazing hot summers... I guess you don't live in the UK then.

Either way, a well insulated house tends to stay cool during the summer due to the insulation, thermal mass and average temperatures (over the night as well as the day).

For the author, my brief research into triple glazing indicated that it wasn't really worth it compared to modern double glazing. If you have old double glazing then replacing it will make a big difference either way, but the performance of modern triple over modern double is marginal.

China-inspired charity aims to sex-down society

Double Crikey

"with children frequently and accidentally exposed to wholly inappropriate material, such as bestiality and child abuse, speakers explained."

I don't know what kind of websites they've been browsing, maybe children are more 'vulnerable' somehow, but I've never been accidentally (or deliberately) exposed to any bestiality or child abuse... Hysterical much, I think so.

Crikey

"by acting as a massive drain on time available for commitment"

If they're drawing on their own experiences, then I'd suggest that they've been over doing it a bit!

Either that, or they've really no clue what they're talking about.

Most coders have sleep problems, need 'hygiene and care'

generalise much

The study used engineers at one specific local company as the subjects.

It would appear that the engineers at this specific company have a high level of sleep problems, but what kind of academic would then extrapolate that across an entire industry?

Ten... sub-£50 budget MP3 players

volume

What's with the obsession over max volume? I've had a range of players over the last decade and never once had to use max volume, indeed I'm sure that if I tried that with my current S Series Sony it would physically hurt and shortly damage my hearing.

Maybe the reporter in question is already partially deaf, but to mark down players because they aren't loud enough seems ridiculous.

What will Google do with NFC?

It adds up?

@AC - so you expect to have your phone nicked, and not notice for a year... Are you a bit slow or something?

Frankly I'd be more bothered about having my phone nicked than the potential for the thief to spend £2.50 before I cancel the payment device!

I don't really see the point of this convergence though, I'd use NFC embedded in my switch card, afterall the bank already gets to know about every transaction, why do I need it embedded in my phone as well?

MAD Students Union bars 'racist' ZOMBIE PHYSICISTS

The Daily Fail

Has mixed up the name of the evening (Population) with the name of the bar (Foundry & Fusion).

Oh - and what's the IT angle?

Rethinking the iPhone

wtf

Yours

# iPhone - $82 per month/2 year contract/upgrade contract treadmill

# Google Voice - free phone number/free US & cheap international calls

# iPad - $499 for the more than adequate Wi-Fi only model (already owned)

# Virgin Mi-Fi - $149 for the device; $40 pm for the service

# Potentially displace home Internet service - $62 per month

# Contracts entrapment - no contracts & not tied up for two years with early exit penalty

Mine

# Galaxy S- £22.50 per month/2 year contract/upgrade contract treadmill

# No need for google voice, I've got a phone

# I can browse perfectly well on my phone

# My phone has 3G

# My home broadband is cheaper than mi-fi, and more reliable and faster

# Okay, I've got a 2 year contract on the phone.

I don't have to carry around your 3 (or was it 4) devices, the phone works as a phone, browser, probably for music, definitely for ebooks. My total monthly cost is £22.50 including 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 500 MB data (which I never come close to using).

You also state that you get more minutes for your $ now. That's only really true if you actually make use of them. I took the minimum minutes I could get. Out of that 300 I use about 50/month!

Steelie Neelie calls for 'every vehicle digital'

orbiting

I see a few posters have already mentioned the car driving to an out of town parking space, that would be the obvious solution, not endlessly wasting fuel driving around.

The privacy concerns are easily addressed though, just ensure that the software/hardware is under the control of the owner. Not the extent of overriding the steering behaviour or something, but to the extent of making it possible to deny access to the logs, deleted them every 2 hours, etc... A court order would be needed to get access to such logs anyway and if they're regularly deleted then your privacy is maintained. I suppose we'd have to ensure that the car wasn't transmitting uniquely identifiable info to every road sign it passed, but that's possible.

I like driving sometimes, but there are other times when I'd be more than happy to let the car take over and have a nap or read a book. There are definitely legislative issues to sort out though about culpability.

Daily Mail rails at Street View in women's refuge wrongness

Puzzled

I've seen this story in the mainstream national press as well. What isn't clear from anywhere is how exactly google identified the building as being a refuge.

Presumably it must have been a business listing somewhere, google aren't in the habit of stopping their orwellian spy mobiles and nipping into every building they pass to ask what it's for.

This strikes me as a complete non story, probably with an element of fabrication, since google will remove an image if you use the 'report this' link.

DfT to install new motorway tech

M1 Junc 28 - 31 and 32 - 35a?

Why exclude the 1/2 mile stretch from the A57 to the M18 turnoff?

Bus spotter admits £11k database fees fraud

what proceeds

The proceeds of crime thing is about confiscating the ill gotten gains of criminals.

What are they going to do, take away his notebook with the bus numbers in it???

BA slams stupid security checks

duty free

Has always been allowed in hand luggage. Where else would it go when you can't purchase it until after your hold baggage has been deposited.

Vulture 1 sprouts wings and a tail

All the grahames

Appear to be misunderstanding the comment in the article about the downwards force.

As explained by several commentards already, the joint to the fusealge acts as a fulcrum, the net force will be up, but the internal parts of the struts will be pushed down (due to said fulcrum). The strengthening is in place to stop the wings dihedral increasing as they load up.

DARPA orders miracle motor for its flying car

trivial

"it's a fairly trivial technical exercise to make light aircraft that can take off, fly about, land themselves and even interface with air-traffic control systems without human input."

Really.

It's that trivial that we haven't yet managed it with a vehicle that basically only travels in 2 dimensions on specially prepared strips of land where all said vehicles are going the same way.

But doing it with 3 dimensions, no specially prepared substrate, harsher environment (ie turbulence), etc... is trivial.

Keep drinking the coolaid.

Mozilla man accuses Jobs of 'bypass the web' scheme

drivers?

I presume that the iFans who keep mentioning drivers haven't been near a windoze box in several years...

Oldsters beat twentysomethings at social networking

26%

It seems more likely that the research is flawed than that it's accurate. At least based on my own anecdotal evidence of knowing lots of 20 somethings, all of whom text even when it's not the best way to communicate.

Given that such a basic part of the research has come back with complete rubbish, I'm going to ignore the rest of it as flawed as well!

Google's Street View broke Canadian privacy laws

comparison

A lot of people are trying to equate connecting to an unsecured network with stealing, either a car or the contents of your house.

Clearly it isn't the equivalent though. Google didn't steal the packets they received, they still got sent to their destination. I think the analogy with shouting your business in public is much more apt.

Would you complain that someone with ears had overheard you when you deliberately shout things out in a public place?

On the other hand, knowingly connecting to a network that you don't have permission for in the UK is a criminal offence under the computer misuse act... Even if it isn't secure.

KeyCase iPad Folio Deluxe

not quite complete

The circle is nearly complete as Jim suggests, except that you've now got a netbook that isn't running a real operating system and can't do a lot of things you want it to do. Oh, and it cost you a lot more.

I don't see the objection to the 3 year life span to be honest, for £60 I think you can expect it to fail in 3 years, what other electronic frippery at such a low price would still be working fine after three years? Even a £200 (subsidised) phone only has a two year life cycle before it's upgraded.

Hefty physicist: Global warming is 'pseudoscientific fraud'

read the letter

It appears obvious that the majority of posters haven't bothered to actually read (or maybe haven't understood) the letter written by the prof. Until you've read it you don't really have much ground to comment do you!

As for demanding scientific proof of his comments, well that just makes it obvious that you've not read it as most of his comments regard the workings of the APS and how it continues to ignore it's own constitution and rules with regards to allowing the issue to be debated. What 'scientific' proof that the APS ignored a valid petition for debate would you accept?

Google robo cars drive selves on public streets

paranoia

A story like this certainly brings out the paranoia in people.

How can google automate giving you a speeding ticket. Even in the US only your government have the right to issue speeding tickets.

And how do you manage to couple being automatically driven with speeding? Surely one of the points of having your robo driver doing the driving is that it won't go around breaking all the traffic rules! Maybe the speed limit could even be raised when the conditions allow for it (although that doesn't tie in very well with more efficient driving).

I enjoy driving sometimes, but when it's a daily commute on the motorway there are better things to do, like sleep for example!

As for the idea of having 'Gary' in Lahore drive for you, ignoring the latency and risk of a data connection loss, have you ever seen the driving in India? I guess not or you wouldn't have made this suggestion!

Android rebellion: How to tame your stupid smartphone

Galaxy S

I have and know several people who have the Galaxy S, and none of them have mentioned any problems.

To be fair, mine bricked itself after a fortnight, but Orange replaced it the next working day and it was all synced back up and working in a day.

PARIS unveils impressive box

space blanket

Maybe I've misunderstood the purpose of these things, but isn't it to reflect the heat that your body radiates back into the space you've enclosed (ie normally wrapped around you).

I wouldn't think that a room temperature (and falling) bunch of electronics will be radiating very much, so the insulative properties of a space blanket will be very poor...

Youth of today demand mobile payments

Youth?

I was born in 1977, which makes me 32 years old! In what world does that qualify me as the youth of today?

And I can say that I am most definitely not crying out for NFC payment options. I'm quite happy to use cash or plastic to pay for the majority of things.

I'll put my hand up to having paid for parking once using my phone, but only because I had no change in my pocket.

I assume that the reference to orange 'selling' cinema tickets is aimed at orange wednesday, a 2 for 1 offer that still requires you to 'buy' the ticket in the cinema using a traditional technique of handing over cash or sticking your card in the slot. There's definitely nothing near field about it anyway.

I'll admit that Oyster works well in london, but here in Sheffield giving the conductor cash in exchange for a printed ticket on the tram also seems to be surprisingly effective.

Car wrecks rise after texting bans imposed

so that is the ban

It doesn't matter how you try to explain it, that's the affect of the ban that's actually made the situation worse.

only ever suggested by idiots

Why don't you try it out. Then when someone crashes into you through no fault of your own, with your dying breath you can declare it to not be as effective as you thought.

Judge orders turnover of woman's deleted Facebook posts

privacy

This article and many of the subsequent comments leave me scratching my head, I'll explain why.

A judge has ordered that the data be turned over, the reg manages to turn this into a criticism of the facebook privacy policy... The judge could equally have ordered her ISP and her webmail provider to turn over her emails, I doubt that this would spark a rant about their privacy policy, simply because no matter what the policy a court order overrides it! So this is nothing to do with facebook privacy at all.

Then there's a bunch of people commenting on the photo mentioned in the article. Why, you're all saying things like "one photo doesn't prove anything". Nobody claimed it did, who are you arguing with?

Then comments criticising the lawyers for doing their job. As one comment already asked, would you prefer that the insurance company pays all claims without any investigation or due diligence? Would you like your premiums to go up tenfold to cover the costs of this policy?

It's a non story really, the only interesting thing is how long the 'deleted' information remains available, at some point it will really have been deleted and even a court order can't bring it back at that point.

WD Livewire four-port powerline Ethernet adaptor

@Ground Rush

The ethernet cable to the AV equipment only has to go a metre or two, from the plugged in adaptor. The backhaul is going over the house power circuitry.

Personally I get better speed with 802.11n, so I can't really see the appeal of kit like this.

UN appoints alien liaison boffin

first contact

By definition, if they send some sort of advanced communication medium that we don't notice (gravity waves or quantum fluctuations or something we can't even imagine), then first contact hasn't happened has it!

So whenever first contact happens, it will be within the realm of our technological capabilities.

Assuming that it's not a directed communication (which we'd probably not notice), then a broadcast signal is the most likely means, and as radio is one of the easiest forms of EM to broadcast and isn't absorbed by the things likely to get in the way, it's a good guess.

Nobody ever claimed that because first contact might be via radio that it means we're as smart as the contactee's. That's just a strawman you've made up.

Daily Mail savages Data Protection Act over stolen dog

police stance

The normal stance that the police take on this matter (according to numerous posts by people who've had their dogs stolen) is that it's a civil matter and they won't get involved.

Of course without the police's assistance, and without the address where the dog is being held, it's then impossible to take civil action as well. (Not that you should have to, a dog is property, if it's reported stolen then the police should investigate).

Vacuum-wielding thieves siphon €500,000 from store safes

one way valve

Why have they not addressed this in four years, surely it's as simple as putting a one way valve (or several) into the system. Try to suck from the wrong place and you get nothing.

World's first pedal-powered ornithopter takes flight in Canada

easy

Stop eating pies and hit the gym for 6 hours a day.

Philips 32PFL9705 Ambilight 32in LED backlit TV

price

You forget to talk about the astranomical price. I like the idea of ambilight, but there's no way it's worth double the cost of an otherwise equivalent screen.

ZoneAlarm slammed for scarewarey marketing

ignorance

This just demonstrates a huge level of ignorance regarding the key functionality of a product like ZA.

The most important thing for me is that outbound connections are monitored.

Sure, my router and windows firewall may protect me from inbound threats, but what about that banking trojan trying to dial home.