Posts by Windrose

Assange loses appeal against extradition to Sweden

Re: @Loyal Commenter

"But what would prevent the Swedes dropping/postponing their case if the US put in an extradition request on much more serious charges?"

Within the law, or outside it? As long as the case is ongoing, all other requests are put on hold. There's also grace periods after the case is closed, and so forth. IANAL. WITHIN the law he's pretty well protected.

Outside the legal system? Nothing what so ever prevents them from just shipping him off. Except, of course, the "whops, you broke the law in full view of the international media" bit.

Re: It's all about publicity...

I notice you know zip all about swedish law. A good place from which to comment.

As mentioned before: if you have sex, of whatever nature, with someone in Sweden *without their consent*, you are SOL.

Of course, it is part of the story that (a) only around 20 per cent of estimated sexual crimes are reported, (b) in 19 per cent of THOSE can you pinpoint an assailant, and out of THAT (c) 30 per cent are found guilty.

So yeah. Sweden IS a strange place - consent is considered VERY important, but the lack of it ain't.

Re: RE: the law is an ass

Yes - and boy did THAT turn into a medial shitstorm.

Now you suggest they are going to break the law again, but this time in FULL VIEW of the press? Not in the dead of night at a tiny airport but smack bang in the middle of Stockholm with every blogger and journalist there is out for blood?

Oh, yes. Best conspiracy EVER, this.

"his is about getting him into a position where he CAN be extradited to the USA where he can be changed under USA law even though the 'crimes' (in the USA) for which he is accused are not necessarily crimes in other countries"

Why? Why go to all this trouble to make everything appear legal - as opposed to just bundling him away in the dead of night - when the final result will be plastered all over the media as ILLEGAL?

He's comitted no crime in the US which Sweden reckognise as such. He's not been asked for BY the US. Sweden can't extradite him without the *UK* agreeing.

So WHY? If this was a setup, wouldn't they at least make sure it APPEARED legal? If he is extradited to Sweden, under this EAW, he *can't automatically be sent to the US* - not legally. At the very least they are stuck with a total mess of a media circus.

So if this is a setup, it's the worst I've ever seen.

Re: RE: the law is an ass

"Once extradited to Sweden several US/Swedish treaties can be used to extradite him to the US, which (I predict) will happen."

IF the UK consent to it, yes. As it is, Swedish authorities have publically stated that FIRST the US need to ask for it, then it needs to be evaluated against Swedish law, and THEN the UK must say yes.

So if both Sweden and the UK agree - and the US actually ask - then yes, he can be legally extradited to the Amurricans. But it ain't as simple as far, far too many people seem to think.

'Geek' image scares women away from tech industry

Re: What A Load Of Bull$hit

"Forget the scientifc principle if it concerns any sort of idealist matron."

Right.

"Equally, men don't have breasts" - apply scientific thought to that one, and get back to us on the result, please.

"... and have been traditionally been responsible for doing stuff outside the nest" - tradition is not, much to the sadness of many, evolution.

"So men have technology hardwired into their brains"

Eliza Murfey, 1870, patented 16 devices for improving bearings for rairoad-car axles.

Mary Walton, 1879, created a method for reducing emissions from smoke stacks.

Mary Anderson, 1903, invented the windshield wiper.

Randice-Lisa Altschul, 1999, a number of patents for a disposable cell phone.

Erna Schneider Hoover, 1954, created the computerized telephone switching system

Patsy Sherman, 1973, patent for Scotchguard.

Let's not even talk of Marie Curie, Grace Hopper or even Lady Ada.

Some men can't assemble IKEA shelves. Some can't change tires. To claim they have technology hardwired into their brains is to say some men are braindamaged.

Scientific principle my arse.

Re: Wasn't there just a study or other...

"Fix education so that kids get a good solid backgrounder in and feel for the hard sciences, get them to understand what it's there for and how it helps everyone"

Yes, well, no. First we need to fix society so it doesn't encourage parents to believe there is a car gene and raise their kids to fit.

Re: 9 to 5, chilling at Hewlett Packard

'How about they call you at 02:00 in the morning because "the servers iz down". Are you supposed to say "nope, getting on with my life"?'

Then they damn well better have put it in my contract up front that, at 0200, *I* am the one they call to fix the servers.

Surely you grasped the point: it's not what you are HIRED to do which is a problem, but all the other things you are also expected to be in on - four hour overtime daily to get the badly mismanaged project (sorry, "badly mismanaged" is redudant) in on time, emergency call outs during the night to fix the webserver when you're hired to implement their new database, or the desperate mails during vacation time 'cause they don't want to spend money hiring enough people.

IF my contract state I am to be available at 0200 - and they pay the extra blood money - then I'll be there as required. If not I'll work the normal hours. That latter statement makes me an undesirable employee, I bet. Life, outside the hours the company pay me to work. There's the point.

Hanging's too good for 'em - so what do you suggest?

Re: Death Penalty IS a deterrent

"Surely you could turn that around again, why bother with crime and punishment at all, it hasn't solved the problem of crime."

Yes, well, you could say that, but before you do, why not take a very long, very close look at the number of crimes and the number of recurring crimes in countries with harsh vs. human justice systems?

"You seem to be saying that we shouldn't use the best deterrent, as it may not work for everyone? As I said, flawed logic."

When claiming my logic is flawed, it is not useful to start off by saying "you seem to be ... ".

What I AM saying is simple: if you ask any half-way sane person whether they'd be deterred from a crime by having their head cut off, or by being fried alive by electricity, they would very, very likely answer "YES!".

And STILL people committed murder in France, and still do in the US. The death penalty is not a deterrent, as it doesn't stop people comitting murders. Frankly I don't care for the touchy-feely idea that we should have "punishment X! That's how we've always done it!" if X doesn't do anything to fix the problem.

Re: Deterrence?

"And he will only get like what, twenty two years or something, for killing seventy seven and injuring scores more?"

21 years is the maximum possible prison sentence we can give him. Then we can ALSO hand him a "... but we'll have to evaluate you every fifth year after that, to see if you are safe to release first" deal.

That said, we need to keep "justice" and "revenge" firmly apart. What, except the cheering of a few bloodthirsty, will we - society that is - gain from killing off ABB? He ain't gettin' out again, so he won't repeat.

As it is we can pat ourselves on the back and go "Good on us, me old mucker! We've remained philosophically clean!"

I can live with that.

Re: Death Penalty IS a deterrent

"If the death penalty is no deterrent, why did the murder rate sky rocket after the abolition, when it was in decline before it?"

Try turning it around. If it WAS a deterrent, why'd people still go and do it?

'cause people don't THINK before they react, and most murders are done whilst not thinking straight. Someone nicks your phone? You hit'im, and hit'im again and then you start thinking that the distinct lack of breathing in the bugger might mean you're up that particular creek and the boat is leaking.

Of course, you'd not do the jig for THAT, but rather we'd hang the woman who wait until the boyfriend falls asleep and THEN knives him, 'cause he's thrice her size and has kept her lock in and beaten up for two weeks. That's *premeditated* that is.

Re: Hang'em high - make a Dead mans Newtons Cradle

You missed the bit about wrongful convictions entirely, didn't you?

Oh. Was that meant to be FUNNY? Sorry.

Deterrence?

China? 1.12 per 100,00 - if we can trust the crowd at Wikipedia.

So despite having (a) capital punishment, (b) really, really FAST capital punishment, it would appear that the Chinese - like most every other human - don't really consider the long-term effects of their actions.

It doesn't work, Stratman, no matter which way we turn the numbers. People simply don't stop to think before stabbing their mate after a drunken row. They don't much think before doing anything much at all. If they did, then the Chinese numbers would be 0.

iPad app that lets mute kids speak menaced by patent lawsuit

Re: It's not about milking the parents of disabled kids.

"I mean, honestly, a keyboard of symbols that get strung together to form a spoken sentence?"

They better go after Logitech, Microsoft and other keyboard makers, then. THEIR keyboards are exactly the same; it's the information content per symbol that differs.

I personally find the iPad a useless thing, but hope sincerely that the patent trolls get slapped with a "prior art", and the people who need this app to communicate do not get hindered.

(Why they didn't put it on the Samsung Note, however, I'll never grasp. IT, at least, is portable as opposed to the iPad)

Busted in the US? 'Drop your trousers, sir'

Must be irony.

Don't walk your dog either.

Oh, and DEFINETLY don't pay fines. They'll do you anyway, whether you pay or not, so why bother?

Well done, AC! You've explained very well why this asshattery is going on. Here, have a mirror.

Re: Dear Land Of Liberty...

Yes - and despite the remarks made elsewhere in the thread - that was very, very wrong. Even if they DID find drugs.

The difference - the rather MAJOR difference - is that the UK Supreme Court hasn't said "Oh, that's ok, no matter what they've allegedly done or not done or who they are. Just go ahead, any time it takes your fancy"

Apple New iPad Wi-Fi only

Or ...

"They don't have a vision, they don't have the desire to bring something innovative to people,..."

... they have a DIFFERENT vision for which their products work better. Which is why some of us think *Apple* is playing catchup.

Re: Depends. As usual

"You know that there are some of us who can't stand this fad for 'widescreen' displays."

It's not a fad - it's a preference*. Which is the entire point of this discussion, when it comes down to it.

* Tho if you announce a device as particularly suited for watching movies and TV series, then 4:3 becomes less a preference. Up to you tho. I find the screen too small for movies. Not that I got anything to ever play on it.

Not quite.

Yes, and no.

If you look at the numbers, the iPhone 4 share the throne for 3.5" devices with Sharp's IS03 - both at 326, both with retina displays. Nokia's (absolutely brilliant) N900 comes close with 267, tho no cigar.

Sony's Xperia S, on the other hand, has more ppi - 342 on 4.3". The Galaxy Note has "only" 285, but a whooping 5.3" realestate.

So the iPhone isn't alone on top (IS03 was out Oct 2010), and Sony has them beat in absolute terms. Then, of course, we can discuss Retina vs. PenTile vs. etc, etc, etc.

Re: Tablets/pads

"How do you hold an iPad ? Put it on a flat surface ? Hold it up and get a tired arm ?"

No, you upgrade your arm to a stronger model.

Serious, I DO wonder the same at times. I've tried reading books on the iPad 2, and the new one weighs in about the same as the "Programming Perl" (Camel) book from O'Reilly does. Which I later bought as PDF to *avoid having to carry half a kilo brick around*.

Confuses the hell out of me.

Depends. As usual

Your statement depends entirely on several shades of grey - as is so often the case.

Personally, while not an Android fan, I find the Galaxy Note a far, far better tablet than the iPad 2 - and the iPad 3, even without testing the latter. The Note is portable, non-slippery, light, and has an exceptional screen. The iPad is heavy (yes, I DO actually own one), slippery, too large, and doesn't have a very nice screen. #3 will have a nice display, tho. But 4:3, in 2012?

YOUR mileage may vary, but for me the Note blew the iPad out of the water. It's a complex reality we live in.

Could tiny ebooks really upset the mighty Apple cart?

Re: Why bother with E-Books?

"What advantage do they offer over traditional books, either buying them, or borrowing them from a brick and mortar old fashioned library?"

You can carry more of them, you can't lose them (if you do, there's backup at home!), and when you've read your favourite book to pieces you ... well, it doesn't go to pieces, so you won't have to hunt used-book stores for that out of print goodness.

But paper is nicer.

Re: Who cares about the publishers?

"Why the hell should an author have to pay a cut to multiple middle-men, when they can just go to direct to the last one in the chain?"

Because most - if not all - authors are not good writers, editors, illustrators, cover designers, typesetters, marketeers and laywers.

Unless your favourite book is a long run of text only with a cover that says "Book" ... the "middle-men" have quite a lot of value to add.

Imagine the "Lord of the Rings" centennial edition without Alan Lee's illustration and the typeset Elfish. There you go.

Hey Commentard! - or is that Commenter?

Re: ~2000 votes so far cannot be wrong, can they... can they?

"We could support a "poll" system that didn't require javascript, for more work and a crappier UI"

Yeah. Or not. People have created "poll" systems before which didn't require JS, didn't take more work (honestly? You've never actually WRITTEN JS, have you?), and had nicer UIs.

Don't take your incompetence out on others. It's embarassing.

Whats wrong with "Peanut"?

As in "Peanut gallery".

Most people - perhaps all - who comment on anything online are nuts anyway.

Who's adding DRM to HTML5? Microsoft, Google and Netflix

Re: Re: Bummer.

"So I don't think it's an unethical thing to add to the spec and I'd much rather it's figured out by a broad forum like W3C, with a number of sceptics in the room,"

The sceptics went out the window when the spec was effectively hijacked by the browser vendors and the WHATWG.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Bummer.

"Your browser fingerprint appears to be unique among the 2,032,879 tested so far."

No Tor, no proxy, no nothing - except for cookies and JS turned off. Doesn't everyone these days?

Use iBooks Author, only Apple can ever publish the result

OR other.

"Surely this only applies to the end result and packaging?"

Indeed. So any .ibook, .epub, or .pdf produced with this software, then. That sounds reasonable, right?

Since .ibooks are "rich", and the tool is "free", and Apple "only" charge a liiiittle bit, I'm quite convinced we'll see loads of "other works" produced solely for the iPad. Which is great news for the iPad owners, and, actually, quite the same for the rest of us. We'll be able to tell the wheat from the chaff, as is were.

Banana war: Velvet Underground shoots holes in Apple bag

Non-conformist?

"...he creative, non-conformist spirit of Andy Warhol ... "

And they make *Apple*-related products? Is there anything else as conformist as those?

Kids should be making software, not just using it - Gove

Don't.

Teaching a product is a crap idea. Teach principles, not particular pieces of software.

Teach theory.

"Any idiot can write anything in a any language." - as someone who from time to time hire programmers, I have to agree. My problem, as an employer, is to find someone who ISN'T an idiot. Doesn't help if you teach them bad habits early.

Assange™ can request final hearing against Swedish extradition

There's that word "think" again.

"Do you *really* imagine the US are not going to try and extradite him from Sweden in way they could not from the UK?"

As it would be far easier for the US to extradite him from the UK than from Sweden ... uh ... duh ... well ... ok. I'll concede that my impression of US government intelligence is pretty low, so hell yeah! Why do it the EASY way (US -> US speed extradition treaties) when we CAN do it the difficult way (US -> Sweden extradition treaty which include having to ask the UK first)?

Yep. You're right. It's a bloody conspiracy! Besides, they'll probably just break the law and have him shipped out in secret from Sweden, and noone will ever know or care. Yep. That makes sense. I'm such a naif.

Put a stopper in your gob, why don't you? Swedish government officials are no better or worse than most others, but sending him to the US without it being perfectly legal, RIGHT now, would burn'em, and burn'em good. Doing it on the sly? Fine. They probably would, at that.

Multi ... whatsits?

"huge, humiliating, multi-government stitch-up job"

Insert: roll on floor laughing arse off. Good heavens, anonymous individual you, he's been to court, after court after court after ... and so far the justice system has all disagreed with him. He's got another round to go in the UK, then a potential round in the EU, THEN - tho it ain't likely it'll get past the interviews - to a Swedish one ...

And ALL of it happens in the newspapers, in blogs, on the telly, on twitter ... it ain't exactly subtle, it ain't very hidden, and damned but it is a fine example of exactly HOW many days in court one fellow can get if he's tenacious enough, has the funds, and get well laywered up.

Sure. He might be found guilty even if he is innocent. Mistakes do happen, but with the amount of focus on this case you really, really, really think it is a stitch-up job?

No flames for you, only hollering of laughter.

2011's Best... E-book Readers

Less cheap looking?

*tap, tap*?

The 'new' Sony Reader has lost the nice aluminum body of the PRS-650 et al, and added battery-hungry wifi.

"Less cheap looking"? Smoking one's socks isn't a particularly good idea.

Shock claim: Playing Elder Scrolls WILL MAKE YOU GAY

Of course

"Are you sure that was a parody?"

Of course. Natural selection is based on survival of the *fittest*. That, weird if logical as it may be, doesn't mean the healthiest ...

But, to quote Sgt. Angua: "The problem isn't being a vegetarian by day, but not being a humanitarian by night"

Kindle Fire: An open letter to Jeff Bezos

Elementary.

"What exactly makes Amazon scary but Google completely harmless?!"

Google told us they were harmless, of course! Sheesh, young people these days.

Think your CV is crap? Your interview skills are worse

Interesting.

"if an airplane crashed on the border of the US and Canada, where would the survivors be buried?"

Could be interesting to see the replies, tho.

"On the border? Please define 'on' and 'border'? Aha. *drags out pen, paper, and HP calculator* I need a list of the passengers, their passports, spousal arrangements, a desk, a cat, and some fish fingers in custard. Oh, a copy of the relevant case law on burying people alive ... "

I'd hire that one.

Egg. You know where.

You DID notice WHICH word I didn't "spell check", did you? No?

Tech.

Well, you are presumably some sort of at-least-appears-to-be-an-engineer, so give the engineering response:

"I take it you mean some sort of non-human animal, Sir/Ma'am?"

Then walk. Life's too short.

Word? Sic.

"In the last week I have seen four CVs which were Word documents that displayed red wiggly lines when I opened them."

You DID set your copy of Word to spelcheck in the same language as the author of the document, yes? Yes? No? Perhaps not?

If you trust to MS Word to check a document, I certainly do not trust you to pay my salary on time.

'Grow up': Assange's mother to Obama-struck Oz

The mind boggleth ...

"... rather, the charges against him were dismissed and he was free to leave Sweden."

Did you miss the bit in a UK court where his lawyer had to eat crow and ADMIT he lied and that his client did skip the country *while the police were looking for him*?

Or did you just get well paid to ignore it?

Why your tech CV sucks

At a guess? No.

"Yeah but people dont, alot of people dont, this is why he wrote the artical"

At a guess - no. He wrote it so that people would talk about him. He succeeded. His is a singularly useless extra - redundant even! - step in a recruitment process which is already expensive. So he needs to sell himself. Today more people know who he is. Success.

Apple's iPad not so shiny once you get it home

Just a little

... bit more than you do, it appears. I'd ask why you insist on being such a stuffed shirt, but your rudeness does speak for itself.

Now. "At arms length" means "with your arm stretched out". Sitting in a chair, with my arm stretched out, means I easily reached ... the knee. So holding it "at arms length" *and* in the lap becomes quaintly difficult, unless you are Möbius or Listing.

Or perhaps you insist, Jobs' style, that we should STAND while we read, necks bent, and looking just slightly idiotic. Well, that's up to you. Me, I'll go on thinking that half-a-kilo-plus is somewhat more than I like holding as if it was a book.

Somewhat like your 'tude, actually.

No ...

"Try handbrake"

0.9.5, using the 'iPad', profile. Converted nicely; 'least Handbrake said nothing. iTunes keep quiet when I try to add the resulting file. Zip. Nada.

Any other ideas?

Decidedly some kind of idiot. The kind, specifically, that doesn't manage to hold a book at "arms length" and "in my lap" at the same time.

I am as much an orangutan as you are polite. Which should say it all.

"Unless you're the kind of person that insists on sticking your nose in a book then the iPad screen is just fine for reading at arms length"

You suggest holding 600+ grams of tablet *at arms length* for a number of hours? Who are you, Hercules?

"I wonder if we'll get the same kind of whining from you after the Kindle Fire is released"

Was that for me? Why, thank you. The Fire's 169dpi display isn't particular useful either, so cut the crap about whining. This issue isn't about Apple, it's about making poor design decisions - and have them defended right, left and center by people with nothing better to do with their time.

Sounds more like ...

"I couldn't give a hoot about FLAC files"

Good for you. As long as you are happy with doing what Apple's engineers have decided you should do, everything is - mostly fine. See below.

"I can watch movies in almost any filetype out there with little fuss"

HOW? I've dragged files into iTunes, I've dropped them, I've opened them, I've converted them, and so far *nothing what so ever* play on the bloody thing. Ripped DVDs, home movies, downloaded tv series ... I COULD see a use for it to watch stuff on, but so far absolutely no go what so ever.

Trying to add a .MOV-file and having iTunes tell me - for once TELL me - that it isn't supported was, perhaps, the single most hillarious moment of this sad story. Mostly it just doesn't say anything when I do drag'n'drop or 'add file to library'.

Or not?

"Or for people with disabilities, believe it or not but Apple's kit is great for people with disabilities thanks to features built in that noone else offers in that manner."

Yes - and no. It's *excellent* for people with visual-related disabilities. Those missing limbs, or using mouth-held pointers ... not so much.

(Yes, it CAN be fixed, but then we are suddenly back to "we have to modify the tech to make it work", and Apple has no advantages.)

Ok. I get it.

"Our iPad is in constant use and routinely fought over."

Ok. I get that people use it. What I don't grok is WHY. Seriously. I've got a variety of these devices in the lab, and so I've tried the iPad2 for "non-site testing" purposes.

The dpi is way, way too low for e-books - and the devices is way too heavy for same. It's 4:3, so playing movies are, well .. if I could even get some ON there (iTunes tells me it won't even transfer the .mov file I wanted. mkv isn't worth bothering with. ). Type on it? Nope. I saw someone mention ssh - ssh to what? There's no ctrl key, no alt key, no ... music? I don't even WANT to think what I need to do to get flac on there - no, I don't have mp3s, and I don't WANT to conver 800+ albums :(

Fingerpainting, yes, I can see that one even if the precision is poor ... but honestly, ALL the time? Surfing the web? It's ... HEAVY, and there's no stand unless I buy one - but then it isn't very portable.

It drops wifi constantly, I can't very well carry the thing with me for todo-lists and calendars, and it'd look bloody silly screwed to the dash of the car for map apps.

I've used it for a photoframe, but it's a damned expensive one.

Nope. Don't get it. Really don't.