Posts by Yet Another Anonymous coward

Cops use terror powers to lift BBC man's laptop after ISIS interview

Re: Snowden?

They don't abuse their own laws. They do exactly what the laws were designed to do - keep journalists afraid and compliant.

I hope you aren't in the UK - that sounds like you are supporting the words of a known terrorist.

Re: So What? @Dan Paul

And in the eyes of the UK and USA government.

Re: So what?

I think it's disgusting that the state security apparatus has to go through all this pointless bureaucracy to access data from the state broadcaster.

To improve efficiency we need all depts of government to work together so all information from the state health service, state broadcaster is immediately available to the police and cabinet office.

VMware vs German kernel dev: Filings flung in Linux-lifting lawsuit

Re: Break out the popcorn

It is going to be a lot less entertaining having the case heard by a judge that understands the facts

'Govt will not pass laws to ban encryption' – Baroness Shields

Re: Great idea!!

No you just require all locks to be opened by a special master key that only The Security Administration have, and just hope that all their 100,000 employees are perfectly honest and that nobody ever loses a key

The same bill that required you to hand over your password also applied to steganography. The wording was something like "any document that contained a hidden or secret message" so if you had a copy of anything by James Joyce or pretty much any religous book in the house you were in trouble.

It's a bit tough to get 5years if you can't explain Paradise Lost

Re: Where are we getting "banning encryption" from?

"The penalty for non-disclosure might be significantly less onerous than that for any crime revealed to have been committed if the key is disclosed. "

Not that now the penalties for displeasing her majesty's intelligence services include being extraordinarily renditioned to some -istan to be tortured and then chained to a floor to freeze to death.

Safe Harbor 2.0: Judges to keep NSA spying in check – EU justice boss

Re: And??

We have top people looking into it. Who? Top people.....

Re: Hmm...

Sadly it doesn't even need to go that far.

Hey judge sign this, "it's for Murika and against tourists"

Xiaomi preps Linux laptops for the post Christmas sales rush

Re: Portent

Xiaomi phones have customer service that make Apple look crap.

If they do this right (assuming there is any market for laptops anymore) it could be nice

UK.gov launches roadmap for Quantum of Something or other

Re: oh good

It's not a question of experts predict - it's that this money comes out of physics budget and goes to which ever bandwagon is flavour of the month.

So it's nano-tech this, quantum that, cyber-thingy - most of it goes on new buildings and marketing but the studentships, post-docs and staff positions are all cut.

oh good

Because government are so much better at spotting the area of physics where the next breakthrough will come than physicists are and can so much more efficiently target resources.

That' why we have all these high temperature superconductor research centers founded, and funded, in the 80s which have produced so much

RBS promises 'safe, secure, confidential' info-sharing on Facebook at Work

e) circulating memos about covers for TPS reports

Court to Wikimedia: Your NSA spying evidence is inadmissable, so you can't prove NSA spying

Re: A lawsuit isn't the answer to every problem.

That people aren't reading or editing certain pages because of a fear that the visit will be monitored and you will go on some government list ?

If the secret police were photographing everyone entering a store and making a list of what they bought - would the store have to prove that some people had stayed away ?

Silicon Valley freeze-out: EU watchdog tells firms clock is ticking to limit data transfers

On Facebook or Linkedin and have contacts in the USA - how are you planning to manage that without copying data ?

Snowden, Schrems, safe harbor ... it's time to rethink privacy policies, says FTC commish

Safe harbour is only about commercial protection of data. If it was about protecting your data from the US government then the Eu wouldn't allow data to be processed in the UK where it will be handed over to our 5eyes partners.

It is about not having your medical records sold to an insurance company, or your banking information sold to advertisers.

Bacon as deadly as cigarettes and asbestos

Re: Sea change in "allowed" foods

The restriction is probably that the banned animals all eat grain. So the rich could have luxury meat by feeding them stuff that people can eat - which would drive up the price of food.

Obviously Jehovah is a commie and that explains the Daily Mail's dislike of his chosen people.

Re: re-reporting the daily mail?

Least likely Daily Mail headline: "Pork gives you cancer, Muslims and Jews were right all along"

Fully working U-Boat Enigma machine sells for $365,000

> But a diesel engine is a diesel engine, a valve is a valve and so on

But none of our nuts and bolts fitted, and we had to file down all the bolt heads until they fit proper spanners

R&D money for science – from your taxes?

Re: So... how DO we get more of public good things?

Arguably the Born-Haber process to make ammonia has allowed many more people to be born than died in WWI.

Re: So... how DO we get more of public good things?

>In that case, how does economics suggest we proceed in order to maximise the amount of science done by the human race in toto?

Traditionally having a decent world war

>Has anyone tried it? If so, what were the results, compared with other alternative approaches?

Last time, we got computers, radar, jet engines, nuclear power, rockets, sonar, proper weather forecasting, ocean floor mapping, discover of the jet stream.

Although there were a certain level of inconvenience for many people and quite a lot of mess.

Re: pointless arguments...

Perhaps they did have a space program?

Suppose when we first land on Kepler 452 we discover it's populated by billions of Tyrannosaurus (sauri?) Rexes with normal arms who explain that they left all the handicapped short armed ones behind.

... before eating us ...

Re: Patents

No - lack of training stuff that up.

A kid in Somalia can read Einstein's papers online. So there is no need for Somalia to invest in higher education, they obviously have all the info they need to build a nuclear power station.

So Britain can wait for Japanese/Korean/Chinese researches to make a discovery and publish the theory and then British industry can go and hire some school leavers and immediately begin manufacturing room temperature super-conductors? All we need is a single national subscription to Phys Rev Letters ?

The point of public science is to train scientists. So they go and work in industry and make things.

After a wasted PhD in nuclear physics (thanks to the cowardly USSR throwing the towel in) I now work on making a new kind of 3d surgery robot. It's not that I found a paper saying how to build this - but that I had years of training in research and solving problems.

Re: one large logical fallacy (pr phallacy?) in most large programs and government ideas

The BoM for a collider or a space telescope isn't an investment in science - it's a WTO avoiding subsidy to your country's aerospace industry. That's why most of the staff at CERN or ESA are devoted to making sure that Belgian companies get 2.73% of the contracts to match their contribution.

Diverting that money from student place, staff posts, and university depts is what does the damage.

FBI, US g-men tried to snatch DNA results from blood-testing biz. What a time to be alive

While in the UK they can just arrest you, take your DNA and then release you without charge - sorry mistaken identity. But keep the data for ever.

Microsoft's top lawyer: I have a cunning plan ... to rescue sunk safe harbor agreement

Re: Internet faces 'digital dark ages' if nothing is done

You have heard of the european union and the free movement of goods and services?

Try writing the same thing with "cars being made"

GCHQ to pore over blueprints of Chinese built Brit nuke plants

Re: About time too

>Generously rewarding PV ... must go down as one of the most stupid ideas ever conceived by a British government

Not if you think of it as MIRAS with a new greener coating.

Giving homeowners money for nothing, paid for by charging OAPs and poor renters more for leccy is frankly brilliant.

Re: "selling property overseas to invest in its own future."

That's why we need Trident, to protect all the Russian billionaires living in London from the threat of Russian nukes ....

Nurse - Is it time for my medicine ?

Re: National infrastructure projects

>would starve if they were paid the same amount as the Chinese workers will get paid.

Because the one thing you want starving peasants just arrived form the farm to be doing is building your nuclear reactor.

>There is no reason to expect that France ... are planning to make war on the United Kingdom.

I thought war with France was the sole reason for our nuclear deterent ?

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella is paid $18m – and would trouser $20m if sacked

Re: Why should this surprise anyone?

StevieB was one of the Original microsoftiers - he has enough $Bn in the bank to buy all the basketball teams he wants

Lotus F1: 38°C? Sand in your Vblocks? Must be building a data center in Bahrain again

Re: Interesting IT, but I still don't get it

But then you would go back to the days of Renault when they had a new car for each circuit and an engine that lasted one race. So only a company backed by a government could compete.

BBC shuts off iPlayer to UK VPNs, cutting access to overseas fans

Re: Foot, meet high kinetic energy lead dispensing device

Pay $100/year to the BBC to be able to watch TV from over here - not allowed

$few/episode to the BBC to watch Sherlock/Qi/Dr Who - not allowed

Pay $50/month for BBC America on top of $100/month premium cable, to watch episodes a month later with commercials - allowed

Or Torrent for free ?

Samsung told to build bots who work for less than Foxconn staffers

Re: It isn't China they need to beat

Worker cost isn't the main reason to build iPhones in China - it is that the chip fab is next door to the screen maker who is next door to the glass maker who is next door to the machine shop....

You could build a cost effective automated assembly line for iPhones in america. And if you built it in the right southern state you could be paid for building it. The trouble is that all the components would come from china and take 6weeks - so your stocking, logistics and ability to ramp up/down production are horrible

Re: better conditions, time off work, more pay

That's when you would need a robot leader to stamp down on these worker robots and put them in their place - some sort of iron iron-lady ?

Re: We can do that too

> if Korea can build these, so can everyone else

I think you missed the bit where it says "government will invest in Research"

We can certainly throw $15M at a silicon roundabout PR initiative to develop a digital concept around how people would relate to a robot in a multcultural mobile scenario - but building robots ?

So just what is the third Great Invention of all time?

Re: Rule of Law

You can run quite large groups of people quite successfully for centuries/millenia on the "I'm he boss, i have the pointy hat, I make the rules" principle.

Re: Limited Liability

The moral hazard is that it isn't your money.

So if you are a CEO you run the company to maximise your bonus cheque this quarter and fsck the shareholders - as long as it goes bust after you are paid you don't care.

Re: Antibiotics

That's the enlightenment. The idea that you try things, see which work and then come up with a reason - rather than pray/do something pointless but must be right because you have always done it that way and the guild says to do it.

It's just that it took about 300 years longer for the idea of evidence to catch on in medicine than it did in physics. There are even signs it may soon be discovered b economics.

Microsoft offers to PAY YOU to trade in your old computer for a Windows 10 device

Re: Wow

"it's because they're offering a little more to try and get Apple-types to jump ship."

It's because you can sell Macbooks - for money.

Even the bottom end Macbook air sells for $500 refurb, you would be mad to hand over a MBP for $300

Euro privacy warriors: You've got until January to fix safe harbor mess – or we unleash hell

Re: Simply move or consolidate the servers to Europe

But then how do you sell the information to US advertisers?

But it doesn't help if the US govt can order the US parent corp to hand over the data held by european subsiduaries

>include clauses where you the customer effectively wave your data protection rights

It doesn't matter what they put in their terms and conditions - the law wins.

I can put in the small print that you waive the requirement that my medical product is approved by the FDA, and that you allow me to resolve all claims in Liberia. But the FDA are still going to come and see me - and the still carry guns.

Re: Reality

And the US authorities will simply demand the data anyway and offer the US parent CEO a choice:

No more government contracts, yearly tax audits until the end of time, infinite fines, or simply being declared a terrorist and sent off to Borat-istan for a game of whack-the-testicles.

Re: EU data protection authorities are committed to take all necessary and appropriate actions

Except that the German security authorities (along with the UK, French et al) have just announced that they will slurp all your data "for security reasons".

So a US corporation could argue that this is nothing to do with privacy and is purely an anti-competitive move and is no different from the FAA forcing all US airlines to only use US built planes and engines "for security reasons"

Minicab-hailing app Uber is lawful – UK High Court

Re: Watch the taximob shills come crawling out of the woodwork

I think the taxi driver's objection is that it has a foreign (albeit German) name.

Now if the app was called Enoch - they would be all for it.

Re: Fair nuf

No it's because the deal is for an end-end trip with the driver knowing in advance and agreeing to the deal and fare before picking you up. A black cab has to pick you up, has to take you to where you want, and can have have you decide to just get out at the first red light and just pay for 1/4mi.

It's like the difference between a fixed price contract to install off the shelf software and an hourly rate to write a custom system where you can quit at any point. I don't know about you but I would charge a very different rate for those.

Re: Hackney licence.

The taxi is required to take you anywhere - the minicab isn't.

The taxi drivers would argue that they need a monopoly to make up for the loses by having to take less profitable fares rather than picking and choosing only profitable trips to the airport.

Obviously the solution today is simply market pricing - the rate/mile to go across south of the river after 10:00 could be more than a trip to Heathrow.