Posts by Matt Bryant

Iran displays video footage of captured US spy drone

RE: How I Would Do It

"I would have mounted a precision rifle (12mm caliber) in the second seat of a Mig25, looking downwards....." Do you mean 12.7mm? Also, there is a lot of airframe and other vital bits between the rear cockpit and the fuselage bottom of the MiG-25PU two-seater, which would make your reverse Schrage-Musik installation a bit tricky. Besides the fact the Iranians don't actually have any MiG-25s....

".....Then acquire the drone while overflying my territory optically...." Seeing as a MiG-25's RP-25 radar wouldn't be able to acquire a stealth drone like the RQ-170, how exactly do you propose to find the drone in the first place in order to close to a range where you could track it optically? In fact, this points out a very obvious hole in the Iranian story - how did they even know the drone was airborne in the first place in order to mount their claimed "skyhack"? The coms link off the drone is directional and is pointed upwards at a satellite, not sprayed in all directions, so it is unlikley they could claim they tracked it by radio detection. They also don't have a ground radar with the capability to detect it (even the TOR SA-15 systems Russia may or may not have sold Iran are designed for hitting low-flying stirke aircraft, not stealth drones at 50,000+ feet).

".....fly over it with the Mig25 and put a bullet through the jet turbine...." You would have to hit exactly the right spot as even the slightest innaccuracy could make the drone catch fire or explode, or not do the damage required to stop the engine. So you would need very detailed information on the interior of the enginebay in order to make sure you were aiming for the right spot, which the Iranians are unlikley to have had.

The American explanation is still the simplest and therefore the most likely - the drone malfunctioned and the Iranians are just seizing the chance to big-up their capabilities with a little propaganda.

RE: Jim 59

"....they don't have our alcoholism, obesety, family breakdown, crime and general misery...." Sorry, but you swallowed the marketting there! It's all a facade - just catch a flight out of Jeddah and watch the "devout" Mulsims start packing back the Scotch the minute they're in the air. Obesity is also a big (pun unintended) problem in many Arab countries. As for "family breakdown", just go read up on "honour killings" to understand why they don't advertise their own problems.

"....Perhaps we should pay more attention to their 7000 years of civilised experience...." Ah, that always makes me laugh! You forgot the bit where you left out the fact it wasn't one continual civillisation, but many different ones and often borrowing tech and knowledge from outside influences (Greece, Rome, India and even China), whilst being trampled on by a host of other "less advanced" nations (like the Greeks and Turks).

"....They were eating off marble tables while we were still painting our faces blue....." Yes, but they stayed with very few of them eating off marble, the rest living in poverty and illeducation, whilst we built the first industrialised nation and went out and conquered them. The current Iranian government also seems intent on going backwards.

"....AQ was not an enemy of the USA before TT...." The final and complete proof that you haven't a clue. For example, AQ had already tried blowing up the World Trade Center in 1993. I suggest you go read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_al-Qaeda_attacks before you make yourself look any more stupid.

RE: James Micallef

If the US administration is so beholden to the Isreal lobby, why was the Obumbler so quick to demand Israel stop all settlement building and heap criticism on the Israelis, whilst ignoring Palestinian failings to meet their roadmap commitments? Please go read a bit instead of just getting your views spoonfed to you.

RE: Misinformation

"......I think they must have got the upper hand eventually as the soviet supersonic airliner made its public début first....." Yes, Corcordeski (Tu-144) flew about a year before Concorde, but represented the application of brute enginerring rather than the technical masterpiece that was Concorde. This was because the Soviets had a hard time understanding half the information they pinched (and/or were given) from the French end. Proof of this was seen at the Paris Air Show crash, where the Tu-144 prototype had a complete structural failure in a relatively low-G manouvere the Concorde could easily have survived.

As regards self-destruction, I'm told that sensitive components in US "recce" systems have an ability to wipe themselves if they stray past a set period. This type of self-deletion doesn't pose a risk to groundcrew.

Enterprise flash: The good, the bad and the cloudy

RE: "How long is the endurance now?"

Agreed. It's interesting to note that, despite all the hype around flash, we're currently seeing a shortage of good, ol' spinning disks due to the floods in Thailand, but no-one seems too worried about flash. Flash has a long, long way to go to replace spinning disk.

2011's Best... Cars

RE: yes but no but...

"Yes steam can scold - if there is a huge failure of the container...." Ignoring the fact that steam "spillage" would scald, meaning you would need a new connector to ensure no leakage to fry the customer, you'd also need insulated delivery gear to stop conduction heating the gear to the point where a user would be cooked by contact. You're also forgetting the problem of crashes - petrol and diesel are dangerous enough, but a diesel or petrol spill at a crash can be no more trouble than needing some sand to soak it up - a holed steam container could violently rupture (big bang), or just shoot out a jet of pressurised, superheated steam (picture a jet that removes flesh from your bones in seconds).

"....The containers for steam do not need to be huge and heavy...." They need to be bigger as steam does not carry as much energy per cubic measure as petrol, so you need to carry more for the same journey, or just heavily pressurise it (which means even heavier steam tanks). They are much heavier containers as containing steam means dealing with pressure, whereas petrol tanks do not. You also have added weight from the insulating lagging required to stop heat conduction out of your steam tank from cooking the people in your steam car. Therefore a steam car will always have a significant weight penalty.

".....Steam can be produced without fossil fuels....." Not without massive investment in alternative power generation, and if you're going down that route you might as well just cut out the steam and go to electric cars. You also forget that steam needs water, and the masses of cars on the roads means LOTS of water, which would simply not be an option in areas such as Spain or Nevada (serious water shortages), or many African or Middle Eastern countries.

RE: Electric cars here to stay?

Sorry, but nil points. Firstly, steam requires really heavy, insulated containers because you need to pressurise the steam to store the energy.

"....petrol and diesel are dangerous...." Steam will scald you to death. And steam under pressure can cause explosive failures of the container - bad for fleshies. And then you still need to generate the steam by burning something usually equally nasty, so there is still risk to someone somewhere in the process.

"......The current petrol station infrastructure could provide steam fills...." WHich would mean the current petrol stations would need massive BURNERS to produce the steam, and then waste mroe fule keeping it hot until Mr Customer pops in to buy it. Very wasteful.

In short, you rsteam idea is nothing but an expensive pipe dream.

RE: Opinion is easy

Not being a treehugging female, there is no interest in driving the Leaf, and I don't like supercars like the Maclaren as they are usually (a) too unreliable, (b) have rubbish visibility to any point past the B-pillar, (c) are too wide to fling down country roads, which is where fast cars should be fast, and (d) too effing expensive to risk enjoying. I prefer a sportscar that doesn't cost the same as the average Islington mortgage, and can be serviced at more than one place in the country.

This list was obviously put together by someone with no interest in cars, who chucked in the Maclaren because they thought it would get them "cool" points. Monumental fail, both by the author and by nemo20000.

Man fights felony hacking charge for accessing wife's email

The ironic bit?

Judge Pat Donofrio is slated for being a Republican judge, which probably means he should be all for punishing "the wicked" (the cheating wife) and protecting "the meek" (the cuckolded husband). Unless, of course, she was screwing around with hubbie number two when she was married to her first husband, in which case he'd probably like to sentence them both to prison time.

Oracle fires Itanium countersuit at HP

RE: x86-based Superdome = HP recognizing Itanium is DEAD

What you missed is the bit that this is exactly what Intel has been planning and announcing for a very long time - socket-compatibility between Itanium and Xeon, which means Itanium gains even greater cost savings by maximising the investment in Xeon tach, whilst Xeon gains many of the high-availability goodies that have traditionally only been in RISC/EPIC servers. And it will be an industry unique tech.

What you should be asking is where are the Snoreacle or IBM equivalent 32-socket Xeon servers? If IBM even managed to scale their tech that high, would they be able to offer hardware and software partitioning tech inside that same Xeon frame? Could they do it and offer the same mainframe-class resilience as Superdome2 already has? Will IBM ever make a box that can mix Xeon and Power partitions in the same frame? Don't make me laugh at the idea Snoreacle could do it, they can't even grow Niagara past four sockets without crippling the chip! Why else do you think all those Excretadata appliances are using x64.

Getting Xeon into Superdome2 is not detracting from the Itanium-based Integrity line, it reinforces it, and benefits hp's Prolaint range by giving it a solution no other top tier x64 vendor can match.

/SP&L

RE: wow you could only answer 2 questions

No, I could only be bothered to answer two rediculous bits of FUD. The rest was simply too comic to waste time on.

And we're (apparently) a "cosmopolitan" nation, which basically means we nick anyone else's good holidays as an excuse to have a piss-up! As an example, we had our own mini-Oktoberfest not too long ago, much more fun than Thanksgiving. Thanks to our South American employees, in November we celebrated Brazil's Proclamation Day (salsa night!), and already in December we've had a Dominican Republic Discovery Day (hey, it was educational, honest!). Whilst Halloween is fun, until you guys can come up with a more interesting holiday we'll quite happilly ignore Thanksgiving.

RE: If Intel really want a 64 bit future sans the dinosaur of x86...

So, you're sugegsting they replace one "dinosaur" tech, x86, with an already fossilised tech, RISC. Good thing you're probably not in any position where you could make a mess with a decision like that.

RE: Itanic sunk

Alli, did you do the editing fo rthe Wikileaks video? That was the most pointless out-take I've seen for ages, you virtually destroyed your own non-argument with the final line:

"....So, if you like HP-UX, OpenVMS, HP NonStop, other mainframe operating systems, we are fully going to support you on Itanium...."

Says it all.

RE: Itanic sinks

Same old FUD as ever!

"....unprofitable R&D team...." Your FUD is easily debunked in two simple steps. Firstly, please provide a public document from Intel that shows Itanium is not profitable for them. You can't, beacuse Itanium makes Intel money. Then consider that if hp is also contributing to Itanium development, Intel probably has plenty of money to spend on R&D, especially considering the massive profits off the Xeon line.

And, since you won't want it mentioned, maybe you'd like me to remind the readers that developments from the Itanium line are fed into the Xeon line, so Itanium R&D also benefits Xeon, which is Intel's real moneymaker. Consider your weak FUD completely debunked.

RE: Itanium is dead

The only value in Alli's posts are they warn you in advance as to exactly what the schpiel from next IBM rep visit will be! In this case, Alli is actually behind the curve (maybe this new FUDpack came out whilst she was on holiday?) - we've already had almost exactly the same points bleated at us over a fortnight ago. Alli, you need to keep your FUD up-to-date, girl!

"....1) How much does HP pay in the "Itanium Collaboration Agreement"...." Why? What difference does it make to the customer if they get the product they want? How much does IBM pay to any of their suppliers for any of the compnents in their products? Does Alli suggest you should ask IBM how much they pay for their disk drives, or how much they pay for their RAM, or any other component? No, becuase it's a silly non-argument. If hp contributes to the development of Itanium so what? If us customers get the solution we want at a better price than IBM, then surely that's the "payment" we should worry about. It obviously has IBM very worried.

"....2) What is the end of support date Intel is committed to in the "Itanium Collaboration Agreement"...." Seeing as it covers two future generation of Itanium minimum, it's a lot longer than IBM's public commitment to Power. People in glass houses.....

The rest of the post is a bit garbled (Alli, our IBM rep had a different wording which made a lot more grammatical sense - no more technical sense, though - than your version). But the simple answer to all the rambling FUD is the same - the proof is in the products coming to market. HP has two future generations going into socket-compatible servers available now, whereas IBM has only one generation more of Power, with no release date, and with no Pee-servers available to take the new Pee8 (should it ever arrive) without a massive rip'n'replace gouging of their customers.

".....does Matt B feel betrayed?..." No. I have now servers in-place that I can upgrade with two future generations of Itanium, which is a lot better than what IBM or Snoreacle can offfer. Alli, if you did go to Barbasos, was it to a Betty Ford clinic there? I think you may need some additional treatment, tbh.

RE: PostgreSQL

"....it is no way a replacement for Oracle....." Yes and no. Whilst PostgreSQL can't offer all the features of the full Oracle suite, it doesn't need to for it to match 90+% of the installed Oracle instances out there. You'd be surprised the number of companies I hear of that have site-wide, full Entreprise licences, yet are only using the basic database for the majority of work. We had a review a few years back and managed to cut our Oracle bill in half by getting rid of unneccessary Enterprise licences and replacing some stand-alone Oracle instances with other, cheaper, DB products (including PostgreSQL). Don't get me wrong - we have Oracle at the core of our business and relie on it - but we're not fooled when the Oracle reps start doing their "do I have a deal for you" schpiel.

Anonymous launches OpRobinHood against banks

RE: Calm down dear

"I was using a simple counter-anology to another simple but flawed analogy....." No, you posted a load of unfounded rubbish which didn't counter anything. How is the original dinnerdate analogy flawed? You can't say, you just like to make silly claims about "the rich".

"....I hardly think you can argue that the richest 1% are only taking their fair share of 1% of the worlds income and resources...." The post has nothing to do with World resources, it's about taxation. I assume you were too busy polishing your soapbox to notice that. But, if you want to try that tangent, please do explain how one rich person uses 140 times the amount of World resources as one poor person - does the rich person have 140 dinners for every one eaten by a poor person? Is the rich person running 140 washing machines for every one in a poor person's house? Whilst you might be able to calim that "the rich" do use more resources than the poor on a per capita basis, it is highly likely that "the poor" of the World as a whole consume far more resources than "the rich", and definately consume far more of the spending derived from taxes.

".....Of course I couldn't resist pointing out that I know poor people who do not own a car, I know middle-class people who own 0, 1 and 2 cars, I have yet to meet a upper-middle class or rich person who does not own at least 2 cars....." For your rediculous analogy to work, the rich would have to own 140 cars for every one owned by a poor person, which is patently absurd. For your information, the most popular car in Europe is the Ford Focus, and I don't see any "rich people" driving them. Please do try and claim that Bentleys are outselling Fords, just for the laughter value! In the developing World it is the Toyota pickup, again not often seen gracing the drives in all those photoshoots in "Tatler" or "Country Life". Indeed, if you want to go by units sold, the most common car in the World is the VW Beetle, and I can't recall ever having met anyone of anything other than low- to middle-class owning one of them. Consider your kneejerk reaction to a simple analogy debunked.

RE: Yeah, I read that one years ago...

Really? Well you obviously missed the whole point of the argument, looking at what stupid figures you came up with.

".....The tenth man, the richest, eats $70 worth...." How? Does every rich man use 70% of the income support budget? Does each one claim 140 times as much unemployment money as the scroungers at the bottom? Do the rich go to the hospital 140 times more often than the poor (actually, the rich that pay the most taxes which pay for the free healthcare for the poor usually go private and pay again!)? Do the rich drive 140 cars for each car driven on public roads by the poor? Do the rich have 140 kids going to free schools for every poor kid (again, the rich pay the most towards the eductaion of the poor, but then pay again to send their kids to private school)?

In short, you were too busy hating to stop and actually think about the matter. Massive fail.

Merry Christmas from TeamPointless and the Anonyputzs!

So, what happens with all those innocent cardholders in the 99% that get stops put on their cards just before they can go shopping to buy pressies for their families and food for their Christmas dinners? Creditcard fraud has consequences to both the cardholder and the banks, but it's usually the banks that shrug it off and recoup their costs elsewhere. Ruining Christmas for thousands of innocent cardholders is not exactly a smart way to drum up support. Please, can someone just complete the lobotomies that must have been only partially effective on these muppets?

New El Reg section required?

We should have a new section for all the skiddie wannabe hacker stories, something like "Fruitloops od the week" maybe?

Does your smartphone run Carrier IQ? Find out here

RE: Or Android...

".....all the providers in Europe seem to be stating that they have never used CIQ....." No, no, NO! You'll never qualify for a gold-plated tinfoil hat with a sensible attitude like that! You should immediately leap to the paranoid conclusion that the European carriers must therefore be using something even more evil.....

RE: No, not hysteria

In your own, paranoid way, you're both hitting the nail right on the head and at the same time swinging blindly in the dark:

"....They're just in it for the money....." EXACTLY! Nail right on the head. Now, please tell me where is the "money" in spying on their customers? There is no monetary gain from it (apart from maybe a minor amount from location-based advertising/search) for the carriers. In fact, the EXACT opposite, as the carriers would LOSE money with people dumping their phones if the carriers were actually caught spying on customers. So, why would they risk it? Oh, and just to be completely clear, at this point no-one has actually caught the carriers using CarrierIQ to spy on anyone. No-one has proof that anyone has used their phone cam to film them or their surroundings, there is no smoking gun. It is nothing more than presumption - "I found a hunting rifle in your pickup so you MUST be planning to murder me!"

The reality is the carriers are in it to make money, and to make money they need to provide a good service, and to provide that service they need diagnostic tools, and to me it seems that is what CarrierIQ is, period. The only people hyping this whole idea are people like A$$nut, who have a vested interest in driving the paranoia and herding the sheeple.

RE: @roland

No, I was enjoying all the hysteria! An embedded tool to help support diagnose what is wrong with your device - must be spyware! Batten down the hatches, women and kids first, etc, etc!

I'm reminded of an event a few years back when we had an intermitant networking issue with some new Nortel switches talking to older CISCO switches and an hp-ux cluster. As part of the diagnostic work we were doing in conjunction with hp Support, we turned on a tool called nettl (which can only be run by root) that is in hp-ux, which can monitor/examine all the packets flying in and out of the servers and provide all types of filtering so you can quickly identify network issues. We left it to run for a week so we could catch a good amount of data. Towards the end of the week I got a call from our CIO saying that a network security insultant had indentified a trojan on our hp-ux servers that was logging all the data communicated in the cluster.....

IBM unveils high-capacity, high-speed storage chippery

IBM playing catch-up.

HP announces in October that they will have commercial memristor tech in 18 months, and - surprise, surprise - IBM's competing team announce a "breakthrough" the next month.....

MPs: This plan for proper navy carriers and jets is crazy!

RE: Good Luck getting a Tornado into Iran

"If you're going to send something that fat, slow and low....." The Tornado, loaded even with Storm Shadow, still cruises faster low down (and is capable of a faster sprint) than the F-16s the IAF used to hit al-Kibar, or the F-15s they used to hit the PLO in Tunis.

".....there's no way the UK could do it alone...." Of all the possible Iranian nuke targets so far identified (sixteen mentioned in IAEA reports, including actual civillian plants like Bushehr that would probably not be targeted), only the under-a-mountain bunker at Fordow would be a problem for Storm Shadow. But, seeing as Fordow doesn't currently have any centrifuges (it is still being built), collapsing the entrance tunnels would probably be enough to delay matters there. Sites like Natanz are easy meat for Storm Shadows, and I seem to recall the RAF got 142 Tornies upgraded to the GR4 spec required to carry and launch Storm Shadow. Of the current RAF squadrons, IIRC, No.s 2, 9, 12, 31and 617 are operational with twelve GR4s each, so a mass attack would be possible even if half ran as ECM and airdef-suppression bombers. Thirty Storm Shadows would make a quite thorough mess of the Iranian nuke sites without the need for a return visit or US involvement.

And the Tornie GR4s have experience of firing Storm Shadows in Iraq in 2003 and more recently in Libya, when they faced similar air-def as they are likely to face over Iran. Sure you don't want to think a tad longer before you claim it is impossible?

RE: Supersonic sorties? Tornado? Please....

The Yanks practice interdiction from medium altitudes, so for them a kinetic penetrator like the MOP makes sense. But to do that mid-level attack you need a massive fleet of support aircraft to run interference, ECM, close- and exit-escort, etc. For the Yanks, a supersonic dash into the target area is preferred, using "stealth" jets to hopefully reduce the chances of being detected and targeted.

The Tornado doesn't run in at supersonic speed, it just flies in very low (terrain following is still better at nullifying radar signature than stealth) and still fast. The supersonic dash bit is, as you say, more to do with running away from enemy fighters after having dropped the bombs. However, when it does do that running away bit, it is much faster than a clean Harrier (or even an F/A-18). Mixed with the ability to stand off and launch Storm Shadow cruise missiles from range, the Tornado would have good survivability chances against the Iranian airdef.

Interestingly, whilst the Israelis were happy to use the mid-level tactics when provoking Syrian jets over the Beqaa Valley, for precision strikes (like the hit on the Syrian reactor at al-Kibar) they prefer the British tactic of sneaking in at low level.

RE: smylar

".......And you do realise that Terror targets are done either by a) Drone....." Yes, please do explain how you are going to get very sub-sonic drones to hit the Iranian nuke facilities, which happen to be very far inland (too far for Harriers carrying a meaningful load, even if we were willing to risk carriers in the Persian Gulf)? Drones are great for attacking geurilla groups in mud huts with virtually zero air defences, but Iran is a bit more capable in that department, and the Iranian nuke facilities are bunkerised beyond the capability of any weapon a drone could carry.

".....b) Special Forces raid....." And do go ask the Yanks how their last major spec-ops jaunt in Iran went (Operation Eagle Claw). Iran is a very large country, so large that the force for Eagle Claw needed large transport aircraft and a desert refueling strip. A force large enough to attack and overcome the Iranian defences around their nuke facilities, plus carry the ordinance load to blow them up, would need a transport fleet! That transport fleet would require a pre-attack air-strike campaign to reduce the Iranian air defences and any ground forces in the area. So, your option involves a veritable WW3, or we could just use some Tornados flying out of Saudi or Italy and some ground-penetrator bombs.....

RE: smylar

".....So why in flubbery did we ditch all of CAS, Maritime and inherent flexibility of the Harrier, just so we can have two airframes that can do Strike for the next 10 years...." Beacuse we don't have Typhoons with Tornado-like strike capability just yet, and we won't have Tiffie pilots trained up for strike to the level currently available for several years too. I'm a big Harrier fan, but even I can see that it is more likely that we're going to need to do "surgical strikes" on terror targets around the World more than short-range ground support. Harrier is probably the best choice for the latter, but Tornado can do it and also do the global strike role the Harrier would struggle to do. We currently don't have a maritime threat where we the only solution would be a carrier (Falklands 2 is unlikely to happen with the Argies' navy in even worse state than ours!), outside of UN "peacekeeping" operations, and to be honest I'd prefer some of the other UN members to get off their arses and carry some of the load for a change. Besides, in most UN ops, we'll have lovely US nuke carriers to provide CAS and maritime duties.

Lewis is also banging on and on again about Tornado "barely being up to the job" in Afghanistan, without mentioning the Army seems quite happy with the support they are getting from the Tornies. But the Army have a strong preference for Apaches anyway, which often deliver far more precise attacks than even the Harriers, can loiter, and manouvere in the tight Afghan valleys better than any jet. Oh, and especially as those Apaches come under Army control.....

And F-18s are a non-starter for the simple reason that if we bought F-18s then it would be very unlikely that we'd buy any newer hooked jets. That would leave the RAF to fund the F-35 out of a much smaller pot.

/Yaaaaar, natch.

Manning to get day in court

RE: Try, convict, EXECUTE

"Try, convict, EXECUTE...." I'd prefer "try, convict, treat" as it seems the guy has some serious issues.

RE: Matt Bryant

".....but when I cite proof that he did not..." What proof? Even the mag article you link to can't say how many times he was woken! If that's you're level of proof required then please go join the Manning prosecuiton and we'll get it all over and done with in no time!

"....As for it not being sleep deprivation, let me wake you "several times during the night" and we'll see how non-sleep-deprived you feel the next morning...." I'd be fine, thanks. I'm a light sleeper, I tend to wake every time the wife rolls over, or the cat wanders into the room, or the dog moves in her basket. Some people are just better with coping with those minor troubles in life, I guess.

".....respecting someone's rights...." And here we get to the crux of the matter - apart from the fact that you failed to prove any of Manning's rights have been even lightly bruised, you just can't grasp that Manning gave up certain rights when he signed up. He is under arrest, charged with treason, in a military prison, not daycare.

".....typing this with my glasses on...." Manning had no need for typing vision in his cell, he didn't have a PC or typewriter, you buffoon. So, do you keep your glasses on 24-hours a day? I bet not. Fail, fail, fail!

".....you demonstrate that you have no idea what you're talking about....." Really? Please go and look up the physical requirments for US forces entry. For a start, you need to have 20/20 vision in the main eye and at least 20/40 in the off eye after correction - there is no way you could have vision so bad as to be "blind" and get it corrected to those levels.

"....you seem to think that an accusation of treason is sufficient to justify pre-emptively punishing...." He is not being punished, he is simply being treated to EXACTLY THE SAME RULES AND PROCEDURES as any other military prisoner int he same brig. Your inabaility to see that speaks volumes of your complete naivety. But don't worry, I predict he will lose his case and then he will be "punished".

You are the living epitomy of denial.

RE: Matt Bryant

"I can see now that it is utterly pointless trying to have a reasonable debate with you....." Yeah, I bet you're just not used to people qustioning whatever you've been told to think. A debate would require two people with factual arguments - all you have presented is hysterical propaganda, then backtracked yourself into a corner. I'm not surprised you're throwing in the towel when you've been shown up so badly

"....You ignore anything that you don't agree with...." Ignore? Like your rediculous claim that Manning was woken "every *five* minutes"? I think you meant to say "proven to be bunk" everything you've presented. Then again, original thought and you are probably still strangers.

".....you try to shift the goal posts...." Hmmm, let's take a little review of your posts and see if we can spot any moving goalpost:

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 05:00 GMT - insists Manning was woken every fifteen minutes.

Thursday 24th November 2011 09:36 GMT - ".....it wasn't every fifteen minutes, it was every *five* minutes....."

Sunday 27th November 2011 19:01 GMT - "......I can't say *exactly* how many times he was woken.....He is usually woken several times throughout the night by guards...."

LOL! They're not just moving, they're jumping all over the place like fleas!

"......how exactly was shooting up people...." First group included at least two armed men, moving towards a group of US soldiers operating in the area, and in a manner so as not to be sighted by the ground troops. Under the RoE, that made the whole group a legitimate target as the chopper crew could not strike just the individuals in the group alone (yes, there are RoE for use of area effect weapons like 30mm cannon).

".....including children...." The children were not visible to the chopper crew. The van that went to collect the bodies did not pose a direct threat to the soldiers on the ground, but it did not have to. Part of post-engagement work in Iraq is/was identifying the dead so you can/could track them back to their families and clans to check for more militia/terrorists/"freedomfighters". All guerilla groups make a habit of removing their dead and their weapons as means both of hiding their losses and stopping intelligence gathering. In Iraq (and Afghanistan), the locals are warned NOT to try to move dead people until the authorities have got to the scene, not just because they unintentionally screw up evidence but also because the militia are often carrying bombs or other items that could be a risk to curious civillians. The men in the van may have been just good samaritans, and if they'd just stuck to moving the wounded then they might have got away with it, but they made the mistake of picking up a weapon and moving the dead, both of which made them legit targets. It is highly likely the kids were in the van as human shields (a common tactic in Arab communities), and that would have worked if the chopper crew had seen the kids, but the vid clearly shows they were unaware the children were there. So, once again, you're talking ignorant, male bovine manure.

".....the Rules of Warfare don't make anyone standing nearby someone who may be carrying a weapon a fair target...." So laughably wrong as to be patently childish! Please, just go get a clue, do some reading on the actual rules of war, then come back if you still want to hold such a childish line. The RoE used in Iraq clearly state that, in protecting other soldiers or civillians, that chopper crews could use area effect weapons on groups even if some of that group were not armed and not positively identified as militia. To whit:

".....Rules of Self-Protection for all Soldiers.

(U) US forces will protect themselves from threats of death or serious bodily harm. Deadly force may be used to defend your life, the life of another US soldier, or the life of persons in areas under US control. You are authorized to use deadly force in self-defense when--

You are fired upon.

Armed elements, mobs, and/or rioters threaten human life....."

The shooting of the inital group of militia is covered as they posed a risk to the ground troops. If the chopper crew had been ground troops then they would have been breaking the RoE of they had fired on the unarmed van, they would have had to arrest them instead. However, as an aerial vehicle without the means to arrest the van men, the chopper crew were allowed to go to deadly force to stop them (a) committing the crime of removing enemies bodies and weapons from the scene, and (b) giving aid and succour to the enemy combatants.

".....Please feel free to get the last word in this thread, I've wasted enough time on someone who isn't willing to listen to any other opinion than his own." Which roughly translates as "wah, wah, wah!" What you mean is you've been shown up and exposed for the naive sheeple that you are. Now go do some learning, get some real facts instead of just ranting hysterics, then come back and try again ('cos we'll enjoy another good laugh!).

RE: Re: RE: @Matt Bryant

"....No, I can't say *exactly* how many times he was woken...." But, let me guess, it won't stop you repeating the exaggeration on, and on, and on? What a surprise!

".....He is usually woken several times throughout the night by guards...." Note the New Statesman doesn't try and claim he was woken every five minutes. Oh, hold on a sec, let me clarify - everyone with a clue, that can see past their political blinkers, will have noticed the magazine article you linked to DOES NOT say he was woken every five minutes. It's fun when you sheeple debunk yourselves! As to being woken "several times through out the night", that does not even come close to sleep deprivation. So, seeign as we have finally shown the complete failure of the rediculous "woken every five minutes" manle bovine manure, will you finally admit it was complete claptrap, served up for and repeated by the sheeple? I doubt it.

".....It's is the *defence* who need them!...." Anything made available to the prosecution is made available to the defence, especially as the prosecution's used the logs to rebutt the rediculous claims of Manning's defence team that he was being "tortured".

".....on multiple occasions Manning was recommended for removal from “prevention of injury” (POI) status by psychiatrists and psychologists but was not removed....." <Yawn> Been over that non-argument already - the final sign-off comes from the responsible officer, it would have been his career on the line if Manning had committed suicide after being taken off suicide watch, so it is not surprising - given the hysterical coverage given to the case - that the officer played safe and waited for the Whitehouse to take the decision out of his hands. You really don't have a clue how people think, do you?

".....as long as their *corrected* vision with glasses passes the required standard...." OK, just stop and think about that for a second (I know, probably wasting time suggesting you try a little original thought) - if his vision was so bad without glasses that he would be practically blind without them, there is NO WAY they coulf have lifted his vision to the point where it was acceptable. Glasses assist in correcting impaired vision, they don't work miracles. It is just more hyperventilating over-exaggeration, and you can't see through it because you are so wrapped up in hating.

".....might I remind you of the principle of presumption of innocence....." Whatever, I know it would be a waste of time trying to get you to possibly consider what he has been charged with are treasonous acts.

RE: Oh deary, deary me, Matt Bryant.

"Please do a little more thinking...." Now that is ironic, coming from a poster who has been proven to be wrong so many times, but still comes back posting their pre-formed, spoonfed "throughts"! It would be a miracle if you actually did a little thinking for yourself!

".....There is a *big* difference between the "we were only obeying orders when we tortured detainess" defence and the "we were following the Rules of Engagement, honest!" defence....." It's not a defence, it is the basis of the laws of warfare. War is not a nice business, it entails deliberately looking for and killing those you are fighting, often without giving them any form of warning. The Apache crew had a job to do - protecting the soldiers operating on the ground - and they had a set RoE that meant they could fire on anyone that fitted the description of "threatening" to their comrades' safety.

".....Trying to equate the two...." It is very telling that in all of this, you NEVER consider the safety of the troops on the ground, instead you don't just hold the lives of armed militia (who were there in the group, and who were trying to kill Americans that day) as more valuable than those of the US soldiers on the ground, you simply don't consider the US soldiers at all. It is you, wrapped up in your hatred, that is patently rediculous.

RE: The nature of Mr Bryant's knowledge of and devotion to the «facts»

"....mistaking Göring for Goebbels...." Apologies, I was skim reading your post to see if there was any actual point in it, which there wasn't. Maybe if you posted something to actually do with Manning it might be worth some attention?

The nature of mrhenrydummbass's fail is that he cannot win the argument with anything evenly remotely relevant to the question in hand, so falls back on wild Godwinisms in an attempt to portray his ramblings as having some value. So, according to mrhenryclueless, the US gubbermint is happilly planning some form of Worldwide imperialist venture, and that the only thing standing in its way is "heroes" like Manning and A$$nut. Slight problem - none of what Manning leaked or A$$nut sold has shown any such plot. The really telling actions have been A$$nut's floundering attempts to make a fast buck out of the whole escapade, with Manning carrying the can.

HP plays Violin to whip Itanium beasts into flash frenzy

RE: Pitched at Itanium and nonstop

"....HP does this sometimes...." I think what you're getting confused over is called lab validation testing. Before a product combo goes out as supportable by hp it has to go through lab testing to make sure it hits the five-nines availability target and doesn't have any bugs missed in development. As hp often likes to get products out to a schedule, they often arrange the lab testing with the must popular/profitable combo of systems first, then work through the rest. I've also had to wait for hp to do validation testing on a combo they didn't rate as a priority, but when it is done it means I can trust the kit to work as advertised. I much prefer this to the method used by other vendors - push it out the door and let the customers find the bugs.

Intel sneaks out low-power microserver chip

RE: Huh?

"......Didn't you just use the lack of Oracle DB on ARM as an argument?...." Sorry, I was trying to think of a generic app that was to be found in many businesses on current x64 servers that you insist ARM will replace.. Obviously, I didn't aim low enough to reach the bottom-of-the-barrel type business you work in.

"......Also, did you miss the part that said these chips are for micro SERVERS?...." Erm, M$ SQL and Oracle DB are both generic server apps, they make a lot of money for both companies and are to be found in many businesses. What was your point, beyond the small fact that you know nothing about the software market? Oracle and M$ SQL are often sold embedded as the database in many of the apps used on even microservers. Unless you find a market which needs the advantages of low-power and yet is willing to write their own stack (POS or maybe HPC), you will need commercial app support.

".....Good to see you haven't given up on slipping in the odd "Slowaris" or two into your posts...." Ah, now I see the reason for your lack of insight, it's just that old Sunshiner bitterness. I'm not surprised a Sunshiner would have zero visibility of either the hosted environments or small businesses that would run microservers, seeing as Slowaris is simply not prevalent in those niches (well, not in any niche nowadays). The one generic area which is truly platform agnostic - webserving - in which ARM might find a foothold, was surrendered by Sun to Windoze and Linux many years ago. Businesses still mainly use Windoze Server by a massive margin for the simple reason it is easy to buy, easy and cheap to hire Windoze admins, and easy to utilise existing software stacks already proven in the marketplace.

ARM might make a hit in niche areas like POS devices or big HPC clusters, where proprietary Linux apps can be written for each customer and the power-savings make sense, but in the general server market it will need a swathe of generic appliations to succeed.

RE: Short memory in action

Your memory obviously doesn't stretch back far enough to remember the complete failure of Apple's server bizz, and their inability to take marketshare from M$ or even Linux. Selling pretty toys to the sheeple is a far different game to selling real computers to businesses.

RE: "Businesses buy proven, trusted software, they don't buy risks"

You're response simply underlines the argument I presented.

"....Tell that to anyone who's observed the hundreds of millions of corporate MS desktop + email rollout victims around the world...." Yes, and how many of them dropped Windoze and went for Linux desktops? They're all queuing up for Windoze 7. The current hype in desktops seems to be around VDI and thin-client desktops (oooh, bad flashbacks!), but still around Windoze. Yet fully-featured OSS desktop offerings have been available for years. A new offering has to offer both monetray savings AND business performance advantages. The PC-Windoze combo did that, freeing up a lot of time and money that was tied up in mainframe-client style setups. Simply saying "you should buy my solution because I say it is technolgically better and because I don't like Intel" is not going to get many businessmen jumping on your bandwagon, especially in a recession.

"....Many corporate IT departments (and their SME equivalents) are fashion victims...." Call it what you like, but those "fashion victims" are the ones spending the money, and so they are the ones the vendors will make products to please. That's simple economics, only it seems not quite simple enough for you to comprehend.

".....Why would Oracle bother until there's money to be made....." EXACTLY! It's a chicken-and-the-egg scenario - a buisness will look at an innovative offering and check that it at least offers what they can do now. For ARM to succeed in the server biz will require it offering at least a comprehensive core application portfolio of those popular business applications as x64. Companies like Oracle will not invest in the porting work unless they can see a profit or are incentivised by a platform vendor, and all the current platform vendors have too much invested in x64. Businesses will not invest unless they see the apps up front. No chicken, no egg, no apps ecosystem to push ARM's boat into the water.

".....Oracle devs may have some free time now they've dropped IA64 support...." Apart from the small matter of a courtcase that Oracle has to win for that to happen, you are only underlining my argument. Oracle's attempt to kill the Itanium bizz is by threatening to remove a popular application from availability on Itanium. ARM doesn't have that availability now, and (as far as I can see in Oracle's public roadmaps) won't have it. So funny that your own ranting shows the gaping hole in your argument!

/SP&L

RE: AC

"Why on earth would I try to convince my customers of that?...." Because the generic, everyday apps used by most businesses just don't exist for ARM. Where's the M$ SQL for ARM? How about Oracle DB for ARM? Not every business is ready to try roll-your-own Linux builds on ARM with OSS apps, otherwise they'd already be doing it on x64 and M$, Oracle and a raft of other companies would have already curled up and died. Businesses buy proven, trusted software, they don't buy risks. Until there are proven commercial stacks on ARM to match those for x64 it will be niche at best (NAS servers, webservers maybe).

".....the software that I write is completely processor agnostic...." Yes, but I'm betting you don't make generic software applications for the general market. In commercial apps, different versions for different processors will be tuned and tweaked to try and gain the best market advantage. A simple example is that the Oracle DB for Windows is heavily tweaked for x64 (as is the Oracle DB for Linux), whilst the version for SPARC-Slowaris is probably going to get a lot more attention than the versions for AIX or hp-ux. Despite the last three being commercial UNIX versions, all C-based and BSD-compliant, I can't run the release of Oracle DB for one on any of the others, and that's not just because of OS differences but because they have all been tweaked and recompiled to get the better performance on the different CPUs.

"......Are you from the past?" No, I just happen to think about realities a lot more than you obviously do.

RE: Or I can buy a quad-core ARM chip for $25

"....or I can buy a quad core ARM 1.3GHz chip...." You missed the bit where you try to convince your customers that it's more fun to code new software, with no guarantee of success, rather than take advantage of the massive amount of proven commercial and freeware x86 apps that will already run just fine on the new "Pentium". Good luck with that!

The BBC Micro turns 30

RE: yeah, not great for games

Ah, Elite! I blame Braben and Bell for all those hours I wasted, especially with the upgrade to the Archimedes port. Without their fiendishly addictive game, I could be ruling the World by now! Muahahahaaa, etc, etc. Eve? Shmeve!

RE: The Beeb was just for rich kids

Too true! I had access to Micro Bs through work, but only a Speccie at home.

US stealth bombers finally get nuke-nobbling super bomb

RE: Disagree on both points

"The Iranians know that Israel also has nukes and won't hesitate to use them....." Would the Israelis get the chance? A first strike could knock out the Israeli nukes, or maybe that's what the Iranians might bank on. Israel is a tiny country. And what if a nuke-tipped Scud was launched from the Lebanon by Hezbollah, do you really think the US or Russia would give the green light for a return nuke strike by Israel? If so then you've been missing a lot of news over the years.

".... They justify the regime to apply extreme repression against any opposition...." Which would make an ounce of difference if the Iranians government hadn't already been oppressing their political opponents and minorities. Just ask the Iranian Kurds and the Sunnis (for starters) if sanctions made the regime any more violent.

"....The present Western policy towards Iran does not have an end-game...." Yes it does. All Iran has to do to stop the current confrontation is stick to the terms of the Non Proliferation Agreement they had already signed up to. In short, Iran needs to stop lying and do as it promised.

"....the sanctions can only resolve itself with an all-out war...." No, Iran could back down and accept that it doesn't need nuke weapons, then allow IAEA inspectors to get on with ensuring Iran gets proper civillian nuke power without any doubts or distrust. You know, like they promised to do when they signed the NNP Treaty? Oh, I see, the problem is you really don't know.

"....This time not only with Iran alone but with the whole of the Middle East....." Why would the rest of the Mid East get involved? The Saudis have already urged the Yanks to smack Tehran and have said they would not object to an Israeli strike. Let's not forget, the Saudis turned a blind eye when Israeli jets flew through Saudi airspace and bombed Saddam's nuke station in 1981, and Saddam was a lot less of a threat then to Saudi than a nuke-armed Iran would be. Syria? Probably, but they're busy having their own little civil war just now. Egypt is busy trying not to have a civil war. The Lebanon would be a mess, as the nutters in Hezbollah would happilly turn their own country into a slaughterhouse if Iran asked, but that could be contained. Jordan is too dependent on US aid to risk getting involved. And the rest of the Gulf states are pretty much lined up against Iran since Iran started agitating amongst their Shia populations. In short, Iran would stand alone, probably apart from some loony encouragement from North Korea and idiots like Robert Mugabe. I'm sure you have forgotten that Saddam launched Scuds against Israel in an effort to break up the alliance between the West and his Arab neighbours, and it failed.

".....The sooner Iranians will demonstrate they have a workable nuke the better it will be for everyone, mark my words." If you really belive that then you are ignoring all the facts. The US and Israel would be MORE likely to launch a strike if Iran demonstrated a working nuke weapon in defiance of the treaties Iran has signed. The argument would be simple - stop them now before they make more and perfect a delivery system. Nothing would do more to guarantee the invasion of Iran.

Yet more calm, rational behaviour from Tehran.....

'Cos they are just all lovely, cuddly, misunderstood types, right? Must have been a different group of Iranian MPs voting to lower diplomatic ties with the UK then:

"....Iranian radio reported some MPs chanted "Death to Britain" during the vote...."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15908525

Yeah, I feel real happy at the idea of these people getting nuke weapons - NOT!

/"All your infidel disco infernos belong to us!"

Oz journalism award to Assange™

RE: So your ignorance is evidence of what?

Evidence of the non-impact of Australian journalism on the rest of the World? On the other hand, Australians do seem to follow a lot of US and British press.....

Never heard of the Walkley Awards....?

Oh, NOW I see why they gave it to ASSnut!

RE: AC

Shirley, that should be; "the goal of making a fast buck and getting my fifteen minutes in the spotlight"?

Intel readies Xeon E5 mobo assault

Que?

So, Intel are making mobos and talking "the platform", and that will somehow stop vendors making their own mobos? Bit of a leap, innit? Intel have made server mobos for yonkeys and it didn't stop the top vendors either making their own or having their own made for them. And seeing as the x64 space is currently the fastest growing segment of the server market, I'd say it's pretty certain that the tier-one vendors (hp, Dell and IBM) will be at least making some specialised mobos of their own to differentiate their products to sell alongside the vanilla Intel offerings.

No, this looks like more of an Intel push to lock AMD out of the low-end by giving the whitebox vendors a more varied range of one-stop-shop offerings.

HP to forge x86 Integrity and Superdome servers

RE: If You Want To Race Formula 1

".....HP is especially hamstrung by their dependence on Intel....." Simple debunking question for that load of claptrap - where is the IBM x64 design with the scale of the coming hp server using the Superdome2 tech? Will any IBM x64 server offering have the ability to use not only software partitioning but also hardware partitioning? Will any IBM x64 server also ofer the ability to mix Power with x64 hardware partitions? Looks like IBM simply won't turn up to that race, maybe they'll ask Lenovo to do it for them. Not surprising, really, as such a box would seriously threaten their golden egg mainframe business, where IBM exploit their customers to prop up their P-series bizz.

Anonymous: 'We hacked cybercop's email'

RE: WTF?

One of the problems we have with our lusers is that many of them have several online logins for professional websites, and to avoid the problem of creating many passwords they re-use the same ones. They also have a bad habit (which we warn them against) of sending details of their disparate logins to one main email account (like Gmail), so if that main account gets hacked then the attacker has access to all the logins that the luser has stored there. I suspect that this was a similar case - either the guy used the same password for professional accounts as he used for Gmail, or he had stored login reminders on his Gmail account that allowed the skiddies to log into his professional accounts. Given how easy it is to guess the passsword reminders most people have for their Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo accounts (e.g., wife's/mother's maiden name, favourite colour, etc) it would be trivial to get into his Gmail and then go from there. No great skillz required, just sloppy luser security.