Posts by Velv

Sorry, time travelers, you’re still just fiction

Fake

The entire article is a fake.

It has to be if it came out of China

Chinese lecturer demands his students acquire iPads

Rules

Like it or not, the rules of interviews currently expect all candidates to wear a suit.

If you can't attempt to meet the rules for the interview, what makes the interviewer think you will meet the rules of working for the company.

Play the game by the rules, or expect to be playing in the lower leagues for the rest of your life. Only once you're in the premiership can you wear your golden boots.

I know I'll get down votes, but then some people just won't accept reality.

Higgs Boson hiding place narrows

Compensate

All we really need to do is direct the particles through a Heisenberg Compensator and we'll be fine

Heathrow to get new facial recognition scanners

Smokescreen

The swapping tickets issue is a smokescreen for something else.

Every flight I've been on they check your photo ID and boarding pass at the gate, so passengers swapping tickets would need to have the same name.

This is about developing the technology in a controlled laboratory on a gullible public

Euro beaks to rule if TVCatchup.com is legal

Sensible option?

The sensible option would be for the BBC, ITV, C4, 5, Sky, etc to buy out TVCatchup and then run the service. It is geographically restricted already, so their current rights shouldn't be infringed.

Yes, they all have their own players, but that is the trouble - you need to install different players.

And they don't broadcast much in near live, where TVCatchup is at it's best.

Come on the British - do something sensible for a change

Bill seeks to decriminalise pianos in pubs and schools

Labour at its best

Act in haste, repent at leisure.

Except we can't, since leisure would be a breach of the licensing conditions.

Just another example of why Labour should NEVER be allowed to govern this country again.

Murdochs won't talk to MPs over phone-hacking scandal

Foreign ownership?

You yanks crack me up.

Rupert Murduch only became a naturalised citizen of the US to get around the laws on Television ownership. A perfect example of the US selling citizenship to the highest bidder

W3C moves to snuff Apple web patents

Jurisdiction

Don't you know that US law extends all over the Globe, applying everywhere. In fact, not just the globe, but space too. And not just local space, like the solar system, but, like, outer space too.

US court test for rights not to hand over crypto keys

Further

Drawing the next logical conclusion, if you hand write your records, surely they cannot be used against you, since it would be self-incriminating?

I thought not.

You would still be found guilty if you wrote in French - the Police just need an interpreter. So encrypted is just the same.

The law is there to protect you from spoken evidence and the catch22 of lying. Any information committed to another medium (little black book, excel, encrypted zip) is not spoken and therefore fair game as evidence, and giving the key is not self-incriminating. If you want to keep it secret, don't write it down!

Servers: My place or yours?

Worst Article - EVER!

Has Alan Stevens been on the Carlsberg this morning, as this probably the best example of a really bad article I've eve come across.

"And you don’t have to worry about building and running the data centre, with all that entails in terms of supplying power, cooling and the like."

With all the recent examples of cloud failures, lack of backups, outages, security concerns and governement intrusion, worrying about your "data centre" is one of the highest priorities for any CIO right now.

Just because you "outsource" some of the operation to a third party you do not devolve responsibility for your data and your operation. I would actually argue that you need to be even more in control of the situation.

All the options mentioned are useful tools in reducing the costs of providing IT. The article however gives the impression that the cloud can remove all your headaches, when in fact it simply shifts the pain to your balls.

Facebook promises 'awesome' launch next week

Warning

But at least they've got advance notice this time

Ads watchdog bites Virgin Media over 'con' claims

BT too

Given BT are also now touting their Infinity as "fibre optic" when it does the same fibre to the cabinet as Virgin

Time for a super-complaint from Which? Magazine

Hackers pierce network with jerry-rigged mouse

bofh

And it's not as if your average bofh doesn't receive a free mouse once in a while.

Plug it in to your Linux desktop and let it work normally.

Then just wait.

Very soon, your bofh will su as root to perform some admin task

BOOM!

There are only degrees of safety, and anyone who relies on their own smugness will suffer, probably sooner rather than later

ITIL struggles to catch up with private cloud

So really

So really what you're saying is "no change"

Properly defined to fit the business needs, ITIL is a Good Practise framework that will drive an efficient IT service.

Poorly defined or implemented and it is just a millstone around the neck of the business.

The real reason most source is closed? Open is hard

Open an closed

"open source is hard"

No, source is hard. Closed source suffers many of the same leadership problems you describe, it's just that no-one will admit it. Unless the Button Monkey has the right drive and sense of reward you rarely get great software. I'm not saying they're underpaid - a sense of reward comes in many forms.

Perhaps the entire IT operating model is flawed?

Jobs confirms iCloud's murder of iWeb

Seriously?

Seriously, get real people!!!

EVERY large company I've worked for does not have their Execs in the GAL under their real name.

So "[e-mail]" would go to the public relations department, and the man himself would be unlikely to see any of the emails sent to that mailbox, let alone respond.

Leaving that aside, it is more likely these one line responses are not from apple at all (like it's hard to spoof smtp headers, NOT!)

IATA: this iPad could BRING DOWN A PLANE

Acceptable Failure Rate

What do you consider the acceptable failure rate of flights?

Dragon scoops Expansys into his Marlow den

Balanced Article - NOT!

So how much rent in TOTAL did the group spend? £500K for Marlow, but how much MORE for Manchester?

And as for cleaners - on a one for one basis, they might cost more in Marlow. But if the total number of cleaners required is reduced, it saves money.

Reduction in jobs is never good, and having been made redundant by a move, I have great sympathy for those affected. But business is business, and this article does little to reflect the state this country has been left in by the Labour Governement of 11 years. It seems more like a personal dig at Mr Jones (who I have no connection with - Duncan is my preferred Dragon)

Pirate-bothering ACS:Law lawyer goes bankrupt

Protection.

I can understand an element of protection for "primary residence". But does he need a £700,000 house?

The £700,000 house should have been seized and sold to pay the £200,000 fine. After costs he could still afford a very very very nice home.

Never forget that Crossley was a bigger pirate than anyone he accused.

Apple worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined

D'oh! - Missed the Point

Go away back to your basement and don't darken our door again. This is about MARKET CAPITALISATION, not market share.

It's about what some jumped up stockbrokers thinks each is worth as a WHOLE - most stockbrokers know their iPhone runs Linux and Microsoft because it connects to their email and all smartphones run Linux, even the Apple ones, don't they?

Apple has BRAND VALUE far in excess of Intel and Microsoft, boosting the stock price. Linux has even less brand value than Microsoft.

As an aside, if you want to properly compare, Red Hat has a Market Capitalisation of 8.13bn. Do your own research to find ALL the Linux distributors listed on an approved exchange to get the total Cap for Linux.

Cellphones as carcinogenic as coffee

Tracking ID

Just so they can be tracked properly, each person in the study probably needs to be issued with an Identity Card.

Total Recall rehash – exit Martians, enter Jessica Biel

Time

"starts shooting in June"

That would be... Two Weeks

New Mac scareware variant installs without password

Platfom Independent - Education

User gets message - "We've detected a virus on your computer"

"oh dear" says user.

Message says - "We've got a free fix for your problem - just click here and follow our instructions"

User thinks - "ooo, this is a dangerous situation, but they've got a free fix, so I'll click it to fix it"

System asks - "you're trying to run some really dangerous shit here, are you sure you want to run it" (or it says "Are you sure?")

User thinks - "of course I want to run it, I've got an infection I need to clean up"

Click, BOOM!

Judgment Day prophet resets doomsday clock

Lunch?

If you've done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliway's, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Cybercrooks turn Eve Online into botnet battlefield

Currency

It'll all end in the Single Currency, much like the Euro

My vote is for the Pu

BBC shifts some HD transmissions to 1080p...

Virgin Media

Does that explain why I've been getting audio drop-outs on my Virgin Media HD service? (Scientific Atlantic V+ box).

Or is this purely limited to Freeview HD?

Cisco refuses to deny it will sell off Linksys

Yes, Minister

On the contrary, conventional wisdom has it that "you should never believe a rumour until it's officially denied"

Up to $650 for a .xxx domain - or to keep your name off one

Disney?

disney.xxx might not be *THE* Magical Kingdom, but it is *A* Magical Kingdom

The difference between the men and the boys is just the price of their toys

Paris? - obviously!

Don’t leak WikiLeaks: The NDA from hell

Commercial Operation

Trading in confidential information for commercial or personal gain can NEVER be justified as being in the public interest.

Wikileaks and its owners/founders should be taken apart. Courts, trials, siezed funds and prison to follow.

Freedom is fundamental. Protection for whistleblowers is vital. The PRINCIPLE of leaks is sound in support of freedom.

Exploiting the vulnerable is immoral and criminal.

Newly emerged banking Trojan challenges ZeuS-SpyEye duopoly

Source

7 comments in and the usual Mac / MS / Linux bitching. But no comments about the source of the article.

T r u s t e e r

One of the companies promoting its solution to , oh, let's see, man-in-the-browser attacks such as this. "Only 20% of products pick it up, and ours just happens to be one of them"

Never believe the hype from any vendor. Just be totally paranoid in the first place. And don't be especially smug that your non-Windows machine is "safe". It's just "safe" until someone hacks it. EVERYTHING is vulnerable.

Boy George promises to cut employment rights

Very Poor Biased Article

Having read the article, press release and comments, the article has been pitched to generate the emotive comments it clear has received.

Apart from the obvious errors (TUPE is for government outsourcing), it leaves out some key details (which I can undertsand some people might be cynical about):

Quote:"Fairness for individuals will not be compromised – but where we can make legislation easier to understand, improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy we will"

Reading the press release, the governments intent is to make it easier to create jobs and growth in the UK, not to make it easier to outsource to other economies - yet the article cynically obscures the point.

The rights of the UK individual worker are critical - I don't want to see them removed. But they are horrendously complicated, and need to be simplified and made easier for the employer AND the employee to understand.

Northants cops blow up suspicious school play prop

Cartoon Bomb?

As funny as the assumption is that it was a cartoon style bomb, I'm still left wondering just what play the school was producing that required such a prop?

(grenade icon - for obvious reasons)

TomTom Oz to repeat Netherlands data sale

Use the evidence

I was initially thinking "why shouldn't governments use the data to find out where people speed".

But thinking about it more - the governements (and Police) already know where the danger spots are - that's where the accidents occur.

If a section of road doesn't have an accident history, then sighting "safety" cameras based on average speed is purely to raise revenue. Speed is only ONE factor in accidents. The overall road layout and the volume of traffic are much larger factors.

So - proposal. TomTom et al now have very accurate traffic flows, the sort of traffic flows that would allow the limit to be INCREASED on certain sections of road.

Slack bank practice creates opportunity for phone phishing scams

Scarier

A friend recently had her laptop infected by Malware. Asking "had she used her credit card online", she told me she'd used it on the phone.

Obviously not what I was looking for, but curiosity got the better of me, and it transpires that her catalogue company uses an automated system to collect her payment. Their system phones her, tells her her payment is due, and asks her to key in her card details to pay it. No, not just an autodialer - a fully automated IVR to collect payments.

FFS !!!!!!!!!!

(she doesn't use it any more)

What chance of the public got of not being scammed when companies use things like this?

Apple bags iCloud.com domain for $4.5m, says report

d'oh!

Nice one Xcerion - sell Apple iCloud, but make sure you've got CloudMe first :)

I bet the Execs at Apple are kicking themselves now for not registering it BEFORE they bought iCloud

Computer glitch opens un-staffed supermarket to happy Kiwis

No embarrassment in paying

I have to say it almost restores the faith in honesty. Half the people paid - good on them.

Theft is theft - just because the store/manager screwed up, every single person who didn't pay KNEW they were stealing.

<flame_suit on>

By posting anonymously, are you hinting you wouldn't have paid?

</flame_suit off>

Man arrested wearing hair scrunchie on short and curlies

Oakland Raiders Jacket

He sounds like a typical Raiders fan to me :)

(Mine's the Chargers jacket)

HP ProLiant power supplies 'may die when dormant'

Really old antiques?

"This is a standard technique when examining old antiques"

Old antique being a relative term, sitting at my 17th Century desk in my 19th Century house :)

Banana-bender beer boffins drop drops for science

Space?

Now that's what I call planning.

Getting yourself a beer that will work in space BEFORE the rest of the world exiles you to New Australia (aka Moon prison).

Larry Page to Google staff: Your bonus is tied to Facebook envy

Ironic...

... that google staff will probably use the social media sites to bleat about the problem.

UK's Reaper flying hunter-killer fleet 'to double'

Excellent Point - Double it up :)

"opening a new office in London to support the British Reaper fleet"

What they really mean is - a new office in London to sell more to the MoD.

Supporting the British Reaper Fleet is already done in Nevada. London would be the last place in the UK you'd want to set up the support office if you wanted to move it to the UK. Any number of existing military bases would be substantially cheaper.

Coalition fails business on banks, says survey

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Comment on the article and the research:

"Researchers spoke to 500 companies and found 75 per cent had seen no change in banks' attitudes to lending.

You surprise me - of those 500, how many were actively seeking additional funding? What were they expecting, their bank manager to phone them up out of the blue and offer them more loans? How many were bitter at being turned down? What about those that did receive loans?

"Some 70 per cent of respondents said better access to funding would allow them to expand their businesses and hire more staff."

Of course they would. Doesn't mean they are in the business position to be ready to expand. Every single entrant is Dragons Den expects that additional funds "will send their company global". Doesn't mean their business plan is worth the paper it's written on, hence so many not getting investment.

A straw poll of 500 companies hardly allows a conclusion to be drawn.

Perhaps the real answer can only be found by forcing the banks to publish the number and value of the loans they make. Oh, wait, they already do that.

ECJ asked to rule on crucial internet publishing jurisdiction issue

Global Law!

@AC D'oh!, you missed the point.

There would only be one Global Law, applicable everywhere. Call it International Law, call it Global Law, call it Cyberspace Law.

It's more about us being citizens of planet earth than of any one nation. A philosophical option instead of building on the existing letter of the law and its boundaries. It's a concept to match Cyberspace, not about physical borders.

Absolute fantasy for now - but it will have to happen one day.

Fourth Option

The law is incompatible with the technology, and needs to be re-written as a global law to accomodate a global platform.

Cyberspace does not fit with our concept of international boundaries, and most attempts to make it fit will fail, or at best will dicriminate one party over another.

I'm not saying a global law is a simple option - just pointing out that we need to accept it.

Middle England chokes on Nice Baps

Business ventures

At least he didn't go into the Ironmongery business.

O'Toole's Knobs & Knockers

Chilean clock-cooking could cause computer chaos

Windows

Windows uses exactly the same to update the details. OK, so they get pulled into the registry, but in there it's all just text in a very well documented format.

Biggest problem for Windows users is that there aren't any geeks sitting in their bedroom writing the code into a .reg file to import (which is what Microsoft release several times a year to account for the planned DST changes around the world - and it surprised me how many countries change the rules every year).

Cue some geek to write one for Chile...

The Professionals set to abseil into cinema

Cowley

James Cosmo - get rid of the moustache and you've got Gordon Jackson.

Brian Cox - has a Hollywood background

Is Robert Carlyle too young? Robbie Coltrane too big ?

What about the Emperor himself, Ian McDiarmid

Better still, bring it up to modern times - Cowley is female - Shirley Manson - phoar!

Firefox 4 debuts: The last kitchen sink release

Developers

"The developer community has been vocal that they want to push the web forward"

And everyone in Infrastructure and Operations actually knows that developers are idiots. If they developed decent code that was optimised and efficient then we wouldn't require the powerful machines with the extreme OSs. The developers are pushed along by the arty-crafty poofters in Marketing who haven't got a clue either.

Given the numerous FAILS by many websites in recent years, do the public really want the web pushed forward? Or let me phrase that better - is it in the public's best interest to push the web forward!

Pr0n domain approved by ICANN

Am I missing something here?

What is stopping any company running a website out of .com, .org, .net, .uk, .fr, .ru or any other top level domain? Does the introduction of .xxx force the adult industry to use it, and prevent porn sites on other domains (which would be impossible to control worldwide)?

So all ICANN have approved is a niche market for porn sites that want to operate to a particular "code". A "Best Western" type affiliation for those that want it. All the rest will carry on exactly as they do now.

Ofcom stamps out mobile termination fees

Good

About time too. Not fast enough in my opinion.

"and would have to cut handset subsidies"

Even better. About time Joe Public was actually made to understand the economics of their "free" handset, all the better to benefit those of us who don't upgrade every year.

Events in recent months have proven that the power is in the communication, and not the gadget.