Posts by jaduncan

Tech giants' offshore cash-stashing is only ever a delaying tactic

?

You don't need to bring the capital in; the company can just borrow inside the US whilst securing the loan on the capital that never entered the country you are borrowing in.

Tim Cook: Wearable tech's nice, but Google Glass will NEVER BE COOL

Re: I can't imagine Steve Jobs

No, of course...unless a competitor had launched it.

Nvidia opens pre-orders for handheld Shield console three days early

TF2 port

Although I think it's unlikely, the chances of it got a lot better after Valve ported the Source engine to SDL and OpenGL (with better performance even on Windows).

Google not sabotaging YouTube on Windows Phone after all

Re: Kind of an odd stance from MS

I won't hold my breath for the apology over the original statements (or indeed the complaint to the EU) before they bothered to actually write an app.

PEAK iPHONE? Apple mobe growth slumps to ‘lowest in its history’

Re: Neil Mawston is clearly a pillock

They are making a WATCH. What do you people want, blood?

Google asks Blighty to slave over its Maps for FREE

Re: UK already has an open map

Apple's OSM data was another licence change before this one. It's *really* old; so much so it was obsolete even before the Apple Maps launch.

Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC

Re: NZ Has No TV Tax

"Even the cry of "BBC does the best costume dramas" has been lacking of late seeing as ITV has Downton Abbey."

*sighs*

Osborne slashes growth forecast by half in bleak economy statement

Re: To fix the problem

You almost certainly don't have her kind of expenses either, and I'd hope that you wouldn't think that her children should be paying for the (I would argue) foolishness/possible mental illness of the mother.

Google Chrome feature helps you silence noisy tabs

"The feature stops being of any use if you have so many tabs open that the icons all accordion together and disappear, so the usefulness of it will depend on your browsing habits."

Given that this is in alpha I'd imagine this will get tweaked.

Linus Torvalds in NSFW Red Hat rant

Re: Red Hat still caring?

"Reads as if Red Hat is trying to help Microsoft during Microsoft's struggling times"

I'm not exactly an MS fan, but I have to say that maybe everyone except Apple would kill to be in what you consider the 'struggling' position of MS.

Re: Quite frankly.....

Linus rants for good reasons, yes. He's actually quite reserved; I recall being in an IRC channel in the mid 90s when someone was debating kernel design with him and heavily implying that he was an idiot at every turn in a really remarkably condescending way. Linus conceded the point at issue and left.

After Linus left the other people on channel told the person who the user account belonged to. Some level of amusement occurred.

Woman nails 'cheating boyf' on Russian 'Street View'

Bonus

Oh, and a bonus quote:

"Peck v United Kingdom (2003) 36 EHRR 41 Mr Peck was filmed on a public street in an embarrassing moment by a CCTV camera. Subsequently, the film was broadcast several times on the television. The Strasbourg court said (at p. 739) that this was an invasion of his privacy contrary to article 8:

"the relevant moment was viewed to an extent which far exceeded any exposure to a passer-by or to security observation and to a degree surpassing that which the applicant could possibly have foreseen when he walked in Brentwood on August 20, 1995.""

I repeat to you, get your legal advice somewhere qualified.

It did indeed have something to do with being photographed in the street, given that the court explicitly stated that "The complaint regarding the photographs is of precisely the same character as the nature of the complaints regarding the text of the articles: the information conveyed by the photographs was private information."

and

"In my opinion, therefore, the widespread publication of a photograph of someone which reveals him to be in a situation of humiliation or severe embarrassment, ****even if taken in a public place**** [emphasis added], may be an infringement of the privacy of his personal information. Likewise, the publication of a photograph taken by intrusion into a private place (for example, by a long distance lens) may in itself by such an infringement, even if there is nothing embarrassing about the picture itself: Hellewell v Chief Constable of Derbyshire [1985] 1 WLR 804, 807. As Lord Mustill said in R v Broadcasting Standards Commission, Ex p BBC [2001] QB 885, 900, "An infringement of privacy is an affront to the personality, which is damaged both by the violation and by the demonstration that the personal space is not inviolate.""

This is explicitly to do with the publication of photographs taken in a public place. You may wish to seek your legal advice elsewhere.

This is untrue; see Campbell v Mirror News Group for an example of a case where privacy was infringed with a photo in a public area. The case involved a photo being taken of Campbell walking up to a medical centre for drugs treatment, and the freedom to publish was outweighed by the right to medical privacy (as a part of an ECHR right to a private life). MNG lost.

TL;DR: post ECHR It's more complex than an absolute right to photograph.

US woman cuffed for 'booking strippers for 16th birthday bash'

I'm actually surprised that the strippers went for it; they are quite lucky not to be up on child sexual assualt charges if they were rubbing up on 13 year olds.

Irony alert: Pirate Bay accuses anti-piracy group of illegal copying

Yes

Yes, it is intentionally ironic. I think that the 75% of the article where you pretended not to get this was a bit pointless.

Rivals to Brussels: Google labelling its own stuff won't help us

Re: Build it and they will come

Frankly, it would also help if that competitor wasn't run by Microsoft. They aren't exactly famed for being trustworthy.

New Zealand court hands out second peppercorn downloading penalty

Re: If you are a kiwi...

I just sent this:

"The RIANZ have recently claimed that mere possession of a Bittorrent client is evidence of copyright infringement.

I shall merely note that I use Bittorrent to download Linux updates, and although I'm not a gamer the program World of Warcraft uses Bittorrent to download updates for the game. The RIANZ argument is rather like saying that owning a modern car is evidence of speeding.

Is there likely to be any forum where you can challenge this bunkum?"

Google v Microsoft mobile war: Who's REALLY to blame?

Typical MS

It's not that curious, it's SOP for MS. They prioritised the fancy UI, and didn't bother to fill in standards support.* My sympathy for them if they really had that much warning is pretty much zero.

*and, indeed, for WinPhone 7 didn't even bother to do dual core before release and screwed over all their customers 1 year later.

Brit robojet ‘Taranis’ set for Oz test flight

@Network67

...that would presumably be the test.

FTC clears Google in anticompetitive probe

I like the way you've waited to see the reason, duration, effectiveness of execution and outcomes of the visit before commenting.

2012: The year that netbooks DIED

Re: Ultrabooks with "premium specs"

Heh, I'm the guy in the first few comments telling him to hack up a 10" tablet. Great minds, etc.

Apple updates maps to remove Australia’s ghost-city in the desert

Interesting.

I'm curious who you would imagine responsibility laid with if not the people providing the map and presenting the data to the end user. An entire 'city' located with no visible urbanisation on the satelite image shouldn't even be missed by the automated flag-this-for-human-review check routine.

Google kills free version of Apps for business

Re: Not so good for Charities

@David Neil You seem to be responding to a comment the most recent AC didn't make. AC is stating that spending money on advocacy is not wasting money. I'm not sure, to pick a random example, that Liberty or the ACLU are loved by the state. If you want to attempt to guarantee civil liberties, it's probably best to talk to the people with legislative power a lot.

Musk's SpaceX gets foot in door of US secret 'black' space program

What a conundrum.

If only they could carry more than one instrument!

Simon Cowell plans X Factor for Tech

Heh

I cannot wait for his love of the perpetual motion machine entrant.

Ballmer: Win8 'certainly surpasses' Win95 in importance

Re: Ballmer says...

Actually Balmer says "I'm not paid to have doubts," showing all the grasp of SWOT analysis and corporate strategy in the CEO role that the MS shareholders have come to know and love.

North Korea and Iran sign 'Axis of Tech Evil' deal

Re: If Iran wanted...

...and how do you think the US would react to that? It's not about physical supply of nukes, obviously. Because you know, it might just be that geostationary sats are sitting above both Pakistan and DPRK looking for that kind of transfer.

Re: RE: Psyx

Yeah, I'm sure what an intelligence service say in public and their actual opinions correlate perfectly.

Re: Yeah, that'll work

Iran make reasonably competent missiles and indeed rockets in the Safir-2B and Simorgh SLV.

Seriously, if this isn't a deal which says "DPRK gives Iran the Bomb in return for Iran's designs on Other Stuff" I'll eat my hat.

Relevant responsibilities

DPRK: provides nuke program knowledge and proven protocols for that.

Iran: provides tech and manufacturing competencies in technologies such as "everything non-nuclear since the fall of the USSR that isn't fake currency".

Why the Apple-Samsung verdict is good for you, your kids and tech

Re: Patent System Is Broken

"AIUI Apple's grievances against Samsung are about Trade Dress (design patents, trademarks, service-marks, etc.), which boils down to a company attempting to piggy-back on another's success by cloning their product - rather than doing their own homework, and coming up with their own designs."

Apart from their claims based on the utility patents, it's all non-utility patents and trade dress, yes.

British Minister likens Anonymous to fascists and racists

Re: Hang on

William Hague allegedly set that in motion, arguing against wincing Sir Humphrey mandarins repeatedly stating it wasn't a very good idea.

You are incorrect:

"http://www.apt.ch/tld/Overview.pdf:

"Passive personality jurisdiction

Article 5(1)(c) UNCAT covers jurisdiction over acts

committed against the State party’s nationals

(passive personality jurisdiction), again wherever

these acts have allegedly been committed. This

competence is however optional, meaning the State

is not compelled by the UNCAT to establish such a

jurisdiction."

The victims were Spanish. Spain therefore has jurisdiction if it wishes to assert it, regardless of any other state,

This is incorrect; torture has universal jurisdiction under both the customary international law concept of jus cogens and, specifically, under the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Article 5(1)(c).

"1. Each State Party shall take such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the offences referred to in article 4 in the following cases:

(c) When the victim is a national of that State if that State considers it appropriate."

The Spanish court thus had jurisdiction; the question was more if Pinochet should be protected by the immunity traditionally extended to heads of state.

Re: That's rich

Actually the irony is that this could as easily be compared to the civil rights protests of the ANC, given that the protest is perceived by Anonymous to be to protect free speech.

Facebook updates iOS app, still poking around for mobile dollars

Re: Lucky Bill Ray

Android 4.0 or above can disable any preinstalled app; just go to the apps section in the system settings.

LulzSec sneak Sabu buys six more months of freedom

He's liked as much as most people who give up all of their friends in return for 6 months of freedom. Whatever happens couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Judge begs Apple, Samsung to get a room, or trial will end in tears

Re: Sounds like she thinks they're going to go against Apple

This is, just for the record, moderately insane. Judges have their own opinions, and generally react very badly indeed to being leaned on. This is why we have an independent judiciary.

Apple 'offered Samsung $30-per-mobe' patent licence truce

They're trying to move to Sharp.

Re: trades

Apple logic:

UI patents == $30 a phone

Engineering patents == less than a dollar offered to Samsung by Apple.

Well, I guess you can tell that they value making it look pretty more than actual engineering and such.

Alleged 'Xbox 720' dev box eBay'd for $20,100

Box: $20k

Legal costs when MS wants it back: ~$50k

Never, ever, ever getting release certification from MS: priceless.

For some fuckups there's car insurance, for most other stuff there's eBay.

Amount of CO2 being sucked away by Earth 'has doubled in 50 years'

Re: Excellent work

"What possible reason could there be for you to not email us? Certainly ignorance shouldn’t be a bar. You might not know anything about the issue, but I bet you reckon something. So why not tell us what you reckon? Let us enjoy the full majesty of your uniformed, ad hoc reckon by going to bbc.co.uk/meandmyimportantthoughts (all one word), clicking on ‘What I Reckon’ and simply beating on the keyboard with your fists or head." -- Mitchell and Webb

U.S forces maintain fire against Megaupload

A lawyer stating on the court record that

a) they're seizing assets for evidence for a case where jurisdiction is not established;

b) that the case might never go further than a threatened indictment or indictment without intent to actually prosecute "to hang around their heads", and;

c) they have the intention of maintaining possession of the siezed property regardless of any actual court case being possible.

Well, it sounds awfully like a tort problem question regarding abuse of process.

New UK network touts FREE* mobile broadband

Re: Where do I sign up

"Some server software for sharing files on a LAN"

Jesus fucking Christ. The Register comments section is going downhill.