Posts by Peter Galbavy

T-Mobile JavaScript comment stripper breaks websites

one2none

They should have stuck to their old name.

Hundreds of Brit pubs to offer free WiFi

it's not free

It's not free if you are required to provide your personal details for marketing purposes. Even if you tick the "no junk mail" box, this is BT and they will sell your private information quicker than a racoon will jump in a dustbin.

New Apple move against Galaxy Tab on Euro front

Is st Steve actually worried ?

It looks like the sainted Jobs is actually worried by Samsung.

This can be nothing but good news for consumers and competition in the market.

BigBro, 'cause Apple has gone from rebel to dictator.

Dell puts gun to Streak 5 tablet, pulls trigger

works fine for me

I have had a Streak since November last year and it's been great. I am not a small lad, so having a big screen is fine for fat fingers and bad eyesight. Upgrades have been a mess, but luckily there is enough of a community out there to get updates "fixed" to a point that the Dell releases are foced to work.

As for portability, fits fine in a shirt pocket, even if it's a little tall in some. It it very thin and so doesn't feel bulky even in the plastic case.

I might keep an eye out for a spare - since I am so used to it.

Oracle buys Ksplice

code may be GPL but they have a patent

From memory, I recall their website mentioning patents. You can have the code, just be prepared to be trolled...

UK will obey Euro unisex-insurance rules from 2013

flatten all premiums

Well, to go back to basics, if insurers based their premiums on micro-grained risk assessment so that they could get an accurate risk for individuals that would wipe out the need for insurance - because all you would be doing is paying into a savings account against a future event PLUS a hefty profit to the insurer to manage it. Which they do anyway.

Surely, in an idealised world, for a particular class of events all premiums should be identical and the risk spread evenly across the board. People who took the piss (i.e. acted recklessly) would fall afoul of the small print and the rest would have a shared pot to actually benefit from when things went wrong ?

Other things which could be useful to help us pick a "good" insurer (no such thing): Require insurers to publish audited figures of claims - how many amde and how much for, how many refused, average and std dev of processing times, complaints (that's already published I think) and so on.

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

sobs

good luck! x

SpaceX goes to court as US rocket wars begin

Freddy Laker all over again

'nuff said.,

Nokia takes hit in High Court priority-calls patent battle

what is bothersome...

What bothers me is that companies are allowed to submit patents for using the functionality of a standard in a way which that standard is meant to be used. See the many XML patents (mainly in the US), this one in the story - the GSM specs have included prioritisation of calls since day 1 - and so on. It's neither novel nor inventive.

Council fined for randomly emailing personal data

pointless...

Until individuals are fined or punished this achieves nothing. It's simply the transfer of public money from one place to another.

Google pits C++ against Java, Scala, and Go

It's all just philisopher's stones

While the academics and the clever folk put lots of work into developing new languages and the frameworks/ecosystems they live in, to me the user's of these new systems always seem to go through a very specific cycle; Namely, the "wannabes" rush to every new thing in the hope that it will contain the secret that prevents them from having to learn, think and do.

It's the new Philosopher's Stone. The kiddies all think "this will make my code into gold!! ... nope, sorry. Education, experience, hard work. The language is a tool not a magic rock.

Tragedy nurse's boyf fined over medical records abuse

two things

Why do I keep getting texts about "my accident" then ?

And reading between the lines here, doesn't this just seem like the best the CPS could come up with after failing to prosecute him for any more serious crimes associates with the "family" ?

Mobile operators argue with Ofcom over termination rates

barriers to competition

As per Richard P's first post, none of the media - inc the normally well informed Reg - pick up that having high termination charges which effectively cancel out as the networks cross-charge each other means that they get to charge customers more for calls while locking out competition, like 3, because a new entrant is more likely to make calls to other networks than terminate calls from them - at least until the business develops. Then they become part oft the cartel and voila!

Supreme Court: DNA database retention regs are unlawful

"exceptional circumstances"

... means "member of the inner circle of the totalitarian regime that runs England".

Feds commandeer botnet, issue 'stop' command

I can see it now...

"Hello and blessings on you,

My name is Frederick Smith of the FBI and you computer has been identified as one which is under attach but we have stopped it! To fully clean your computer for the noxious virus please install the software from this site: ..."

Apologies for not speaking 419 fluently.

Oh dear.

Email compromised at Epsilon

the background questions are interesting

like why do any of these top tier companies need to farm out their "opt-in" spam to an external company? what's so difficult about running your own mail gateways and keeping your customer data secure - well, more secure anyway through the simple expedient of not shipping it off site en-masse ?

Praying for meltdown: The media and the nukes

re radon

I got to page 4 of the comments, so excuse me if this is a repeat of someone else...

In the UK, the HSE site has a good page: http://www.hse.gov.uk/radiation/ionising/radon.htm

I like this quote: "Radon is now recognised to be the second largest cause of lung cancer in the UK after smoking. Lung cancer is also the biggest cause of cancer related death in the UK and only 5% of all lung cancers are curable."

Ban granite now.

George Lucas 'very happy' with 3D Phantom Menace

it's still porcine

3D lipstick ain't gonna make me want to kiss it any more that before...

BAA promises to get its Heathrow act together

the (lack) of importance of passengers

"... focused on the needs of the passenger".

Can someone check the change log on the document as see if the word "cattle" had been globally replaced with "passenger".

Ofcom gives shonky Sitefinder Google Maps boost

Don't arm the consumer

The *real* reason for not handing over the data for fear of publication and reuse is that the paying consumer will get more information in helping make informed choices about who to hand over money to.

Imagine having access to an independent coverage map to help you decide if you can move from one crappy network to another in the four common locations you spend time in (office, home, pub, girlfriend ... whatever) ?

It's not really in the network operators interest to reveal how poor they actually are. Especially with the Nothing Nowhere consolidation going on...

MS embraces/shuns Google's open video codec

hang on ...

Does this imply that Microsoft accepts liability for all the software they ship ? Now that would have some rather far reaching consequences in areas of consequential loss through bugs and failures and a liability to attract and run malware...

Sexy eco-bulb wins Design of the Year

hmm

Well, the latest B&Q own label 21W CFLs I bought are actually quite good - 3 seconds to full light and they are quite bright.

That said, it's all a con anyway - just a way for the patent holders to push the public domain traditional bulb out the picture. Why, when the concern is about 100W bulbs when a "normal" installation of GU10 halogens in a room use maybe 300W ?

NSPCC blurs lines as vetting debate kicks off

burn the witch!

I know someone who said that someone told them that he once consorted with a duck!

BURN THEM!

Oracle gives 21 (new) reasons to uninstall Java

what an excellent idea

No, really. I never thought this through - bad me - but so little depends on Java anymore and this laptop is not my work PC where we need Java lots. Let's see what breaks - I suspect very very little.

'Tree Octopus' proves journos no smarter than 13-year-old Americans

sponsored by a well known global brand...

I assume that the study was actualy a confidential one sponsored by a leading (insert name here) global brand company that wanted to make sure that 11 years olds were just as wide eyed and gullible as before the internet - to make sure their marketing will continue working.

Sky loses pub footy case

powerful "interests" will ensure this doesn't get through...

Or else I could look forward to being allowed to buy "designer" clothes imported for retail sale from other EU countries. Oh, hang on, that's not allowed. Wish they'd make there minds up.

National Identity Card holding chumps have buyer's remorse

sob sob sob

My heart bleeds...

MP wants age verification for net smut

another nutter

Another MP who simply doesn't understand the 'net and also appears to see parenting as a job for anyone except a parent. I thought we got rid of these people when we dumped that lot who provided a platform for nutters like Ruth Kelly ?

Meltdown ahoy!: Net king returns to save the interwebs

someone worth listening too

I'd much rather listen to what VJ has to say over the self-promoting marketing folk like Cerf. The real 'net was built by a small handful of people and this guy is one of those. Notice how quiet most real engineers and inventors are ? It's a pleasant suprise to see him pop-up again quite so publicly.

Anti-piracy lawyers 'knowingly targeted the innocent', says law body

hmm

Sounds like "demanding with menaces" to me. If it's good enough for a loan shark then it's good enough for the bar.

Airport security boss calls time on tech

sadly, she's not going to last long in her job

Far to sensible and sane.

The security equipment concerns (the Rayethons, BaEs, Siemens, whoever) of this world will make sure she is shunted out of the way. Far too much bubble in the FUD business.

No wonder CompSci grads are unemployed

differences

The problem is the differences between requirements and expectations.

Today's "computer" courses, from the primary school all the way up, are for learning to use them - the driving lesson approach, if you like. That's great, but they are not what the industry needs.

The need is for people who can build, maintain and fix the "cars" - the engineers, if you like - and those courses are simply not taught on a formal level. Even in the late 80s, doing a BSc in "Computer & Communications Systems", most of us were self-taught through tinkering and BBS life.

Unlimited CRB checks may fall away

Until there is "official" back pressure...

Like that story linked in the Daill Snail and the comment by John Mills, until there is official back pressure and/or court cases forcing schools and other self-serving institutions (or is that institutions run by self-serving agenda driven twats ?) to not over react and to be "sensible" nothing will change.

No one needs Blu-ray, says Microsoft exec

emps new clothes

This is just a tactic by the media corporate interests to distract people from the underlying problems of surrendering all control of your purchases to their whim. When I buy a CD/DVD/Bluray I get some media and it last for a long time. I have some CDs that have succumbed to bit rot, but hey. If I surrender my media interests to Microsoft/Apple/Sony/whoever then they get to choose when and if I am allowed to access it.

What happens when a company dies ? When they decide you are a security risk (see Microsoft blocking XBox360 owners they meely suspect of hacking their consoles) without legal recourse ?

Without adequate legal safeguards in place, this is a dangerous path of conflict of interest to allow these global monopolies to walk down...

ID fraudsters sell stolen Aus house

common in Hungary

This has certainly happened to someone we know in Hungary. Apparently quite common and with the availability of corruptable officials on the inside of the equiv. of the land registry, even easier.

Ten... Wireless Headphones

battery life ?

I think that the review overlooked the quoted or real battery life. Not much use if they die after 2 hours.

I got a cheap-n-cheerful Lindy labelled Chinese thing for use with my own headphones - £24.99. They are OK and do the job. Good bass, decent volume.

Royal Society opens inquiry into why kids hate tech

if you can't ...

teach.

Perhaps real skills are so valued that anyone who has any real talent and aptitude ends up in the industry being paid a reasonable amount. Instead of teaching - being paid crap and dealing with ungrateful teens who you cannot censure even verbally ?

Apple preps iOS fix as Germany warns of iPhone peril

the sudden rush?

Saldy, after the last few years, I have a cynical view that the rush to get the fix out is to prevent the phone being jail-broken rather than the prevention of harm to actual real, paying customers. Am I too cynical?

UK.gov scraps stop'n'search terror power

what about section 43 ?

I must go and re-read stuff, but I thought that section 43 was also a generally "bad" idea and also used by the police to apply pressure to those they consider undesirables. i.e. anyone who isn't them.

BCS rebels apologise ahead of crunch meeting

rebranding ?

The BCS rebranding to be more "hip" and "down with da youf" is like (if there was one) the National Trainspotters League rebranding as the Institute For Running The Trains On Time. Sigh. These nutters still promote punched cards and COBOL.

Europe approves US mass data grab

... and in return we get ?

I am assuming that in return we get nothing ? Is there any reciprocal arrangement to see all those dodgy US drug deal bank transactions ? No ? Odd that...

BT boss brands Britain illiterate

uh ?

shirley dey kan yoos da speel chocker ?

'Biggest thing in farming for 10,000 years on horizon'

but agro industry not interested...

Surely everyone has by now worked out that the whole push behind GMO is not the publicly touted reasons of better yield, disease resistance etc. but rather the intellectual property approach, the patent portfolios and the need to buy the next crops seed direct from Monsanto and their friends.

So this proposal is even less likely to get any traction (pardon the pun) from the agro interests already in place. In fact I expect quite a lot of lobbying against.

Universal Tech MyXerver Pro MX3800

not really

The Infrant (and now Netgear) stuff has supported USB wireless interfaces for some time. Perhaps this is the first with it built in, but not really a first.

Statistics prof nails Blackpool hoopla scam

so what's new ?

I was under the impression that when it came to these so-called "games of skill" that is boiled down to the two old sayings: "A fool and his money are easily parted" and "There's one born every minute".

Does anyone ever win at these things ?

Google backs open codec against patent trolls

once there was Dirac

I wonder what ever happened to the BBC's Dirac ? Was is really that resource hungry for both encode and decode so as to die a quiet death ?

Guy Kewney dies at 63

lots of memories

I remember many of his articles, especially in PCW "back in the day". RIP.

Mandybill: All the Commons drama

pay-to-play law making

I haven't had the time to actually read the original bill or the subsequent amendments so apologies if I seem to have fallen to the "nu meeja" hype, but the entire thing smacked of a menu of items designed to be sold to media interests for future favours and hard cash. I guess once the selling of peerages was given an airing and then the expenses gravy train was outed one of the last remaining ways for these scum that seek to rule us is to sell their roles as lawmakers - nothing new of course, but has it ever been so blatent ?

Was there anything in the whole thing, backbench opposition amendments aside, that attempt to deliver any benefit to the public as voters, tax payers and consumers ? At least the original idea of copyright was a trade - e.g. "we protect your work for 14 years and then it becomes public property for the good of all" ?

Corduroy cuffed, banged up for teaching while drunk

hmm

... was arrested "on suspicion of felony child endangerment" ... “There was never any threat to the students," said Coachella Valley school superintendent Ricardo Medina.

That's a good defense argument if ever I've seen one. "You were endangering children!" "No, the superintendent said that could never happen!"

Heathrow security man cops perv scanner eyeful

more lies

I am sure that we were told not only that these machines could make no permanent record of the scans but also that they would be monitored remotely by people in a closed room with no view of the actual subjects in the scanners...

On the other hand I do see the whole "gimme the compensation" point others are making.