Posts by sisk

'Boozed up' US drone spook CRASHED UFO into US White House

Re: For the Nth time

I understand your sentiment, but when you get right down to it the biggest difference between expensive quadcopter toys and cheap drones is how they're used. They have drones marketed to police that are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing you might let a 10 year old play with but with a camera strapped to it.

Now imagine that instead of a drunken staffer with a toy this had been a terrorist with one of the police models, only they strip out the camera and replace it with a vial of vx gas (or something else along those lines) and instead of crashing into the ground it crashed through a window. It's not hard to see the concern here.

Google Translate MEAT GRINDER turns gay into 'faggot', 'poof', 'queen'

"Bulldyke"

I've only ever known one person to actually use that term and she used it to refer to herself. She always introduced herself to new people with it. Clearly it's not offensive to everyone.

BOO! Grave remote-code exec flaw in GNU C Library TERRIFIES Linux

Re: Not Again

This one is going to be particularly hard to fix

Apparently not. It was fixed in Debian before you posted your comment. And, I might add, before I heard about it.

Facebook: Oi, Lizard Squad – we can take down our own site, ta

Let's be fair here

If MySpace went down for a few hours would anyone actually notice?

Anonymous: Snap on that Guy Fawkes mask, we're marching against child sex abuse

Re: Isn't this the equivalent of marching against malaria?

They're not protesting pedophilia. They're protesting the corrupt system that lets rich and powerful pedophiles get away with it because they're rich and powerful. And frankly I can agree with them here. It's a real problem and the only people in a position to fix it currently are the ones who are causing it.

German minister photo fingerprint 'theft' seemed far too EASY, wail securobods

Pretty much what I've been saying

I talked some friends out of putting a fingerprint lock on their front door a while back by showing them the Mythbusters episode where they took on biometric locks. The Mythbusters aren't exactly the most rigorous of pen testers so if they can beat the things I'm not about to use my fingerprints for security. Not to mention the fact that in the process they told the whole world how to beat fingerprint readers.

'Linus Torvalds is UNFIT for the WORKPLACE!' And you've given the world what, exactly?

Re: How bad is Torvalds?

And your company would have been that much less competitive for doing it

We're a school district. Our only competition is a couple Catholic schools.

Re: How bad is Torvalds?

No, Torvalds is that bad because he's really just a mean, anti-social SOB. And what's more he doesn't try to hide it. This is far from the first time he's come out and told the world what a jerk he is.

Do I think he'd get fired for bullying in the workplace? Most places yes. Certainly in my office he'd have been shown the door years ago. But here's the rub: the Linux community has always been a meritocracy wherein people skills count for exactly squat. With it being a meritocracy most of the big names are skilled programmers, and skilled programmers with charisma and people skills have always been in short supply.

Beam me up, Scotty, And VAPORIZE me in the process

Man in the middle

Seriously, how trivial is it going to be to capture this data as it's in-route, so going through your computer, and create a file from it.

FORCE Apple to support BlackBerry hardware, demands John Chen

Re: Erm, wrong

It would set an interesting precedent though

I think it would be a terrible precedent. It'd be great for Linux and other niche systems, but pretty much everything would end up getting more expensive as the companies involved were forced to support every obscure system out there.

Is it humanly possible to watch Gigli and Battlefield Earth back-to-back?

2001: A Space Odyssey

To be honest your opinion of 2001 pretty much sums up mine of every Kubrick film I've ever seen with the notable exception of A Clockwork Orange. One gem out of what, thirty some odd really bad movies? Why did they keep letting him make movies?

Geh, now I'm having flashbacks to Eyes Wide Shut! Make it stop!

Re: I should not have

Actually asked for my rental money back

I actually sort of got my rental money back for a bad movie once. The video store manager gave me a look of sympathy when he saw what movie it was and said he understood as he handed me a coupon for a free rental. I've no idea what the movie was though. I didn't think I'd be trying to remember it 20 years later.

Re: Computer Games Movies

Resident Evil starts off okay but by four and five turns into Excrement Drivel.

They made 5? Don't tell my wife, please, especially if they're bad. I've been subjected to the first three so many times that any good qualities they may have once had have faded and been replaced with "Oh hell, not this again!"

Bah

Your definition of "unwatchable" is far too tame. Now me, I'd use Legend of the Rollerblade Seven and Cinderella 2000. Granted that combination would no doubt result in some gouged out eyes, but sacrifices must be made in the name of science.

MYSTERY RADIO SIGNAL picked up from BEYOND our GALAXY

It's almost like the entire Universe has taken one look at Earth and gone "nope!"

We waste our time arguing over things like who's allowed to boink whom while tearing up the environment and killing each other over which ideology is better. Can you really blame them from trying to get away from us?

Re: Decoded

THEY WILL CORRECTLY ASSUME THAT THE FIRST TWO LAWS APPLY TO US.

TIFTFW

Re: What accounts for fast radio bursts?

And then of course when we try to call to buy a space cruiser we're going to find out they've been out of business for 5.4 billion years. It's so annoying when the marketing budget outlives the business.

Your anonymous code contributions probably aren't: boffins

Not Surprised

It's doesn't take long when working on a team project where you're seeing code from other people to learn to recognize which code came from whom. It's kinda neat they they can teach a computer to do it, but I've been in plenty of situations that demonstrate the concept before. You know it's going to be a long day of bug hunting when you recognize a particularly bad programmer's style.

Pull up the Windows 10 duvet and pretend Win8 and Vista were BAD DREAMS

Re: Not too sure

2012 is more Powershell based, the OP was doing a migration from 2003 to 2008

I was responding to the idea that Windows will always need a GUI. In 2008 Powershell wasn't up to running the whole system yet, but it got there eventually.

It's now 2015... can you actually use the system without a GUI, yet?

My Powershell knowledge is such that if I had a Win2012 system then yes I could. Unfortunately our servers are all still on Win2008 and budget constraints mean we're unlikely to update any time soon.

Re: Not too sure

and even then, there will always be something that just can't be done without the GUI.

From what I've been told, as of Windows Server 2012 not only does the GUI just act as a front-end for Powershell but most of the time it actually tells you what command it's running. So if you're paying attention you can point and click once and it writes the script for you. And in 2012 you can install the system with no GUI at all (as a server should be in my penguin-addicted opinion).

This could be a case for Mulder and Scully: Fox 'in talks' to bring back The X-Files

No

At least not on Fox. In the last 10 years that network has kept on all the crap they should have killed years ago and canceled all their promising shows after no more than 3 seasons. I say death to Fox and take the X-Files reboot someplace where good shows have a chance of surviving.

'If you see a stylus, they BLEW it' – Steve Jobs. REMEMBER, Apple?

So not so much 'stylus' as 'smart pen' then. Kinda a misleading headline on this one as the two serve totally different purposes. And believe it or not Apple's offering is likely to be less expensive than current smart pens. The ones you can get now cost far more than an iPad and basically just create a text document (or text-to-speech document for the fancy ones) of whatever you write.

Scientific consensus that 2014 was record hottest year? No

I've said it before, I'll say it again

Even if CO² isn't behind global warming it makes sense to clean up our act.

First, fossil fuels are a limited resource. That means that sooner or later (realistically later--like around 200-300 years from now) they're going to run out. Better to start transitioning to other energy sources and perfect the technology behind them before that happens than to keep burning fossil fuels until they start to get hard to find.

Second, anything we do that puts out CO² also puts out other pollutants. Global warming isn't the only issue of concern here (and I wouldn't even call it the biggest one).

The difference, of course, is that if our CO² isn't behind the warmer temperatures then it becomes much less urgent. That doesn't mean that it doesn't still need done though.

I'll build a Hyperloop railgun tube-way in Texas, Elon Musk vows

Re: He's at least trying

In 30 years the low energy solutions for almost everything we do will make today's high energy lifestyle seem profligate.

That's one possibility. The other is that fusion really is 20 years away* and that we'll have essentially limitless clean energy 30 years from now. In that case we may actually end up going the other direction and today's lifestyle will seem low energy.

*Yes, yes, yes, I know. Fusions been 20 years away for 30 years now. But hey, eventually they'll be right about it being only 20 years off.

Let's be fair here

People said Musk was mad when he started Tesla also. Few would argue that SpaceX was an incredibly high-risk investment when he started it also, but it seems to have paid off.

As I understand it, from what I've read about Musk elsewhere, he is more interested in pushing the limits with these sorts of things than in actually making money. The fact that he IS making money on them, I think, is a bit of a surprise. If that is true (which, grain of salt, it may not be since that's just my impression from a few articles I've read) then the whole Hyperloop thing doesn't seem quite so mad. Even if it's not true he's already made a mint from two "mad" ideas so why not go for a third?

LIFELESS BEAGLE on MARS: A British TRIUMPH!

Re: Curiosity

On the other hand, if there was a friendly Martian to help then a lack of USB could be a huge oversight on Curiosity's part...

See if J'onn J'onzz is available.

Spavined RadioShack to file for bankruptcy next month – report

Maybe they should have stuck with their original business model of catering to electronics and computer geeks instead of trying to turn themselves into an overpriced high-tech toy store that isn't particularly high tech.

CIA exonerates CIA of all wrongdoing in Senate hacking probe

Erm...

"Inappropriate access?" Is it just me or does that sound an awful lot like something that would get a civilian jailed and charged with computer trespass?

David Cameron: I'm off to the US to get my bro Barack to ban crypto – report

Constitutional Consideration

Under the US Constitution personal freedom trumps national security. Or rather it's supposed to. It's been all bass ackwards in that regard for the last 13 years or so. Even so I don't see any case for banning crypto based on *insert alphabet soup agency here*'s ability to snoop impressing the SCOTUS, nor do I see any such law having a prayer of avoiding getting the scrutiny of the SCOTUS justices.

Then again the current batch of SCOTUS justices have made some really quite brain-dead rulings in direct contradiction of what the Constitution says in the past so who knows.

Hawking and friends: Artificial Intelligence 'must do what we want it to do'

*Eyeroll*

Two things make me completely discount this whole thing. First of all, these scientists, though they're very smart, are all outside of their respective fields of expertise when discussing AI.

Second, we're a LONG ways from being able to make anything that could be called true AI. We don't even understand how human self awareness works or what it is that makes us capable of independent thought. How are we supposed to replicate programmatically something we don't understand? It's just not going to happen any time soon.

Hey, bacteria: Resistance is FUTILE – boffins grow new super-antibiotic

And so the arms race with critters of microscopic stature continues. Sounds like we'll have the upper hand for a good long while this time though.

BILL GATES DRINKS 'boiled and treated' POO. Ah, 'delicious'

Lighten up. It's a joke. I just forgot the icon. I actually have a healthy respect for Bill Gates' accomplishments. Even more so for his recent ones than for the ones everyone knows about.

We always knew he was full of shit. At least now we know why.

Arrr: The only Pirate in European Parliament to weigh in on copyright

Re: Copyright contract with the public is broken.

I would probably use more civilized language to express it, but I agree with your assessment wholeheartedly. Of the problems facing the world today intellectual property laws are probably too minor to even show up on the urgency scale, despite what big media and freetards alike seem to think.

Alien Earths are out there: Our home is not 'unique'

Bake for a few million years?

Darn my lack of foresight. I guess I won't be using this recipe for dinner tonight.

Google+ to offer 'infinite' gender identity options

Re: ?

For physical form you have a point, but for those in the community that would use anything other than Male or Female gender is not a matter of what's between their legs. Even most natural androgynes and hermaphrodites have grown up with a male or female gender thanks to the long-standing practice of surgically assigning a gender to such babies (which is thankfully finally being questioned but there are very few such people who have reached adulthood with hermaphrotitic organs intact yet).

Judge spanks SCO in ancient ownership of Unix lawsuit

Ok, courts, Novel, and IBM, please pay attention:

Aim. For. The. Head.

Re: groklaw and grokthelaw

Yeah, I thought that to. In fact my first thought was "Didn't PJ walk away from Groklaw?"

Linux 'GRINCH' vuln is AWFUL. Except, er, maybe it isn't

Re: Brought to you by...

As physical access is required (if the same user tries via SSH, they'll be prompted to enter a password) it's something of a non-issue

Indeed. With physical access to a machine all an attacker needs do is stick in their own disc and poke the power button to gain root access on any system. It doesn't even matter what OS the system is running at that point.

"Vulnerability"???

Er.....what's the point of privilege escalation for a wheels user sitting at the machine? Wouldn't such a user just modify /etc/sudoers to grant themselves elevated privileges? Assuming they didn't already have the ability to do whatever they're trying that is.

'Turn to nuclear power to save planetary ecology from renewable BLIGHT'

Here's an idea

Let's find a way to harness all the hot air generated by people discussing climate change and green energy. That should be enough energy for the next cosmological era or two.

BOFH: Capo di tutti capi, bah. I'm having CHICKEN JALFREZI

Re: Can I borrow the BOFH's temporal compressor?

You managed that much? I was impressed with myself the weekend I managed to work in Guardians of the Galaxy between all the other junk that fills my weekend.

Great story, but I've got to say I saw the end coming as soon as Gina walked into the room.

Upchuck nation: Half a million CHUMPS now own Google Cardboard VR gear

A sucker and his money are soon parted. Or half a million suckers as it turns out.

$20 for a bit of cardboard and a $5 pair of lenses? What are these people thinking?

Tor takes off the gloves after sustained staffer harassment

Your solution to the problem of someone getting their feelings hurt online is for the 'harassers' personally identifiable information to be posted publicly? By a company whose mission is to provide 'absolute anonymity'? You're hilarious.

Actually it makes sense. How many people do you know who'd willing act like your typical troll if they didn't have anonymity? The tactic works. Case in point: google Curtis Woodhouse Twitter Troll.

Re: Cyber Bullying or a Paradox?

I just re-read the comment and undersood what he really meant, "facepalm for me"....

Let that be a lesson for you. No commenting before your first cup.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go make some coffee.

Mom and daughter SUE Comcast for 'smuggling' public Wi-Fi hotspot into their home

Re: Hope they win.

Bandwidth well, you are not charged for any bandwidth used by the open wifi as that is separate.

Bandwidth in this context, as most on El Reg will be aware, is in reference to how much data the line can handle at any given moment. If you'll forgive the 'superhighway' analogy, think of your bandwidth as a four lane highway for data to travel, with each packet of data being a car. Then, when someone else gets on, you only have two lanes available for your own traffic. Therefore it takes longer for your data to get fully transferred.

So - you thought you knew all about the INSTANT COFFEE DUNES of TITAN?

So if there is life on Titan then it...

A) Is drunk as hell, what with all the ethanol, and

B) Has really quite terrible taste in coffee.

So about like my college room mate then.

Google App Engine has THIRTY flaws, says researcher

So if I'm reading this right he was doing security research on a live system without first notifying and getting permission from the host. Poor manners that. No wonder his account got shut down. Even worse he apparently has yet to speak to Google about this as he says the research "probably" looked like an attack, an indication that he's guessing, yet he's told world+dog. This is not the behavior of a reputable security researcher.

As for the holes themselves...I'm really not surprised. "Big system has security holes" is kinda a dog bites man type of story. 30 isn't even that many. Microsoft has been known to cover that many in a single (big, granted) patch Tuesday (and no, that's not a slam on MS). Tell Google and they'll either fix them or, if they're a core Java problem, work with Oracle to get them fixed.

Ten Linux freeware apps to feed your penguin

Re: Geany?

Nothing really, but there's more to an IDE than a text editor with syntax highlighting. I strongly favor Sublime myself, but I understand the appeal of a full fledged IDE.

Plus Sublime, not being free in either sense of the word (it's proprietary and the license is $70, or at least that was the price when I bought my license), wouldn't be in consideration for this list.