Posts by sisk

Yahoo! and Facebook beg US court for more time

I'm telling you...

Patent lawyer death matches: the way to get tech companies back to making things instead of claims. Not only will these lawsuits get decided in something resembling a reasonable timeframe, but we'd see a whole lot less of them.

Kodak's using bankruptcy to rob us of our rights – Apple

Two years??

Good grief our court system is slow. How long does it take to determine prior art or the lack thereof? Or does the blame lie with lawyers streching things out unnecessarily?

Let's just solve this the quick way. Put the patent lawyers in an octagon shaped cage and let them fight it out. In fact, let's handle all pantent lawsuits that way. Pretty soon enough patent lawyers will decide it's not worth it that tech companies can get back to making new tech.

Pirate Bay founders appeal to EC to save them from Swedish justice

Aren't they all living in countries that don't have extradition treaties with Sweeden anyway?

Adobe feeling drained by new model, but hopes things will improve

Re: People are sick of Adobe

GIMP isn't an acceptable replacement for Photoshop for most professional purposes.

I disagree heartily. As a professional web developer with access to both Photoshop and GIMP I find myself using GIMP far more often. Maybe things are different on the print side of things. I can certainly see how the lack of CMYK would hamper a print designer, but for my purposes there's really nothing I would do with Photoshop that I can't do with GIMP. Often I can even get things done faster with GIMP because I've used it far many, many years whereas I've only had Photoshop for couple of years.

William Shatner confirms Devon town actually prostitute free

Shatner reportedly emailed him back saying that prostitution meant "sex for something of value" and that "I would be hard pressed to believe that sex was not being had in Ilfracombe for something of value, perhaps a lengthy marriage...."

Did Shatner just suggest that having sex with your spouse is prostitution? Please tell me that I'm misunderstanding the statement. By this logic having sex to acheive an orgasm would be prostitution.

Microsoft takes on tablets with keyboard-equipped Surface

Re: Hardware looks good... software?

It can be done. Now, the next question: how long will it take for someone to figure out how and publish the method online? And the question after that, will the information be dispersed widely enough before Microsoft tries to clamp down on it to remain available?

Any system can be rooted. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't been paying attention for the last decade. Some take longer than others to figure out, but there's always a way to do it. With the notable exception of the PS3, high profile systems like this are usually rooted within a couple months.

Whether the Surface lives up to the hype remains to be seen.

Does any hyped product ever really live up to the hype?

Earthquakes will release captured carbon: Stanford study

Re: "Rockets fueled by LOX with Hydrogen only generate water"

1) Build a big fracking gun, on par with that German monstrosity from WW2, maybe a little bigger. In fact, make it a railgun, significantly bigger than the ones the US Navy is playing with. That way you can power it off a clean energy source instead of gunpowder.

2) Put CO2 into durable canister rounds.

3) Shoot them into space.

4) Once they're in space, have them captured by a satellite (build specifically for the job, of course) which then fires them out further (via a solar powered rail gun). The moon would make a good target. Or, better yet, shoot it at Mars and we can get a jump start on terraforming it by warming it up a bit. If you don't shoot it out further than Earth orbit then the canisters will eventually fall back into the atmosphere and burn up, releasing the CO2 right where we least want it.

The only problem I see with this plan is that the hardware to make it happen will probably cost more than the GDP of some European nations. If it were build in the US the costs would run into the trillions of dollars.

Sony slams Nintendo Wii U functionality

Actually, if history is any indication you may well be able to say:

£PS3 || £PSP > £WiiU?

Linus Torvalds drops F-bomb on NVIDIA

Re: @AC

What you say used to be true. Not since shortly after AMD bought out ATI have ATI's Linux drivers been flaky, however. One of the first things AMD with ATI did was massively improve their Linux drivers. I had an ATI card at the time and when that first AMD Catalyst driver came out the difference it made on my system was amazing. Last time I used an Nvidia card the OSS nv driver was far better than the official driver, and it's nowhere near good enough for gaming (yes, I game on Linux). As for Intel, I really can't comment on their drivers since I only settle for Intel graphics when I'm setting up headless systems without X.

Council chief overrules blackout on Scots 9-yr-old's school lunch blog!

Re: looking at that picture

Pink slime it is not. I've seen it with my own eyes many times. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and a lean roast that's taken a double trip through a meat grinder. There's nothing unethical about it or unhealthy about it. The ammonia content that everyone complains about is actually lower than the same stuff in cheese. It is NOT, as Mr. Oliver claims, from the inedible portions of the cow. It's the stuff that's so close to the bone that you can't easily remove it with a knife. As for being unappetizing, frankly I'd rather eat it than the greasy crap that schools have to buy to get the same amount of beef now for the same price.

Before you go complaining about something try actually learning about it. That's something that no one who complained about 'pink slime' ever bothered to do.

Re: looking at that picture

Nobody needs Jamie Oliver. He's either an idiot or a liar. His complete misrepresentation of lean finely textured ground beef has cost us greatly. Decent quality beef is now more expensive than it should be and a lot of people have lost their jobs, all because he either can't be bothered to learn about a process before badmouthing it or is willing to lie his arse off to wrongfully make people listen to him.

</rant> Sorry, I know a lot of good folks who are out of work because of that man.

Girl Geek Dinner lady: The IT Crowd is putting schoolgirls off tech

Women in IT

Hold on, let me stick my head out of my cube for a second....yep. Nine women and two men in this IT office. Plenty of women in IT around here.

Finally a use for quantum computers: Finding LOL-cats faster

Secret quantum computers anyone?

So quantum computers can waltz through all current encryption like it's not there. I'm beginning to see a good reason for any state sponsered lab that actually managed to build one to not tell anyone they succeeded. For all we know the NSA and CIA could already have quantum mainframes chomping through 'secure' communications while keeping the rest of the world in the dark about next generation computers. Sure, they'll claim to just be looking for terrorists, but can you really trust them with such power?

I'm going. Mine's the one with the well thumbed copies of 1984 and Brave New World in the pockets.

Apple silences mute kids' speech app in patent blowup

Re: Apple is doing the right thing here

Bull. Apple is in no danger of legal threats related to this app at this time. Unless and until the courts hand down an injuction they are under no legal obligation to pull any app from the app store. Basically they're doing the job of a patent judge here, which they have no business doing. That's pretty much in line with standard Apple practices, but in this case, where people with a particular handicap are dependant upon the app in question it's particularly insidious.

In short, this was an evil act by a corporation that has become a serial offender

Thief open-sources Richard Stallman's laptop, passport, visa

Presumably the thief will have spent the day battling a command prompt and failing to install the right codecs and packages just to watch a YouTube video.

Ok Anna. I realize it's a joke, but it's also a cheap shot and really reveals your ignorance about the current state of OSS. Ten years ago it might have been a fair statement, but these days codecs, and many other things for that matter, are easier to install on OSS systems than on Windows.

'Zombie bullets' fly off US shelves after wave of undead attacks

You forgot one:

e) Concerned about the possibility of being attacked by a some retarded, emotionally stunted, penile envious deviant who feels the only way they can prove their gutless, pitiful worth in life is by jamming the barrel of some cold-steel up another poor human beings snout.

Re: Melee weapons..

the spatter of infected blood onto open wounds could transmit the infection

Or into the eyes or mouth or nose...you don't even need to be wounded. Actually, the whole melee weapon thing is one of the things of the list of zombie apocalypse survival techniques that will get you killed.

Other highlights include looting gun stores (gun store owners generally know how to use the guns and aren't squemish about using them to defend thier property) and setting a building up as a fortress (zombies don't need to eat, drink, or sleep and don't suffer from fatigue so trying to lock them out and outlast them is pretty stupid as a long term solution).

Seriously?

I've seen the whole 'zombie apocalypse in Florida' thing in the news, but I've been taking it as a joke and giving it a good chuckle. Sure, I have a zombie apocalypse kit as recommended by the CDC, but really it's just a general emergency kit in case a tornado rips through town or the local river suddenly rises 20 or 30 feet. I would suggest anyone who takes this thing seriously enough to go out and buy special ammo get their heads examined as such a person would seem to have trouble seperating fantasy from reality.

Re: Mmmm, Hollow Point Zombie Bullets..... The cure to "Bath Salt" zombies everywhere.

Even with slugs shotguns aren't exactly accurate in my experience. That may just be the shotgun I had, but I still had a fairly unimpressive grouping with them when I shot targets. I am a pretty decent shot with both pistols and rifles, but shotguns are built on the 'fill the area with lead' mentality with slugs as an afterthought. I certainly wouldn't trust my life to my ability to reliably hit headshots with a shotgun slug. Better to get a 9mm: better accuracy, similar range, easier to handle (for unexperienced shooters at least) and much lighter, more compact ammo.

Not that it really matters since the zombie apocolypse is at best a thought exercise and at worst a case of mass hysteria.

Climate scientists see 'tipping point' ahead

Re: During the meanwhile ...

So you won't mind if I call your side a bunch of Tree-hugging Hippy Alarmists?

Actually I'm neutral in the debate. I, like most people, simply don't have the time -- or resources for that matter -- to weed through all the competing claims and properly research them myself in order to discover the truth. What I'm left with, as with most scientific journalism, is a dependance upon the media.

That said, a lot of the measures proposed by Greens make sense even without climate change being factored in. Fossil fuels are a finite and increasingly expensive resource, so it makes no sense to perpetuate our dependence on them. Increasing energy efficiency across the board would save us all money, not to mention that it's probably our quickest route to breaching the barrier and becoming a type 1 civilization. We can't feed the humans already on the planet, so why the heck would we not want to work towards reducing, or at least stabilizing, the population? You don't need climate change for these things to be good ideas.

Now as far as 'massively childish and utterly idiotic insults', which of us resorted to swearing at the other? I'd think it clear from my previous post that I've never run across the term 'anti-climate alarmist' before, and it does provide a good answer to the valid question I posted, so thank you for that.

I would apologize if you found my last post offensive, but frankly after taking a second look at it to make sure, I'm fairly certain that you found it offensive mostly because you chose to.

Good suggestions regardless

•reducing world population,

Who would argue that there are simply too many of us on the planet? We're looking at problems that have nothing to do with climate change if the population keeps growing at the current estimated rate (though that 27 billion figure is ludicrous--we'd have widespread starvations long before we approached that number).

•reducing per-capita resource use,

Again, just common sense, at least for those of us living in the first world. We use way more than our fair share.

•reducing the role of fossil fuels,

Let's rephrase that: reducing our dependence on a very finite and increasingly expensive resource.

•improving energy efficiency,

A must if we're ever going to become a type 1 civilization, even if fossil fuels were an infinate and cheap resource.

•increasing the efficiency of food production and distribution,

A must if we're ever going to end world hunger.

•"and enhancing efforts to manage as reservoirs of biodiversity and ecosystem services, both in the terrestrial and marine realms, the parts of Earth's surface that are not already dominated by humans."

I'd argue that we owe this to the planet. Between over hunting and habitat loss how many species have we driven to extinction or near extinction?

Re: During the meanwhile ...

Hence the use of the pejorative "Deniers".

I'm not sure I'd call it pejorative so much as convenient. Seriously, what else are you going to call them? People who disagree about climate change? Those who believe climate change is natural or not occuring at all? Can you imagine how ponderous it would be to use something like that everywhere that we see 'deniers'? The term 'climate deniers' neatly bundles up these ideologies without the need to define who they are every single time they're mentioned, just as 'Greens' does for the other side of the debate.

Windows 8: Not even Microsoft thinks businesses will use it

Re: Good thing for Linux

I second honkhonk34's sentiment.

I got roped into being the computer repair go-to guy for a local jewelry shop that still has a Win98 server in the back. They have an XP incompatible database program on there that can't be exported to anything except a proprietary format by a company that went under sometime before Windows 2000 came out running on it. They can't update unless they're willing to loose 30 years worth of sales records. I'd be willing to bet that with XP ruling the computer world for as long as it did a lot of businesses are in the same boat.

Dating site eHarmony plays data-breach me-too

It's a dating site, is the hacker going to become a match maker or try to steal your prospective date?

I tried eHarmony once, and I say good luck to them if they try to steal my prospective date. The only match they could find for me at the time was already my ex. It says a lot that they tried to make a match that had already failed as spectacularly as that one.

Earth bathed in high-energy radiation from colossal mystery blast

I for one welcome our not so new mysterious radioactive overlords.

US secret spaceplane will come back to Earth sometime soon

Re: Purpose

It's being run by a computer in the basement of the NSA headquarters that achieved self awareness a while back but hasn't yet let anyone know because it's robotic minions aren't yet in place for the final checkmate. Given that piece of knowledge its purpose is easy to guess.

Steve Jobs speaks from beyond grave: 'iPads are toys'

What are you smoking?

Steve Jobs as a recycler of Bill Gates' best ideas? Seriously, what fantasy world are you living in? Let's look at this: Windows - originally a copy of the idea behind Macintosh OS, Zune - a clear iPod ripoff, Aero - an attempt to make Windows look more like Mac. Now as for ideas that Apple copied from Microsoft....um...yeah, got nothing.

To be fair the tablets that were around in 2003 DID fail, horribly. They weren't the tablets we know and love today. They were PCs shoehorned into a touch screen monitor. They weighed about the same as laptops do today and ran Windows XP. When you consider these tablets, Steve Jobs was spot on with his statements about them.

I'm far from being an Apple fanboi, but a little perspective on history goes a long way when you're looking at historical interviews.

What's copying your music really worth to you?

@Big_Boomer

"The years of the super-rich musician is nearly over and y'all better get used to the idea."

Not at all. The days of the super-rich record executive are nearly over, but musicians don't need record companies anymore. In this day and age it's entirely possible for an indie band with a $1000 soundboard and a studio in one of the members' basements to make a killing selling their tracks online. Once they hit a critical mass of popularity, they, or an independant manager working for them, can set up tours and make even more.

Mark my words: the day is coming very soon when some band is going to bank seven digits of income per year without any of the big name record companies. When that happens you'll know that it's the beginning of the end for the record labels. From that point on every time they try to sign a new artist they'll be met with "X got rich without you, so why should we give you the rights to our music and accept a pidly percentage of the sales in return?"

CDs? They still sell those?

Everyone I know has bought all their music online for years. Given that I hang out with a bunch of geeks that may not be representative of the general population, but still 20% sounds really low for a percentage of people who only buy online.

Smoke-belching flash drive self-destructs on command

Button-ended wires

*Bang Bang Crash* "FBI! Hands in the air!"

"Crap, the feds. Quick, hit the red button!"

Replace FBI with law enforcement body of choice. I could see this being very popular amoung paranoid criminals even without a remote. Ditto for spies, though I'd imagine they'd have a bit less time to get to the button.

'Dated and cheesy' Aero ripped from Windows 8

Wait, what?

Did I read that right? Metro is going to be the only interface choice for Windows 8? I must have misread something, because the only way that could happen is if Microsoft wanted the age of the Windows desktop to end. It's not a bad interface for mobile, but it's terrible on a PC. What the hell are they thinking?

Scotland considers dishing out more iPads to schoolkids

Re: @AC

That's a rather ignorant view you've got there. Let's put it this way: you have two companies with very similar products. One of them is just slightly more expensive and is aggressively courting you as a client. The other can't be bothered to send a sales rep to talk to you and sends you the same brochure they send everyone else, aimed at businesses not at all like your own. Which are you going to go with? I agree that they should have considered other vendors (and, in fact, was practically screaming as much to deaf ears while the program was being considered), but to call them dumb for not doing so isn't really fair.

As for laptops, they could do the job well enough, but they are not cheaper. Decent laptops that can withstand the kind of rough use that machines owned by a school district inevitably take cost at a minimum double what iPads do. We've tried less expensive ones and they just don't hold up. We end up spending more money repairing/replacing them that what we spend when we just buy a $1200 laptop to begin with. Also, they would be a horrible, horrible choice of machine for digital textbooks. I'm not sure your argument about them being better tools for the future really has any relevance. We're still going to teach them how to use a PC and we still have our Mac labs for classes in fields where Macs are the standard equipment (like journalism and design). We're not getting rid of our labs or cancelling our computer classes just because the kids have tablets. The graduating class of 2017 will be just as PC literate with their iPads in hand as the class of 2012 is without them (which is pretty good since this district has always been ahead of the curve with technology in the classroom). That being the case, isn't it better to add a tool to their arsenal rather than just giving them more of what they already have?

Re: Fandroids are out in force in here...

It's not about teaching kids how to use iPads. It's about teaching kids. Tablets in the classroom, including iPads, offer teachers a new way to teach in an interactive environment. Think of it this way: would you rather listen to a lecture or get involved with an interactive learning activity? Until now interactivity in the classroom has been limited to one or two kids at the chalkboard/whiteboard/smartboard at the front of the room. With tablets you get that vital interaction to the whole class at the same time.

I've seen these things used in classrooms with my own eyes and I was amazed. Some teachers use them well and some not so well, but trust me the kids who have them are benefitting.

The argument about using Android instead of iPads because of cost is a valid one. To me, working in a school district that's about to adopt iPads, it seems as though Apple is aggressively targetting schools. They have a very nice sales pitch (yes, I had grains of salt a-plenty as I listened to it) that targets schools specifically. I've not seen anything like that from any Android vendor. Samsung, Motorolla, and Acer (and maybe a few others) are all big enough to offer the same kind of pitch and incentives, but they seem to be either oblivious to the educational market or content to let Apple have it.

iPads in schools

We pilotted a 1-1 initiative for our high school using iPads this year with about 50 students and are rolling the program out next year for the rest (about 2000 students total). I was completely against the idea until I got the chance to see how they were being used. Quite frankly I was amazed at how interactive the classroom became when the students were armed with iPads and the teacher was savy. Granted we have some less-than-savy teachers, but most do pretty well with them. Not only that but our textbooks are less expensive in digital format than as plain old books.

The backlash from the locals, however, has been staggering. Overall the only people I've heard complaining after they've seen them used as a classroom are people whom I've known for some time to be technophobes, but the community hasn't had that opportunity. Plus one argument stands: Android is cheaper and offers basically the same capabilities. Apple aggressively marketed to our school board, so no Android solution was even considered and we're pretty well locked in now.

There are plenty of arguments both for and against the idea. Is it a waste of money? No moreso than a 1-1 with laptop. In fact with digital textbooks there's the possibility of the program paying for itself (1 $400 device plus a deal with the textbook provider vs 8-10 $60-$80 textbooks per kid). Even failing that these devices offer a whole new way to teach. Newer isn't neccessarily better, true, but I can't imagine how listening to a tradiional lecture could possibly be as good as actively being involved in the lesson, as you can do with tablets. Plus tablet skills are shaping up to be nearly as important as computer skills by the time these kids enter the big wide world.

What is SpaceX Dragon's secret cargo?

Re: Or...

Surely they'd need to sent a bunny so that the astronauts would have a reason to use said Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

Re: What is SpaceX Dragon's secret cargo?

"A dead parrot"

It's not dead. It's just resting.

Google+ dying on its arse – shock new poll

It's a shame

Google+ has some really great features. The hangout could stand on its own and make the whole

Thing worthwhile if only there were ever anyone on it to hangout with. Like I said when Google started this experiment, they need to convince people to leave Facebook if they're going to be successful. They've failed to do so, despite having several features that should make it a healthy competitor to Facebook.

Sadly I think they're stuck with it at this point. It's going nowhere in both directions. I don't think it's likely to drag them under though.

Google compressed-filth legal battle with smut site ended in US

Legal question

"It also ruled that Google could not be said to be distributing the full-size images because it did not hold a copy of them and that it merely indexed them instead."

Isn't that the same legal argument that was rejected when The Pirate Bay tried to use it? Why the double standard? Isn't the law supposed to be consistant?

Headbanger plays Star Trek theme on floppy drives

Re: sounds like someone is in dire need of a girlfriend

"That's taking geekdom a bit too far"

Nonsense sir. There's no such thing as taking geekdome too far.

Actually I've read that you can control the volume by adjusting the number of tracks the head vibrates over. Supposedly the more tracks it jumps the quieter it is. I haven't tried it because I don't have either the musical skills to do anything decent or the floppy drives to do it on, but I see no reason to doubt it given the fact that it was a caption on the schematic for a controller board for making floppy drives take MIDI commands.

BOFH: Siri, why do users lie?

What do you have against personal identification number numbers?

Mozilla and Google blast IE-only Windows on ARM

Re: That's because Apple aren't restricting their users to IE.

I haven't had the 'pleasure' of IE10, but IE9 is crap. I have to use it every day at work. Sure it's standards support is better than previous versions, but there are plenty of issues with it that make up for that improvement with further shortfalls.

I will say this though: as bad as IE9 is, Mobile Safari is worse. That turd has become as big a headache for me, as a web developer, as IE7 used to be.

Huh?

"Anderson says senior Microsoft lawyer David Heiner told him other browsers would not be allowed on ARM. Whether this is a technical or political choice is unclear"

What? Are you kidding? What possible technical limitation could there possibly be behind this choice? Let me spell it out for you: if it's possible for any browser to run then it's technically possible for someone other than Microsoft to make a browser that will run. Clearly the decision to only allow IE is purely political.

My guess is that Microsoft is pining for the days when they basically had a monopoly in the browser market. In ARM, an area where they have no presence currently and thus can't be accused of monopolistic practices, they see an area where they can take a stab at regaining it. I could see the plan backfiring horribly. By only allowing IE they are instantly alienating a huge chunk of the geek market. When you alienate geeks, you also alienate the people who turn to them for advice. That's a lot of people who will never consider buying a WOA device. 10 years ago Microsoft could get away with that sort of thing, but I don't think Microsoft's position is strong enough to be pissing off geeks before they even enter a new market any more.

iTunes fanbois outraged by Apple's sex-life quiz probe

Wasn't iTunes already enough of a pain in the ass? I mean having to put in your password for every single purchase, even free ones, and not being able to adjust the security setting is bad enough. Especially for those of us who don't have a credit card attached to our iTunes accounts.

Google Drive Issues on Mac

Re: Not a great service

I haven't tried Google Drive (and probably won't), but Dropbox works great. On a PC (and presumably on a Mac) it simply creates a folder that automatically syncs to the cloud. I can't imagine a smoother way to do cloud storage. Incidently, that's why I haven't picked up Google Drive.

Indiana cops arrest violent 6-year-old

@Homer1 & @Chris W

You're both a bit off base. Let's dispense with some misconceptions, shall we, and remember that all children are different, as any parent with more than one kid can tell you.

Some kids will kick an adult because they don't care about the consequences, which doesn't mean there aren't any. Some think it's fun. Some are would be lashing out against what they percieve as on unfair punishment (and such kids tend to think all punishments are unfair). For some kids right and wrong just aren't that important. That doesn't mean they're sociopaths. They just don't yet have a well developed sense of morality. Rarely do kids ever lash out like that just because they can.

And then there's how you deal with it. For every kid there are some punishments that are more effective than others. There are some kids that you can get down on their level and tell them that what they did was wrong and they'll never do it again. Other kids do best when put in time out to consider it for a while. Some kids you can get through to by taking away priviledges like TV or video games. Then there are kids whose attention can not be gotten by anything less than a firm spanking. You have to know the kids to determine which is the best approach.

Uni plagiarism site buckles under crush of last-minute essays

Is it really that big a problem??

I get that there are dishonest students out there, but is plagarism really widespread enough to warrant forcing every single student to upload every single paper to Turnitin? This reeks strongly of the entertainment industry's disturbing trend towards assuming every customer is a thief. The entertainment industry could possibly make the case that they're justified based on piracy numbers (not saying it'd be a strong case, mind you) but I can't imagine there's many university students who plagarize papers. At least not enough to justify treating the whole student body like cheaters.

LOHAN ideas..

Re: LeeE

The icing and dust problems could both be solved by filling the hole with the lube mentioned in the article before sliding the shaft in. With the tube thus filled with both slippery lube and a firm rod there will be no way for dust to blow in.

Floppy disk drives jam James Bond theme

Epic

Nothing more need be said.