Posts by Uplink

Beck's open-source challenge to freetards: play it yourself!

Re: eeeh

"If no such agreement is anywhere on the product, are we then free to assume that once bought, you are free to do with the product as you see fit - I.E make tons of money off of it, without paying anything to Beck?"

The way I understand copyright law, rights are withheld by default. That is if they aren't explicitly granted to you, you don't have them. Long story short: if there isn't any agreement on or in the box, you don't have any rights to what you bought (except to the physical support, which isn't under copyright, and you can use that any way you like, like, say, as a paperweight or a doorstop). It's not public domain unless the author says so.

Assange granted asylum by Ecuador after US refused to rule out charges

Way out

So tell me this: What prevents the Ecuadorians from putting Assange on a helicopter and drop him on a boat in international waters? All they have to do is file a flight plan, not say who's on board, right? If gov.uk finds out while the helicopter is still in the air, would they send jets to down it? What? They'd have no mandate to shoot to kill. All they could do is actually escort said helicopter to international waters, where he'd be put on a Learjet to Ecuador. Who says they didn't do this already? :)

Natwest freezes debit cards, online banking in fresh cock-up

Time magazine front page suggestion

I declare this the year of the bug. Or rather of the fuck up, since the headlines aren't limited to software.

Nokia set to axe China R&D jobs

Somebody give them a clue

People are using Windows on the desktop because it became a de facto standard through various means (like: nobody bothered to target Joe Consumer before). These days, everyone with the cash gets a Mac, not a Windows PC. They didn't have any proper foothold on the mobile market, and people won't give them one. Unless hell freezes over, they'll have to satisfy themselves competing with the likes of Brew, Bada, and whatnot.

World celebrates System Administrator Appreciation Day

Re: How about some nice ladies finally finding interest in all the work?

It's all this innuendo that scares chicks away methinks. All those guys that do get women seem to do everything BUT the innuendo. But don't ask me how they can be so normal. I'm still trying to find out myself.

I'll go get myself a beer. I administrate my own system. I'm a programmer. I'll try to get some beers out of my co-workers too though, because I double as a sysadmin from time to time. Especially for that guy who can't keep out of the Administrator account even though I put a huge warning in big letters telling him to log off there and then on the desktop and locked it via registry permissions. He's supposedly knowledgeable, but I have no idea why he need that account so often (at least, if that computer get a virus, he's the only one using that account, so if this happens, I can tell him off).

Gabe Newell: Windows 8 is a 'catastrophe' for PC biz

Trying to create a joke since forever

I have these works in my head: Windows 8 my computer. But I can't make them into a proper joke. Can anyone help?

Girls tricked by STEAMY message: Webcam spyware student jailed

Re: Porn

Oh, and I have to mention: No, it doesn't make it OK to spy on people, even if human psychology can explain why people are drawn to doing it.

Re: Porn

If I were to guess, I'd say that seeing naked people you know is more gratifying than random porn on the Internet. Those naked people on the Internet are already naked. But getting those hot girls in your neighbourhood to strip for you... good luck with that. Yet that's what you really want: naked.hot.neighbour.jpg or even .mpg; It's really really hard to find porn that looks like the girl next door. If you could get people to do that IRL, you'd spend more time in clubs and then use your own webcam - one "modded" so it doesn't have a light :)

Re: pics or it didn't happen

Can't unplug a built-in webcam. You can however put the laptop lid down so all the pictures that someone might capture are black.

But why oh why would you have your computer powered up in the shower? Even if the steam would "clean your sensor", that wouldn't require the computer to be on, would it? Think electricity and water, if anything...

Three punters' data use doubles

Broadband only

Right now I'm not a broadband customer at all (not wired, not 3G). Well... not in this country. I don't need it. But when I will, I won't be getting any wired services unless they drop the line rental requirement. I'll just get on Three's One Plan. I'm already a Three 3Pay customer, and love them (the 150 MB free allowance does me for now). I don't need a landline either. If I were to go with a copper chain, I still wouldn't need a landline. I don't need TV either. I'm basically the worst customer in the books of BT and Sky. But I get punished for that, as I still need to pay line rental. Virgin, if you go on their fiber rather than the BT reselling side of the business, charge you extra for the "privilege" of taking just broadband from them (with a 13.9/month phone line, broadband is 14.5/month; don't want a phone? it's 22.5/month for you mister).

I declare myself a Three fanboi, and I don't see myself switching at the rate the competition is going.

I never thought about calling 3 straight up to ask them to unblock my porn... I just set up a squid proxy on my OVH RPS instead and encrypted my connection :) And I did that only when their porn blocker blocked a non-porn site (unless anything NSFW is porn... now is it?) It's phillyd.tv in case you're wondering.

Skype so sorry for sending that saucy IM to mum instead of pash

Linux

So let me guess: Linux users not affected, because the Linux client hasn't been updated for ages, so hey, no update required this time around either, because they never sat down to break it. Right?

Indian software pirating suspect faces US extradition

So many saints in India

Of all of India, they found ONE guy only? That must have taken a lot of FBI time... India is full of saints who never download American IP and print it on DVDs for resale, right?

(separate post because of separate point to make)

Visit the US

So this is how they go around H1-B limitations these days? Or do they just want to get more people to visit the US, even if the US taxpayer will have to foot the bill?

Either way, I'm massaging my goatee right now... Do you think they'll pay for the trip back as well? And is their detention centre anywhere near popular US attractions, like, say, Hollywood or the Statue of what was that thing again? Liberty? And do they give you an allowance for the duration?

Dimming the lights on smart(arse) TV

Re: Are you kidding?

But then when will you have to do useful thankless work?

Oh...

GSMA pledges end to data roaming bill shock

Re: Er

But hey, now you have no excuse to say you didn't know, right? "I didn't read the text - I just deleted it" doesn't quite cut it. If they tell you a billion times and you just won't listen and rack up a bill anyway, then you have no recourse really. But then again, it's because of people who delete and don't read why you get the added restriction of... how much was it? 50 euros? roaming cost cap too.

Thank the many people who don't bother reading or doing any research and who, unlike some of us, aren't OCD at all - not even a little bit. I personally welcome such restrictions, because in the end it's these people who I hear complain when their bills skyrocket, and that's a ton more annoying than receiving a bunch of texts while roaming. Most of them would probably go crying to their OCD friends and relatives and ask them for help (of course they get offended when they get told off too).

Tech fault at RBS and Natwest freezes millions of UK bank balances

Paypal eBay coupon coincidence

I can't help but wonder if Paypal and RBS share code. I had a coupon last week that I used on eBay, and only half of it went through... and I got charged too. I'm still waiting for them to respond and hopefully give me back my other half of the coupon. And then RBS and Natwest go down together? Hmm...

Skype launches in-call ads

We interrupt this conversation...

We interrupt this conversation for a word from our sponsor. Why isn't Google Talk popular yet?

I'm on Linux. Will this be a client side "enhancement" or a server-side one? I thought Skype was P2P more or less (they were talking about nodes and supernodes as being how they keep costs down) so the client has to be involved somehow. Asking this because the Linux client has been in beta for ages now and no one updated it for anything.

If they do manage to shove ads into my Linux Skype, do they mean that if I give them a quid they'll go away and leave me alone forever? So MS will go like "If I had a pound for every time someone cursed an ad, I'd be rich. Oh, look, I do :)". But then they'll be a few million pounds richer, but then the revenue stream would abruptly dry up, because everyone would have paid their quid to forever rid themselves of ads. I'm sure they'll figure something out, like "top up every 6 months or you get ads again" though.

India to greenlight state-sponsored cyber attacks

I'd rather have this

I'd rather cyber warfare than bullet warfare any day. You can always get better shields in cyber warfare, and some point you won't need to get better shields because everything will be as fortified as it gets and everyone will just have to play nice (it's asymptotic: it will never be this way, but we'll get closer and closer). Not the case with bullet warfare.

And in case you wonder, yeah, I am a mouse.

EU gives Google till July to offer fix for search dominance

I thought I'd have a look around

I wanted to find out who else is doing similar stuff. While Bing comes to mind, it pissed me off with totally off topic results when I tried it, so I never went there again. So I went to the old search pastime instead: Yahoo. Remember them? Well... I typed "Chelmsford" and I got a bunch of related points of interest on the left. Clicked on one and... oh, look, a map result right on top, just like Google. Maps are provided by Nokia rather than Yahoo itself, but what's really the difference? I just wanted to make sure, so I typed "Chelmsford High Street": map as first thing. I looked for ads. "Chelmsford" displayed ads, "Chelmsford High Street" was ad-free... I wanted to see who does their ads, and my face fell off: Microsoft Advertising. Wow, Yahoo really don't do much these days, do they? So Microsoft advertise on BOTH Yahoo AND Bing. How nice of them. I then typed "1+1". Oh, look, calculator, just like Google's. Not as good as Google's though. It can't do unit conversions. I bet they don't have Easter eggs either. They don't have Docs, they don't have Drive, even their autocomplete sucks (first suggestion was what I wanted like three times, but pressing enter didn't select it, yet arrow down selects the second one, thus I have to press up again just to get my lucky result). I went to their maps. I'm centred on London, but I want directions from Chelmsford. Chelmsford, Essex, not MA. I figured I was on the global (US) site, so I switched to the UK one: autocomplete works great on the UK site as long as you want London.

I notice Yahoo has a bunch of extra services in its offer. But they're not bloody searching through them. Why? And they wonder why they're in the gutter. Google could say to the EU this: oh, hey, we'll just help Yahoo catch up, how's that? No, not Bing. They're able to take care of themselves (into the ground, we hope), but Yahoo... they could really use some help. Yahoo could have been just like Google, if they weren't a bunch of idiots.

Oh, and I went to the "shopping" section of Yahoo, searched for "16gb laptop" and the first 5 results are fucking tablets? First three results are iPads.

How can Google NOT be on top with competition like this?

Just for measure, I went to DuckDuckGo (obscure little Google wannabe I found out about on Udacity - I mean, who searches for "search engine"?) It feels like Google when it was just a little kid. It also does the calculator - with unit conversion mind you. They don't go maps or docs (who else does anyway?) And they seem to be referring a lot to third parties for their vertical search. They probably do some stuff that not even Google do, like I'm seeing in their "more goodies" page: http://duckduckgo.com/goodies.html - problem is nobody ever heard of them (yet).

So... what should Google do to kick the competition to get off their asses and, you know, compete? If I, who am looking for some good competition, can't really find any, what can Google do about it?

Microsoft will fiddle with prices as euro burns, UK biz fears

Quote in Euros

Just quote your customers in Euros instead of Pounds and you've solved your end of the problem. You'll have to pump up your resistance to the locals moaning that you're not using their currency, but no one really makes you use the Pound for anything. Just specify this in the footnote: "Currency exchange rate = BoE on the day of purchase + 2.5%". That's how they used to do it in a 2nd hand country like Romania when the rate was very volatile day-to-day. Back then the base currency was the other continent-wide currency that will never break up: the US dollar.

How to keep your money safe if the euro implodes

On your way out

Don't forget to contribute some more to the recession you're moaning about.

Passwords are for AES-holes

Passwords are the past

With the development of smartphones and other portable kind of computers, I do have to wonder why are we still using passwords. Why can't we have something like a general hardware token, like the ones some banks give out, but general? Can be your smartphone with a "Google Authenticator"-style application. One that works like this:

1. Generate a public/private key pair (say, with PGP or similar)

2. Upload the public part to the website or service where you need to authenticate yourself.

3. Put the private key in your smartphone in secure storage (not your SD card, altnough if it's encrypted I guess it can go there too).

4. Each time you need to log in, you pop your smart phone app up, you enter a password (or screen pattern) to obtain access, then generate a six digit code (that lasts 30 seconds) that you input into the service/website to gain access.

If you're paranoid, you could store a key pair for each service you use, and then select it from a list after you unlock your app. There are also plenty of other ways to be even more paranoid: make the password not work unless your bluetooth headset is connected to your phone too for example, but then you'd only have to secure your own phone in the most paranoid way thinkable, not the entire Internet per individual user.

Top Facebook exec begs students: 'Click on an ad or two'

Ads

Once they start displaying proper ads, not scams, I'll click on them. I mean, I'm always clicking at least an ad a week, on Google and other sites, if they catch my eye as remotely interesting. Having 20 ads saying "date person with 7 heads", I'm not clicking on them, ESPECIALLY if they say a friend of mine did so. Give me proper ads, that don't tie a click to my profile.

Bitcoin bank Bitcoinica still titsup after cyberheist

Guess who else is anonymous

Want anonymity? Well... you're not the only one getting it. The bad guys get it too. Now go find them. Oh, that's right: you can't. You could camp at all the exchanges and see how converts your stolen bitcoin to cash, but that's not enough to declare the seller as being the thief. And you can't even get 4chan ( http://gawker.com/5626105/4chan-on-the-hunt-for-puppy+throwing-girl ) to hunt them, nevermind the authorities.

Carriers, prepare to bleed: EU pops a cap on data roaming

I'd assume they'd beef up the number porting infrastructure so when you roam your number is temporarily ported to your roaming provider. I'd assume two porting tables instead of one: one for when you're inside your country, one for when you're outside.

Irish national telco gets 100 days to escape €4bn debt hell

Oh wow

I'd expect that in Romania, my home country, but Ireland? I mean, come on, that's like... the West, right? You don't do stupid shit in the west. You only do stupid shit in the east (and that's why you impose every possible restriction you can - the east isn't "Europe" enough). Yet Romania only did this with the (heavily outdated and very uncompetitive) industry. Telecom is doing pretty well, given that the national operator was sold to the Greeks (you know them, the book cookers). But then, they kind of have to. The competition is kicking them in the balls with fiber to you damn door. They just don't have enough time to strip the assets, because as soon as they'd do that, the firm would collapse the next day, not in the next 12 years. Plus, because they have REAL competition, the state wouldn't give a fuck if they went tits up - and I think the Greeks are pretty aware of that, since the state doesn't give a fuck about anything else either over there.

American search team fails to find women's G-spot

Was wondering that myself: how do you expect to find the G-spot in a bunch a paper? Unless your secretary sits on top of them, this scientific method doesn't seem to be that accurate.

New account of Flight 447 disaster published

Asynchronous joysticks

Reading the transcript, it looks like having asynchronous joysticks "helped" crash this plane, because the co-pilot Robert didn't have plane feedback to what Bonin was doing, and assumed Bonin was doing as agreed, even though he was doing something else.

If anything, Airbus should look into synchronizing the joysticks and retrofit all their planes free of charge.

Also... put those back between the pilots legs... not out of sight on the side... It's a friggin' plane, not an Xbox.

Dawdling EU countries smacked over telecoms reforms

So they need to speed up these procedures then. If the local legislatures are slow, this can be a nice way to top up the EU budget as well :)

Chinese £200 iPhone killer unwraps for Xmas

That would explain the price then.

Also, while I was interested in it when I saw the headline, I no longer am. It's useless to me without 3G.

UK punters happy to pay £3 to top up e-wallets

If I see someone with a clipboard, and they spot me, I stop to talk to them. And I talk to them. And I talk to them. 20 minutes later I'm still talking. And I'm not going away, but I'm not giving in either. They're not giving up either until they come full circle and run out of things to say. Then they send me on my way. But I know that in those 20 minutes they didn't get anyone else chugged.

It's interesting to see them insist that I give them my card details (secret number on the back as well) even though I insist I'll go on their website to make the donation.

Busted Romanian TV star fingers Bulgarian airbags

Can't watch

I speak Romanian, so I understand what she's saying without subtitles, but I also have this psychological condition where I have a seizure when I hear stupid people speak, especially if they do so in Romanian (as for some reason stupid people speaking English don't have the same effect), so I stopped watching just after she started quoting PI as 1.41...

Also, what ich said.

'Operation eMule' feds bust duo with 500+ eBay, PayPal accounts

That's too much to ask for

I still ask my bank from time to time if they have a "security token" option for their personal Intenet banking, and they keep saying that no, they only have such a thing for business Internet banking. I don't want to pay the business Internet banking fees, and their business token is also a bit dumb: you press a button and get a code, no PIN to protect the token, no means to use the token to authenticate a transaction. Barclays have what I want, but they turned me down for a basic account on grounds of not having any credit score whatsoever (what does credit have to do with a basic account without overdraft or cheque facilities, I don't know).

On the other hand, people would find the system too complicated and/or would resent carrying "yet another security token" with them.

I hear some banks in Europe send a text message with a code that you have to put in their website. PayPal does this for the UK (I use this feature). I also hear that people buy Nokia 1100 mobile phones with dodgy firmware to intercept such messages, but as of today no one verified this claim (yet the prices did skyrocket).

If I ever had a vote in banking security issues, I would vote for a "paranoid" option like the one suggested by the parent, where I confirm every debit card transaction using my mobile phone in some way. Lock my screen with a code or custom gesture, PIN-protect my SIM, and even if you steal both my card and my phone you can't steal my money.

Rogue TV satellite brought to heel after auto reboot

Satellite boot sequence

Satellite boot sequence on telly? Now this is something I'd watch! And record, and rewatch, and wait for the sequel.

China announces Skype ban to protect telco revenues

English version

Did you read the Chinese version of their constitution? Maybe the English version is just a propaganda tool, and the Chinese version says "you will obey" in lots of characters.

Skype's mega-FAIL: exec cops to cause

@yosemite

Actually it is. The Linux version of Skype has been stalled at... let me check... 2.1.0.81 BETA for quite a while now. Because it hasn't been upgraded for ages, it just couldn't pull such a stunt as the Windows version. Programmers need to "improve" and "fix" the software for shit to hit the fan. Although I'm not happy that the Linux version is 3 major versions behind the Windows version, it seems it's not entirely a bad thing :)

Mobile operators handed content billing blueprint

Hope this doesn't happen en masse

@dotdavid: We're lucky to have someone here who, single handedly, can cause a loss to the operators based on what he chooses to buy :)

The sad part is that the majority of sheeple slaves out there will likely bend over and take it, in a very democratic fashion, so the only loss caused is to us addicts, unless we make our salaries go through the roof in order to pay for our tools of trade (the Internet isn't just a LOLCAT source to us, but an extra limb, and we'd be handicapped if it were restricted or removed). When BT will see that all their consultants ask for insane fees after BT charge insane prices for the Internet, maybe then they'll understand why they shouldn't be doing it this way. This subsidy of the 95% to the other 5% isn't wrong at all. It's a necessity.

National Identity Card holding chumps have buyer's remorse

Why not reuse the equipment?

While reading the article and the comments, I was wondering why didn't they just use their scrapped equipment to issue card-style passports for use within the EU. Pretty much every European has an ID card they can use within the EU instead of a passport. No wonder Mr Hodder and others liked it. Choice between thick and expensive passport vs think and inexpensive ID card.

What I have in mind is to actually give the ID card infrastructure to the Home Office and allow them to issue "light" passport cards for use within the EU (you can't use then in other places because border officials can't stamp them, and can't apply visas).

You can have this "consulting" session on me Home Office! Now grab it before I put the price up.

Windows 7 really was some girl's idea, rules ASA

Windows 7

I run Linux on both my laptops and deleting Windows 7 was my idea :)

Angry Birds find new way to take your money

Google Checkout?

I always ignore anything asking me for money so I may have missed this one. But... can't they just use Google Checkout for in-app billing, if they don't do so already? Code your company payment details in the app, your Google Checkout account ID or whatever, and get the money rolling, regardless of app market. I, the user, would then put my login details in the phone, and get asked for my password each time I want to make a payment, just like on the iPhone.

But the other posters have a point: Google Checkout can't use your phone credit. You need a debit/credit card. Kids don't have debit/credit cards. But then again, I didn't know Apple could do this either...

Men may be able to grow a new pancreas from their testicles

Perfect donors

Reading the article, I came up with this idea: Do you know the Catholic priests? They are the perfect donors. They're not supposed to marry, thus not supposed to have sex and reproduce, so imagine how many people their testicles can save! But then I heard this voice in my head saying: thing of the children!

Governments stonewall interwebs porn domain

Porn inflation... not

"The bid has faced substantial opposition from outraged religious groups, which believe .xxx will lead to more porn."

Because I just came from the ECB website, playing the "Economia" game, I have to say this: Do they say that there will be porn inflation? Porn will grow so fast that people won't be able to keep up with every new release? Or even better: THEY won't be able to keep up with every new release.

"Many US-based pornographers, who believe that having a "red light district" for internet porn will lead to higher prices and invite government censorship, continue to oppose the proposed domain."

No one makes you take up a .xxx domain for your business. .com is perfectly fine if ICANN doesn't force all the porn sites to move to .xxx. And if they filter you, learn from Wikileaks: let the Internet mirror you :D

So the bottom line is: 1. .xxx will inflate porn; 2. .xxx will deflate porn; 1. and 2. cancel each other out, so... all good, right?

Why is Google's new Nexus S like no other smartphone?

Hmm

Sounds like an Apple pricing strategy to me. Did Steve Jobs jump ship to Google and the Reg missed it?

Microsoft Windows glider crashes

A Linux plane?

A Linux plane would come with loads of _options_ on what to put on it. It's up to you what you put. If you put different size wheels, it's your problem. But you can always take them off and install new ones, until you get a working thing. After you've fitted everything, that plane will fly by itself, without anyone pushing it. And will stay in the air until you unplug the IR blaster from the USB port :)

Spotify ports its music streamer to Linux

Nice try, but...

"And since it doesn't yet handle ads, it's only available with a Spotify Premium account." And Ubuntu 10.04 compatibility isn't. Give me that source code and that NDA and I'll add the ad support you lazy bums :P And I'll throw in a proper Ubuntu 10.04 gconf2 dependency.

'The internet's completely over', declares petulant Prince

All these numbers! They're not good for you!

By extension, maths is evil. Because they fills your head with numbers. Whatever happened to religion, telling all the truth you ever need to know? When was it replaced with the lies of numbers? Number should be forbidden! Except from the Bible, which needs them.

*All the grammar errors above are intentional :)

Motorola advert revels in anti-iPhone schadenfreude

Free leather case?

Jobs can fix this by giving a free leather case with each iPhone 4. No need for a recall. And if he does this, he'll be a hero instead of a pariah. Free leather case? Give me an iPhone 4 :) -

Brits are bored with mobile broadband

Drop the caps

Drop the caps, keep the prices low, and I'll get it. 1GB/month, with an "fatter" option of 3GB, 5GB if you're lucky, slightly more if you're a Ltd. with deep pockets? And yes, I don't mind limiting my speed for "special download services" (torrents). I need mobile Internet for the following: Youtube, iPlayer, Google, The Register, and Work (SSH, HTTP, FTP, that kind of stuff - I'm a developer). But all these can reach your cap mighty fast, even on a slow link which "encourages" me to give up Youtube, iPlayer, and Flash Ads.

Approaching space object 'artificial, not asteroid' says NASA

We suppose...

What kind of science is this? We suppose it could be artificial... And what a Google's Map satellites doing? Can't they point them the other way for a bit, and ask the space debris to say "cheese"? Are DoD's satellites too busy hunting Osama in Afganiraq and they can't spare a few seconds to make a photo of this? Alright, I'll open my trusty Photoshop then...