Posts by Martin.Hale

Ever wondered how many limp todgers to the mile?

Hunh...Imagine that...

"Jennifer Aniston is the equivalent of 249.4896801996 average bowel movements"

After viewing some of her body of professional work, I would have thought it much more than that.

LightSquared demands FCC ruling

@AC 24 Dec 10:34

"Frankly it's only because of money that it's even being talked about."

Well that and the fact that one of the earlier investors in the scheme is President Obama, who also accepted the maximum legal campaign contribution from several of the muckety-mucks behind LightSquared. A conspiratorial mind would see lots of dots to connect here. And honestly, with all the other instances and allegations of "pay to play" swirling around this administration, well the LightSquared imbroglio looks depressingly familiar.

So make that 'money and power' and you've got yourself a winner. Of course the two can be and often are intertwined to a degree - I get that - but power's a crucial player in this one, no?

Ay-yup

"That's a huge filter requirement (much tighter than WiFi), and I really doubt that any practical GPS receiver could really cope - tight filters are physically large, and GPS units are really, really tiny these days with very tight power budgets."

Yep. I imagine with enough cascaded filter circuits, the GPS boys could get rid of all but the most egregious cross-band interference, but you'd need a mulit-rackspace device to house all that gear. Hardly the thing to mount in your car or carry in a handheld device. Plus you'd need to stick a healthy pre-amp onto the front end of the device to guarantee you had enough usable signal coming out the tail end of all that filtration.

GPS devices could be attached to directional external antenna arrays, but the facts that a) they rely on tuning signals from multiple birds at once and would require either multiple aim-able "tight" antennas, or one "loose" antenna (which tends to defeat the purpose of using directional arrays in the first place), and b) they're most often used in mobile applications and traveling on constantly changing paths, both point toward that being an impossibly large and expensive fix.

Fingerprint scans learn to spot chopped-off fingers

Similar Experience

The last thumbprint reader system I had installed looked for a pulse as well. Funny thing is that one of the owners of the company, a man with a two-pack-a-day habit had terribly poor circulation (big surprise) and he was often locked out of his own company. Within two weeks I was told to replace it with a swipe-card system with proximity readers at the executive door so he wouldn't even have to take his wallet out.

The best laid plans...

US proposes online IDs for Americans

What's that old line again...

...oh yeah - put the government in charge of the desert and in a year you'll have a shortage of sand. There's zero chance of them not making a royal hash of this. Zero.

Paramount buries Dune remake

Title

I always gave Lynch full credit for trying. Bits of his film were absolute genius but other parts were muddled. It was the first exhibition of steampunk style that I can recall seeing outside of the original Flash Gordon teevee series. Oh, and the girl who played Alia won my heart with the way she delivered the "For he is the kwisatz haderach" at the end of the film.

Org charts on steroids

No Mention of Org Plus?

I'm surprised to see no mention of one of the leading packages in the org chart sector mentioned in this piece. Org Plus has been the most functional tool for producing complex org charts with reams of back end information associated with them for years now. They can even be set to auto-update with ties to you HRIS/ERP, so that as people and positions change, your charts do as well.

Beats Visio hands down for ease of use and for depth of capability IMHO.

US gov funds censorship-busting tech alternatives to Wikileaks

Title, Only Because It's Required

"In response, Assange has said in interviews that Russian and Chinese leaks will be published in future."

Sure they will. <snort></snort>

If Mr. Assange and supporters think that the treatment he's currently being afforded is unjust and harsh, just wait until he crosses either of those two governments in a serious way. I doubt either would use the legal system to exact their ultimate revenge. Though they might go through the motions of a legal case against the leakers, I have every reason to believe that the real action would be clandestine and very nasty, indeed. Mr. Putin's peers have practical experience in such matters, after all, and it's all but certain that the Chinese have too.

I think Mr. Assange and his cohorts know this full well and will always find reason to either post nothing from the Russians or Chinese, or post only material which is so milquetoast as to not offend them in any serious way. The US was chosen as a target in large part because Mr. Assange and company calculated that the US wouldn't/couldn't take any serious action against them for internal policy and external diplomacy reasons. All bets are off the table with the Russians and Chinese.

PARIS concocts commemorative cocktail

So Much For Editing

Er, that was supposed to be:

Hummerdinger

Really Mum, Do I Have To Leave aTitle?

Flying Parisienne

Humdinger

[The/A] 17 Mile High

Heiress of the Dog

Sugar Rush

Calls for US nudie perv scanner 'opt-out day'

Always Playing Catch-Up

For years I've been struck by the boneheaded short-sightedness of a security network which is largely reactive in nature, such as our current air travel screening system. The system lurches through predictable "improvements" each and every time a terrorist is found out - but only after the exploit has already been detected once.

When you think about it, we only add on new security measures in reaction to efforts made by the terrorists. A fellow wears exploding trainers and we've all got to trudge around airports in our stockinged feet. Another fellow wears exploding smalls and we've all got to choose between being viewed in our altogether or be pawed like a teenage girl on a first date with a drunken perv. In both their cases, it was largely their incompetence as bomb constructors, specifically detonation device constructors, which foiled their attempts, not our security apparatus.

What I want to know is what is the official responce going to be when a terrorist is found to have successfully boarded a plane with a quarter-kilo of PETN stashed in a condom in his rectum. Or her vagina. Or what is the official responce going to be when a terrorist adapts the bog standard '12 swallowed condom" drugs mule gambit and fills his stomach with PETN-filled rubbers, one with a small detonator included? Are we then going to have to submit to full-body x-ray scans? MRI's? CAT-scans? Body-cavity searches?

Relying on a largely reactive security system virtually guarantees that the authorities will always being playing catch-up with the terrorists as long as this deadly 'game' persists.

PARIS laid bare in intimate snaps

A Thoroughly Entertaining Project

Well, that title says it all, really.

Apple trade marks 'There's an app for that'

I'm Not Sure Which Is Worse...

...the multi-billion dollar corporations which seek to co-opt everyday language with trademark entanglements, or the governments which sanction such nonsense by granting them the legal authority to do so.

Either way, you can rest assured that your interests as the common man will come in a distant third every time in this jolly little cluster*bleep*.

US undergrads crash NASA satellite into Arctic

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

""Student operators provide a lower cost to NASA..."

Given the perilous state of the US economy, is there perhaps a suggestion for other US government agencies in this spokesmouth's PC pandering? Maybe one of the cadre of White House interns can finally take some action which will get their economy moving forward again. The paid professionals sure haven't been able to deliver any meaningful results.

BOFH: Lies and the lying liars who lie about them

Back On Form

This was the type of story which made the BOFH franchise the blockbuster mega-success it is...er, how's that?

It's a modest one-man show, you say?

Has been since the start, you say?

Eh, well then, carry on and oh, that's right, a hearty 'well done' to you, lad.

16-year-old makes £1m selling ads

Title? Title? We Don't Need No Steeenking Title

Not to cast a chill on Master Owens' accomplishments, but it occurs to me there must be a lad or two who've turned over a million quid in the drugs game by age 16 and they did it without resorting to the menace of embedded adverts.

Turkish groom accidentally sprays wedding guests with bullets

Just for the conspiracy minded...

...was it really an accident, or perhaps something a bit more sinister?

Feds admit storing pervscanner pics

Eerily Prescient

Maybe that Orwell chap was on to something.

Australia unbans the internet

Some Things Never Change

Regardless of their leanings, pols the world around never fail to grovel for votes in order to keep their place at the public teat, do they?

Bastards indeed!

Aussies face 10 year browsing lock-up

Re: System Overload

If you're using Firefox, there's an add-on which does just what you describe - TrackMeNot. One can download it from:

http://cs.nyu.edu/trackmenot/

It allows users to configure the frequency of search requests, which search engines to include, and how to initialise the RSS feeds used to generate the searches. I've been running it for maybe two years now at 1 query per minute all focused on Google, where I do most of my searching.

Boffins snare swollen 'excited giant' in forcefield prison

Oh My...

I'm relatively sure that none of the readers of this article are graduates of said "Michigan uni", since not one comment has roasted this author for failing to properly spell out University of Michigan. Not a big deal, in old Blighty to be sure, but mistaking the name in Michigan amounts to fightin' words for a lot of alums of the Berkeley of the Midwest.

Q. You meet someone at a party - how would you know if they've graduated from U of M?

A. Don't worry - give them 5 minutes and they'll tell you all about it.

A brewski for Fridayski

NASA tests amazing bailout rocket which will never be used

re: Where's Steve Jobs...

Ta-da!

After reading umpty versions of the same two or three comments, this was near the end of the list, and was definitely the winner of the lot.

BOFH: On the couch

Gotta Go With Those...

...commenting on the pleasure of reading BOFH two weeks running.

Now, I understand in my intellect that Simon has other responsibilities. And I know in my head how challenging a serial becomes with respect to keeping it creatively fresh and entertaining. And I realise there are other reality-based issues and concerns which are more important than entertainment.

But still and all, Friday just isn't Friday without a BOFH episode to brighten the day and set the tone for the weekend.

All appreciation to you Simon.