Posts by David Pollard

El Reg Redesign - leave your comment here.

Re: My solution...

@Shades: Nice work. I hope you got the job.

Adblock Plus seems to do the trick

Although there may be a few articles which aren't so good without the pictures, in general the site seems much improved when they are blocked. Thanks to ABP it's possible to read the home page without too much effort. I'd imagine most people visit the Reg to read and hopefully learn something useful rather than to gawp.

Flash zero day under attack

Re: Why is "forever" crossed out?

Windows 8.1 is safe while earlier versions are not? Is this then the latest marketing ploy?

Turn your head and cough (up your details), HealthCare.Gov has sprung a leak!

Re: Ad networks? On healthcare.gov?

@vagabondo: I'd wondered why I was getting unsolicited calls on a new mobile phone when I'd only given the number to half a dozen close friends and to the NHS so they could send appointment reminders. I had assumed that their reminder texts would be generated locally from the JR hospital's recently installed booking system, but if this has been outsourced it could well explain the unwanted calls.

Pint for holding out for what 'public service' is about.

Good sense from the EFF

"President Obama will give his State of the Union speech tonight... If [he] is really concerned about cybersecurity, he may want to start ... by securing healthcare.gov."

Perhaps he could also find a moment to mention this problem to Dave.

SECRETS of the LOST SCROLLS unlocked by key to HEALTHY BOOBS

Re: Hell, I had this idea when I was 10

And where did you say you are working now?

Re: A/C "Does time run the wrong way?"

Yes, in both directions.

Microsoft wants LAMP for wireless mobe charger

Re: Stupid concept

Nah. Trained sharks.

Scientific consensus that 2014 was record hottest year? No

@Stuart 22 - with you on that

I've got a hundred quid that says the average temperature based on a 'reasonable bucket' will be higher in the next twenty years than it was in the last twenty. If you can get Lewis to match this, with the pot going into a tracker fund or similar, winner takes all, then I'm on.

Come to think about it, if the 'deniers' will offer longer odds than evens then it might be possible to crowd fund climate prevention measures this way. The wager package might be a nice present to leave to one's grandchildren. I wonder what the tax position is?

Firefox 35 stamps out critical bugs

Re: Have they enabled look like Firefox yet?

It's a bit like setting up Windows. Classic Theme Restorer makes it look more normal and easier to use.

Dongle bingle makes two MEELLION cars open to exploit

Why?

It's easier to obtain a 'careful driver' score and probably more accurate if information about accelerator position, revs and brake pressure are also available.

Boffins: It's EASY to make you GRASS YOURSELF UP for crimes you never did

Deconditioning afterwards?

There doesn't seem to be any mention of efforts to mitigate after-effects. I can't help but wonder that, albeit conducted in a reasonable environment, programmes such as this might be rather upsetting for the participants; and adverse effects could appear quite a while after the tests. Perhaps follow-up studies in five and ten years time will shed light on this aspect.

For pervasive 5G and IoT, prepare for wind turbines on cells

The environmental cost?

There's a fairly clear argument favour of smaller grid-powered base stations both in reduced energy costs and overall improved reliability. However Yuyi Mao and co. appear to have entirely overlooked the aspects of capital, environmental and service costs of their rather extravagant hardware proposal.

Don't use Charlie Hebdo to justify Big Brother data-slurp – Data protection MEP

Re: What fools

@LDS "[C]ollecting a lot of sensitive data about *everybody* and keeping [it] for years [is] more dangerous than terrorism itself."

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

Obligatory xkcd

http://xkcd.com/1450/

Je suis Charlie

YMMV, but it seems to me to be almost axiomatic that intelligence involves a degree of free will. As various religions show from time to time, attempts to steer this to the benefit of one or other ruling class do not have happy endings.

Peers warn against rushing 'enhanced' DATA SLURP powers through Parliament

Re: Not getting my vote...

I'm not sure that the Blair/Blunkett/Straw approach was that much better. Neither is your vote likely to change anything.

What it it needs is active democracy: for enough people to be regularly contacting their MP, and others, to point out that surveillance by gauleiters does not engender morality.

German minister fingered as hacker 'steals' her thumbprint from a PHOTO

Maybe they did tests

Given the thoroughness with which the CCC approaches these issues I imagine that they did various tests with their own 'phones and prints to discover how effective the technique is. Pint for good effort all round, including their video mentioned above.

Care.data's a good thing? Tell us WHY, thunders watchdog

Re: Questions to those opposing care.data

What exactly? I've opted out (twice) because I can't see how having a centralised copy of information will improve efficiency or accountability. Duplication does, however, seem likely to introduce errors; and the single massive store makes loss/theft of data a near certainty.

Who wants SLEEP DEPRIVATION for Christmas?

Do the new LED streetlights have similar effects?

The new streetlights that are being installed in many cities are certainly bluish. The research here and in another paper I noticed seems to show that only a little short wavelength light can have a significant effect. Is there likely to be enough stray light from streetlights to cause the sort of problems mentioned? Should we be asking for warm white in addition to the energy saving dimming between midnight and five a.m.?

GCHQ: We can't track crims any more thanks to Snowden

Re: Suggestion for law enforcement

Perhaps the authorities could take note of the findings of Professor Nutt, and the committee members who resigned when he was sacked. To decriminalise recreational drugs would free up a great deal of police time and reduce the volume of clutter on law enforcement radar. Also with fewer doors being kicked in to no real advantage there might over time be an improvement in public co-operation.

http://drugscience.org.uk/

Is there ANOTHER UNIVERSE headed BACKWARDS IN TIME?

Perhaps this explains ...

... why we seem to be stuck in the present.

UK flights CRIPPLED by system outage that shut ALL London airspace

If memory serves

Wasn't there a problem with the power supply a few years ago? As I dimly recall, there was a component like a smoothing capacitor in the common feed and it was this that failed. The power supply went down and the UPS came up and was connected to a short; or something along those lines. Everything worked perfectly apart from an unlikely fault that no one had foreseen.

Web daddy Sir Tim Berners-Lee: Back off Putin, I'm no CIA stooge

A US intelligence operation?

Probably not. But no one who has ever used Ghostery or the like would be in any doubt that the present purpose of the www is to control the behaviour of the lower orders.

Crims at vendors could crock kit says ENISA

Repentant sinners?

The ones that know how to avoid getting caught cause much worse problems.

Boffins weigh in to perfect kilogram quest with LEGO kit

Brian Cox ...

... eat your heart out. You have competition.

Brit boffins debunk 'magnetic field and cancer' link

Re: Power lines?

Aside from that, according to research published in the BMJ in 2005, "There is an association between childhood leukaemia and proximity of home address at birth to high voltage power lines..." Why this should be is not yet entirely clear.

http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7503/1290?linkType=FULL&journalCode=bmj&resid=330/7503/1290

Re: Changes in circadian rhythms

"... seek research funding ..."

Research has already been done, e.g. 'A 50-Hz electromagnetic field impairs sleep' in the Journal of Sleep Research. There also seems to have been quite a bit of interest in modulation of melatonin production by static or low-frequency electrical fields.

e.g. http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/8098713

It will be interesting to see whether the new style of street lighting using LEDs affects sleep patterns and whether scare stories develop like those about mobile 'phones.

Changes in circadian rhythms

Here's a recent paper from PLoS Genetics describing experiments which show that EM fields do have an effect on living tissue. This involves the intriguingly named blue-light sensitive photoreceptor cryptochrome.

Genetic Analysis of Circadian Responses to Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields in Drosophila melanogaster

http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1004804

The introduction provides a good overview of EMF sensing by flies.

Mood changers

Though I'm not suggesting that this shows mobile 'phones are dangerous, it's surprising that like other animals we seem to be aware of electric fields, for example when thunderstorms are imminent. For our senses to detect this there must be some sort of interaction.

Parliament face-sit-in to spark mass debate on UK's stiff smut stance

Remember Lady Chatterley?

Is this something you would even wish your wife or your servants to see?

Boffins: We have found a way to unlock the MYSTERIES OF SHEEP from old parchments

Kudos

Seconded.

SCIENCE LAB TERROR: MYSTERY of the MISSING BRAINS

Re: Getting stuffed ...

That's why they call them empty headed.

Antarctic ice at all time high: We have more to learn, says boffin

Re: Antactica is melting too

"A comprehensive, 21-year analysis of the fastest-melting region of Antarctica has found that the melt rate of glaciers there has tripled during the last decade." - from a study by UCI and NASA glaciologists.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141202183313.htm

Quantum computing is so powerful it takes two years to understand what happened

Bitcoin?

I wonder if they have a bit of fun mining bitcoin during their coffee breaks.

Brits conned out of nearly £24m in phone scams in one year

Re: ORLY, DCI Stokes?

"I just need to ask you some security questions ..."

Southern Electric have twice now asked for my date of birth as a 'security check' when all I have done is to call to pay the bill.

Australia to social media: self-censor or face AU$17,000 FINES

Peer pressure?

Where the internet differs from other areas of life is that it's relatively easy to be anonymous. In the playground there's a possibility that at least some of the others who see bullying may point out that it's not a particularly nice thing to do. On the 'net this peer pressure is largely absent.

It's not easy to find solution, but it might make the world a little better if some of the less desirable aspects of human nature could be moderated.

Tough Banana Pi: a Raspberry Pi for colour-blind diehards

Re: Is there a collective name for Raspberry Pi enthusiasts?

Pilgrims?

Floody hell! Brits cram Internet of Things into tight White Spaces

Data on flow rates is what's needed

The Environment Agency already monitors river levels at each lock plus a few other locations. In most places in Oxford the local water level tracks very closely with this, following within an hour or two because the water flows quite easily through the gravel layers that underlie the flood plain.

Details of water levels have been available on the 'net for a couple of years; a commendable effort, even though the graphical data is perhaps not in the most convenient form and reliability may leave a little to be desired

e.g. http://apps.environment-agency.gov.uk/river-and-sea-levels/136497.aspx?stationId=7072

What would be really useful is if the Environment Agency were also to make available sluice settings and the estimated flow rates both through and around locks. With this and with data for recent raindfall and near-term forecasts in the appropriate catchment areas it would be possible to predict likely levels quite accurately. Already an 'educated guess' for the next day or two can be made simply by looking at the upstream river levels and their changes.

Unfortunately the Environment agency seems to hold onto details of data such as actual flow rates as if this were a national secret in wartime. Perhaps as well as having a few Mr Mannerings in their midst, with vital roles is the so-called bronze, silver and gold control centres which are set up to handle the crisis and control civilian populations during floods, they are also concerned that people may be a bit upset when management decisions are made which have the effect of flooding one area rather than another.

Calls for probe of UK.gov's DOESN'T VERIFY ID service

Large projects can go wrong

"This demonstrate[s] the potential of large complex programmes enabled by digital technologies to go massively wrong."

Would a Labour government therefore scrap Care.Data?

Antarctic ice THICKER than first feared – penguin-bot boffins

Re: Good, measury stuff

Presumably all previous measurements have been similarly underestimated. So although the absolute values of historical data may need to be corrected, the changes recorded using other techniques will be more or less correct.

Mysterious BEAM outside London Googleplex ZAPPED

Re: In all seriousness....

"So who would be conducting this investigation, the HSE police?"

Clearly it needs a call to Professor Quatermass.

Details here for those who missed it back in the day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_and_the_Pit

Bond villains lament as Wicked Lasers withdraw death ray

Re: Obligatory XKCD - II

http://xkcd.com/1433/

Privacy bods offer GOV SPY VICTIMS a FREE SPYWARE SNIFFER

An option for obfuscation would help

Detekt fails to provide an antidote when spying is detected. What's required is appropriate means to feed a proportion of disinformation into the surveillance channel.

Re: Just use a Porteus USB

Porteus boots really quickly from USB 3.0, though the learning curve is a bit steep for newbies like me.

All aboard the Poo Bus! Ding ding, route Number Two departing

Harold Bates

In the true spirit of British invention, Harold Bates had been running his Hillman on bio-methane almost half a century ago, and was quoted as saying, "This is the thing of the future."

http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.html

Our system handles £130bn and it's BUST. Want the job of fixing it? Apply to UK.gov

Care.Data

With a track record like this the government expects people to agree to putting their health records on a central database?

LIFE, JIM? Comet probot lander found 'ORGANICS' on far-off iceball

Re: Panspermia OR mystic sky Daddy

The C, O and N most likely came from fusion in stars; the H seems to be quite widely distributed. Organic molecules are likely to form quite readily in space; and clearly enough arrived on the young Earth for life to start.

But panspermia, the idea that rather than arising spontaneously on Earth life came from space, carried by bacteria or spores of somesuch, seems to me to be an unnecessary and unsupported complication. The notion of life being carried to Earth on a comet seems to me to be nothing more than a techno-recast of a sky Daddy myth. Even worse, the idea that evolution proceeds as a result of directed panspermia is nothing more than a big boy's wet-dream.

To say that life exists throughout the universe and therefore it exists on Earth doesn't do anything much to explain how it comes about in the first place, or how it starts up on a sterile planet. Neither does it help appreciation of the more subtle details of how living things differ from non-living organic chemicals.

Re: Panspermia OR mystic sky Daddy

This looks like a false dilemma. Both are most unlikely in comparison with the simple notion, demonstrated by Miller-Urey over sixty years ago and others since, that complex organic molecules such as amino acids form quite easily from C, H, O and N.

Are MPs smarter than 5-year-olds? We'll soon find out at coding school – Berners-Lee

MPs should take drugs

If it would help them to appreciate what expert scientists such as Prof. David Nutt and his fellow committee members were saying before they were fired/resigned then I would be all in favour of MPs trying a few recreational drugs.