Posts by HMB

Do you use Hola VPN? You could be part of a DDoS, content theft – or worse

Re: Coffee --> Screen

It's easy to say in retrospect, but if you have hope that there are solutions, then you can do more in life. The trick is being careful. I won't use it now, but when I did use it it was a valuable resource. I gained from it, but took the precaution of making it completely separate to my normal profile to protect information. I also kept only to the Chrome plugin to benefit from the sandboxing and didn't touch the standalone executables.

Have sex people, just use protection. It's a metaphor.

If you get cynical about everything, you wouldn't do anything. You would be too cynical to fall in love, too cynical to believe in yourself.

It's about protecting yourself and being a bit daring in life sometimes that we get the most reward, so yes, I used Hola, no, I wouldn't now, no I don't regret it, I will keep believing that new things can have very positive impacts on how things can be for humanity.

If you truly don't believe in any security or capability of anything positive, then expressing yourself on the Internet is a bad idea. I tend to refrain from that, but I want to see what can be possible. I love my TED talks. Am I making sense?

W3C recommends Pointer Events standard – but it's a touchy subject. Right, Apple?

Wood For the Trees Guys

Or as developers we could just chose which one we want to use. If you feel that pointer events is a more elegant system you just download the MS polyfill:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/eternalcoding/archive/2013/01/16/hand-js-a-polyfill-for-supporting-pointer-events-on-every-browser.aspx

It's something you could add into both Chrome and Safari in 30 minutes on a commercial website. That's assuming you go for a coffee and possibly a smoke half way through (I know you developers! :P ).

JavaScript programming may cause Bronchitis.

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

Re: A modest proposition

Yes we have seen how well the yanks in general respect the laws of other countries, just look at injustice nut case trying to get information of Ireland by illegal means.

I'm sure Florida1920 will read that and realise the folly of their ways, or just be slightly disappointed that they got passive aggressively put down a little, purely because of what their government does. Good job my government (I'm on team Brit (fuck everyone else, yay!)) doesn't do anything bad.... Oh shit.

Re: Suggestion for law enforcement

The last drugs free for all went so well back in the 1800s didn't it. Personally I would cut the drugs with something useful e.g. cyanide and sell that cheap for a while. It could clean up the drugs market and give the undertakers some useful business

David Blunket!!! When did you become a register commentard? :O

"Machine gun the prisoners!"

P.S. Do you get some sort of satanic loyalty card for advocating mass extermination of people? Are they like nectar points?

GCHQ, police to team up to hunt down child abuse on the darknet

Can't be too careful

I avoided considering becoming a teacher because I'm male and didn't want to expose myself to the risk of accusations. I know a gay guy (in the closet) who is a teacher, who has just been falsely accused by female students and it's guilty until proven innocent. School kids run rings around teachers these days if they want to because they know they can.

I honestly don't understand why anyone with a penis would consider working with children given modern societies disturbing obsession with paedophilia.

The safest way of dealing with other people's lost children is to resist the urge to try and help them or feel sorry for them and to pretend they aren't there and never make eye contact. If all else fails, punch them in the face. For god's sake don't take an interest in simply helping them find their parents, unless you've got tits, then you're OK.

(Satirical posturing aside, please don't actually punch other people's kids in the face, screaming at them and running in the other direction should suffice)

Assange's WikiLeaks: Give generously this Xmas – for statue of our dear leader

Offensive

It might be that they've all made some contributions, but as far as my loose impressions go, which I will admit isn't exactly rock solid proof, two of them are worthy of statues and wouldn't necessarily say so and one of them thinks they're more than worthy of a statue and whether they are or not is quite questionable.

I don't like them all being grouped together like that. It's sort of character defamation by association.

Blu-ray region locks popped by hardware hacker

Re: Forced to view content (Adverts etc.)

I don't need to watch the anti piracy video etc.

Clearly you do because you bought the film... wait a minute, was that a logic FAIL?

Quick! You wouldn't steal a baby.

Your data: Stolen through PIXELS

The solution is to glue laptops do desks :P

Re: If the attacker has physical access, then it's no longer YOUR computer.

Wow, where do you get the authority to deny your office workers USB flash drives? Are you working for the public sector? I wont deny the effectiveness of your methods, but few companies I know would allow such practises.

Microsoft says January Windows 10 build will excite sysadmins

Re: Suggestion even before I see it

Was going to suggest almost the same thing. +1 Khaptain. :)

Right click desktop > Personalize > Themes:

Windows 7 Aero

Windows 8 Flat

Windows 10 Modernised Aero

Just imagine giving people a choice Microsoft! Then they wouldn't have to chose by installing your old operating system because they dislike the new look so much.

G.fast is HERE: Sckipio slurps funding to cook up SPAWN of VDSL tech

7 Years

Ratified in 2005 and starting to become available in the mainstream in 2012, it took 7 years for BT to get VDSL2 out. Can we expect G.fast to take another 7 years to 2021/2022?

Considering BT are already trialling vectoring on existing VDSL2, with notions to pop VDSL2 up to 100Mbps and they're trialling XGPON 10 Gbps over their existing FTTH, I'd say the chances of G.fast becoming available in the UK (which requires more groundwork instead of simpler cabinet upgrades for vectoring) are considerably less than a zombie Jimmy Saville rising up and being invited to the next Children in Need alongside Pudsey bear.

Review mass-snoop laws regularly, says RIPA daddy Blunkett

Re: Oh dear

Not everything american is bad, that's a tad racist! There's loads of intelligent and thought provoking american media, not all of which is released in the cinemas.

We never did become cowards from an american influence, we just got taught to be afraid by the powers that be, the new labour government that was completely pussy whipped by the Dick-Bush administration and we all got screwed. It wasn't american culture that caused us the problem, it was the failing of our political elite to have a mind of their own. They were told to disseminate the "Scary Terrorists Plan" and they did so. Bizarrely after that, Tony Blair got filthy rich, but I'm sure that's got nothing to do with it. :P *cough* war criminal *cough*

Do you remember how our wonderful and impartial state media, I mean BBC, completely failed to call into question the Iraq War until it was all too late? I seem to remember hearing about journalists being made to tow the line. Conflation between Iraq and Afghanistan was the order of the day and somehow it got everywhere. It was very creepy. We had to go get the Taliban's none existent weapons of mass distraction from Iraqistan.

Say what you like about Margaret Thatcher, evil or good, at least when she caused us pain she did it from her own convictions instead of being a puppet.

I'm so sick of our politicians.

I personally wish we had a Barrack Obama of our own, at least he tries to get a few good things done, even if some rich Americans kick and scream against giving more people access to healthcare.

Keep your court orders to YOURSELF – human rights chief slaps US

David Blunkett

I don't know, at least this posturing makes a difference from David Blunket's idea of a fair deal with the US; a completely lop sided extradition treaty.

We have such lovely politicians here in the UK.

Machine gun the prisoners!

Identity thieves slurp Sony Pictures staff info – as CEO sends 'don't sue me, bro' memo

Re: just a thought or two.

I think it's the same people responsible for bringing down ISIS.

Solar sandwich cooks at 40 per cent efficiency

Re: Iceland

I got the wrong end of the stick with my previous post, which is below. Sorry guys. I re-read the thread and I see what happened. I jumped to the conclusion that geothermal was being advocated as a cure all and should have read the thread more carefully.

FYI lost all faith, I changed my downvote into an upvote.

And when hot springs and geysers start popping up all over the earth in a freak unexplainable incident that makes the earth's crust as thin everywhere as it is in the geographically extraordinary Iceland, your argument will hold water.

Geothermal and hydro have long been economically viable methods of power generation that are already pretty much maxed out. Despite being one of the most viable renewable resources, hydro is being resisted by environmental campaigns too. See the film 'Damnation':

http://damnationfilm.com/

Just to be clear about my position. I'm all for subsidised renewables up to say 5% of total demand to encourage development of the technologies, but beyond that they must compete economically because otherwise you're simply denying the poorest access to electricity, which is a real dick move.

@Faux Science Slayer

I don't think solar is a scalable, large scale, economic answer to the world's energy problem, but I still winced when I read some of that comment. I still believe it needs development and investment to see if one day it will cut it, economically speaking.

Then I went back through your comment history.... Good lord!

Have you changed your mind about Neil DeGrasse Tyson being a sock puppet?

People might have unrealistic expectations about solar, but you need to chill out , raise the tone and intellectual integrity of your argument and be open to listening to the other side of the argument.

Home Wi-Fi security's just as good as '90s PC security! Wait, what?

Agreed

Quite a few vendors are using unique passwords in their devices. My plus net router was like that. I've since changed it naturally.

Gigabit-over-copper VDSL successor G.fast signed off at last

Re: Physics

Damn it you beat me to it! Similar sentiments, made me smile.

It's Worse Than That It's Physics Jim

Probably best to complain to the person who invented physics on that one. Bloody inverse square law :P

I'd encourage reading up on this to understand why developments have followed the course that they have.

However, my quips aside, while there's only so much that can be done about boosting signal over line length in ideal theoretical conditions, in reality much interesting work has been done on compensating for cross talk with a technology known as vectoring. That's probably the best you'll get for your request. In the mean time you could always lobby for increased signal power and spend your life dodging angry hoards of radio hams. Don't forget though, every time you pump twice the energy into the phone line you'll get a 3 dB increase in signal and you quickly hit a situation of diminishing returns.

As an alternative you could push for line bonding, but if BT have to go out and install an extra new line for everyone, the economics of it quickly go down the toilet, you might as well just get them to roll out fibre.

The internet is less free than last year. Thanks a bunch, Snowden

Since we're banging on the USA I feel obliged to point out that I've seen more positive, democratic engagement and discussion about these issues from Americans than I have from my fellow Brits. As Brits we seem happy to condemn and bitch about stuff, but where is our action to fight for a better tomorrow for us and our children?

Kudos to all those who truly fight for freedom and the benefit of all mankind. They're the reason things aren't as bad as they could be right now.

Orion: To Mars, the Moon and beyond... but first, a test flight through Van Allen belt

Duh!

Everyone knows they faked the moon landings on the moon... to save on catering.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6MOnehCOUw

Feast your eyes: 10 'fortysomething' smart TVs

Re: Dumb TV please

I like some of your posts Sir Runcible Spoon, but that last one is rose tinted and wrong! :)

100 Hz CRTs were far lower definition (and couldn't be boosted too high because the electron beam in a CRT disperses at higher intensities, which is why monitors with an extra bright setting lost focus at the same time).

100 Hz CRTs have lower max luminance than modern flat screens, resulting in a duller image (who wants that?).

100 Hz CRTs have a far lower colour gamut than what's possible with LCD screens.

I will grant you that LCD struggles a little with very dark colours and on cheaper sets the black level can be disappointing, but don't forget that CRT's never did proper black unless you eliminated ambient light that reflected off the white phosphor coating behind the screen. Higher end LCDs have very impressive black levels.

I'll also grant you that CRT never had any problems with light uniformity, but then it's another question about whether you buy a cheap LCD or a pricier one.

100 Hz CRT's didn't just not scale easily, they didn't scale at all economically. I have trouble believing a 48" CRT would be affordable to most people or that it wouldn't be so heavy that it would fall through the floor. :P

If you love CRT's so much why not go Plasma? They offer a very similar looking image, scale and have HD. Personally I love the rich, bright colours and spectacular contrast that LCD offers that completely whoops the ass of CRT and Plasma. I can't wait for HDR OLED, very excited about that.

Re: Security, connectivity and other important information

I just recently purchased a 50" Samsung Smart TV and I haven't brought myself to agree to the terms and conditions of the Smart Hub yet. With it connected to a Mini-ITX media PC it's not really necessary. I kind of want to mess around with the features, but I don't know how much I want to just wave Samsung in to my home network.

Re: Really? A WebOS TV gets a recommendation?

@Gordon 10

I'm not sure if AC knows for sure, but I'd be wary about any company releasing half baked products some of the time.

Another lick of Lollipop: Google updates latest Android to 5.0.1

Android 5.0 on Nexus 5

I couldn't resist getting it as early as possible and downloaded and flashed the factory images to my Nexus 5. Aside from dubious battery life I can't say I've had any issues with it.

Hawking: RISE of the MACHINES could DESTROY HUMANITY

Re: @HMB

Actually, Mr. Hawking's views, as an acknowledged leading scientist and thinker, with particular expertise in physics (and surely, computering is based on physics and mathematics) are of considerably greater merit than the asinine views expressed so incompetently in the preceding comments. No reasons, no alternatives, no justifications - just bile.

Perhaps the problem is your lack of imagination, knowledge and experience: you can not imagine the problems, nor I daresay the opportunities, posed by true AI and, just like the average politician, wish to charge ahead without any consideration or safeguards. We have seen the unfortunate results of such misguided and ignorant slavery to "technology" before and shall do so again. The difference is that each "advance" seems to be welcomed with decreasing caution and increasing credulity, ignorance and lack of preparation. The world and life is more than just the ability to automate your life and bugger the side effects or risks.

I'd certainly appreciated it AC, if when making out that you're replying to me that you keep with what I've actually said instead of making up another version of it and slagging that off. Cheers.

I've never advocated 'charging ahead', you're not familiar with my imagination, you're not familiar with my knowledge and experience.

The best I can get is that while I tried to stick up for Hawking's opinion as being valid, that you have lambasted me because I haven't done it as aggressively as you would have liked.

What's particularly unpleasant about your post to me is that while you say 'asinine views expressed so incompetently in the preceding comments. No reasons, no alternatives, no justifications - just bile.', you do so without examining any of them and reasoning it, suggesting alternatives. You do not justify your comment about justifications, it appears to be just bile.

Why can't we all just bit a bit more tolerant and respectful to each other? That's something we will need more in the future.

@JimmyPage

Thank you for taking the time to disagree with me in a reply, I respect that.

Surely if we get on board with your idea that people should only comment on what they are experts on, there are some very dire consequences. The only people with authority to speak up on a particular matter would be people who have gone through some sort of process of education and indoctrination by training. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Very few people would be able to protest against the Iraq war, because they weren't experts. No one would be able to voice their concerns about most people breaking the speed limit on the motorway because they weren't in a career of road safety. The entire principle of democracy fails when people aren't allowed to express their opinions.

Opinions are going to be offensive and annoying as well as being interesting and agreeable. Telling people they shouldn't talk is something I find very objectionable myself. I strongly dislike your opinion on it, but I'm very glad you have the freedom to share it.

It's not different if you're famous, becoming famous doesn't somehow change your right to have an opinion.

It's up to the rest of us to challenge people's opinions and at least consider them once.

Re: Why is can never work

I like your argument Khaptain and I both agree and disagree with it.

We don't have to fully understand AI in order to create it, that's what I think get's misconstrued in these discussions. Personally, I think it will happen from us trying to model the brain. I think we won't fully get it, but one day we'll realise that we can mathematically simulate the brain and include quantum effects on the system (as happens in our own brains, I believe it's a key part of the mystery of us too). I don't really believe in a 'Person of Interest' style AI where one man supposedly wrote it, although they do sometimes suggest that Finch doesn't understand it all.

The brain is a product of Newtonian, mathematically modellable mechanics and quantum mechanics. Why couldn't it be approximated or replicated by scientists in technological form one day?

If you believe in souls, personally I do, my own consciousness has been very persuasive evidence to me on this front :P, but I really don't understand the need to feel that the soul is tied up in the physical domain. I do believe sufficiently advanced, self aware AI would have a soul, I mean why wouldn't it? You don't have to understand something completely in order to do it, make it or whatever. There are plenty of stupid people having babies!

With the greatest of respect Chris Miller, the man's a genius, I'd at least be open minded and ponder the things he says.

You haven't even expressed why you think he's wrong, what you do and don't believe or well... anything besides a disparaging remark. Do you just not want to hear what he says? Maybe dismissing the words of a smart man without bothering to form an intellectual counter argument of any sort makes you feel better.

Please indulge me, is it sentient AI that you have a problem with, or the notion that sentient AI could eventually have IQ's well in excess or our own? I do believe at least someone would be daft enough to try making an AI well in advance of our own intellect.

Personally in the distant future I'm all for making smart AI's so long as we're all comfortable boosting our own intelligence. Yet another ethical minefield of a conversation.

One last thing, when you ponder the future of humanity Chris, what do you come up with?

Re: A happy AI

I actually like to think that this raises the most interesting of ethical questions.

I would say that if you were good enough making an AI that you could hard wire certain desires in much the same way we all think nothing of carrying out our biological predispositions to eat, poop, sleep and have sex, it's only natural to assume that so long as an AI wants to do something (like I want to drink coffee and eat breakfast right now) that it's not unethical. This does lead to the conclusion that it's OK to train people too, just so long as they enjoy it in the end. What a minefield of ethics!

I would make a BDSM joke, but in a world where there is apparently still slavery going on for real, that would seem a little crass.

UK boffins: We'll have an EMBIGGENED QUANTUM COMPUTER working in 5 YEARS

Goodbye Cryptography

Goodbye Cryptography!

We had a good thing going while it lasted. *sniff*

I'll always remember you.

Disturbance in the force lets phones detect gestures with Wi-Fi

Re: Specifically, as the human moves her arm

Patriarchal oppressor! :P

Leaked screenshots show next Windows kernel to be a perfect 10

I'm sure this plan will work just as well as Intel's plan to shift Pentium 4's purely based on their higher and higher clock speed numbers. Who is the AMD for Microsoft though?

Toyota to launch hydrogen (ie, NATURAL GAS) powered fuel cell hybrid

Nuclear Proportions

France isn't very representative of the entire world. It's also supposed to have had much cheaper electricity than over here, but my checks just now seem to suggest we're roughly level.

For worldwide production of electricity, coal does indeed seem to be at #1 with a healthy lead.

However I found this article very interesting:

http://www.businessinsider.com/countries-generating-the-most-nuclear-energy-2014-3?op=1&IR=T

Fusion and Hydrogen

Good god guys, you've had a jolly old talk about Hydrogen but that's largely irrelevant.

While good old regular hydrogen will fuse in a nuclear reaction, my farts probably have more energy. All fusion for weapons or power production is focussed on Deuterium - Tritium reactions, which while being hydrogen, are the heavier isotopes of it, so getting it from seawater is a bit of a non starter.

Sure you can get heavy water from regular water and you have to sift it out, but the best way of obtaining tritium is by consuming lithium. I'm pretty sure some of the Oxford JET designs have lithium around the reaction chamber in order to breed tritium from the fusion reaction's by-product of neutron radiation.

Safer than over-running an open air breeding reactor accidentally beyond it's limits. *cough-windscale-cough*

Maybe if they can't use a nuclear fusion reaction they can find a cloaked war bird. The trick is to look for gaseous anomalies.

Oh and as it's been said, you don't need very much mass of fuel for a nuclear reactor. That's why you could run a breeder reactor from a little uranium harvested from the sea for goodness knows how long. It's completely backwards from a regularly fuelled plant. For Nuclear, fuel costs are tiny in comparison to regulatory, safety, construction, staffing and design costs. Completely unlike a coal station where buying f***tonnes of coal every minute are the major cost.

Google begins to roll out Lollipop to Nexus devices

Re: Longer battery life

This is rubbish. The demand for better battery technology has never been higher. More than anything it is being driven (pardon the pun) by applications that absolutely depend on better battery technology, such as electric vehicles. It's not that the manufacturers don't care, it's simply that it takes a LOT of effort to make a small improvement in battery technology. Sinclair wanted an electric car in the 80s, but he was simply too early. There weren't a bunch of stonecutters holding him back!

If and when major breakthroughs occur then it will, one way or another trickle down to mobile phone users. No manufacturer is going to chose to ignore new opportunities so long as they're cost effective.

I don't understand. I mean I really don't. I get my phone out each night to check my alarm and after I've done that I pop it down roughly on my wireless charger, whereby it magnetically locates and charges. I haven't gotten over the novelty of that yet and I've had my Nexus 5 and wireless charger for over a year.

Maybe wireless charging is something you want to look into, until you can put yourself into stasis so you don't have to wait for the international development of energy storage.

P.S.

I for one would prefer to buy a cheaper phone that lasts all day than a more expensive phone that lasts multiple days. This is true until sleeping every night becomes optional for me.

WiFi Not Detecting Channel 13 AP

Well I just jumped in but my phone is no longer seeing my Channel 13 AP, the channel I used because it's a lot clearer than the other bands. I don't want to switch the AP :(

Shuddit, Obama! Here in Blighty, we ISPs have net neutrality nailed

Re: UK isn't so bad

I've bitched about BT many times before, all with good reason. I don't think what we've got in the UK is the best but it's certainly way better than the paltry offerings available in large areas of the US. It's made me a lot more grateful for what we do have.

Did anyone notice the four weak areas touted for how bad the UK is had two sites deploying FTTC, while one had limited fibre and cable?

If there's one thing BT are it's excruciatingly slow to roll out new tech, but we're quite lucky, because we are getting it, even in areas that are verging on rural. I just hope that the prices for rural-ish FTTC are about the same as elsewhere considering the shedload of public money that went to them.

I pay about £35 (inc line rental) for 40 Mbps Down and near enough 20 Mbps up (suburban location). I'm happy.

IEEE turns crank on new wired Ethernet standards

USB3 is 10x Faster, 802.11ac does reach multi gigabit, Moon landing real

"Stating 802.11ac is capable of "multi-gigabit" speeds is as pointless as stating USB3 is 10x faster than USB2. Which has been debunked as bullshit many times over with real life tests finding closer to 3x faster."

While I appreciate that the £30 non branded USB 3.0 flash drive you bought off ebay might not perform with 10x the speed of your USB 2.0 stick, it's total nonsense to rubbish an entire connectivity standard due to your poor imagination. USB 3.0 is being used by SSD drives today to achieve transfer rates of 450 MB/s. Just go Google it and update yourself on the topic. I'm surprised at how often people confuse a connectivity standard with other bottlenecks.

Now with 802.11ac I thought I was going to have to explain future options of 8x8 MIMO AP's for business needs like busy conference halls and the like. I thought I was going to have to explain that just because your smartphone can only do 1x1, 228 Mbps realtime throughput (433 Mbps on the PHY link) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsEutRQ2Zyo) on 802.11ac, don't forget the other people on the other spatial channels served by the AP. So I was going to come out with all this well reasoned stuff and point out that the peak of 802.11ac capability is 6.77 Gbps aggregate capacity at the PHY level which should be about 3.48 Gbps real throughput. This meaning that when these products come out that they really will need that faster Ethernet.

I was going to say all that, then I realised that ASUS have brought out the new ASUS RT-AC87U which is capable of real throughput to another RT-AC87U at 1029.8 Mbps real throughput on cnet tests. One consumer product, not implementing 160 MHz channels and only implementing 4 spatial streams out of 8 possible has already got you beat, not by much, but enough to start bottlenecking at the gigabit ethernet.

Would you like to give us any other advice on things that aren't true?

Wind farms make you sick claims blown away again

@Ledswinger

While I loved your analysis of wind turbine electricity generation, I must admit I disagree here.

If I move next to an airport, is it then reasonable of me to complain about the planes? Weren't the flights an implicit part of say.... moving next to an airport? Isn't expansion of that airport an overwhelmingly obvious possibility?

Now I realise that argument doesn't extend to people who lived there before the airport, I have sympathy for them. I think they should be offered a good price for their property and then it be sold on should they take that offer up, sold on to people who are glad to have the housing and don't mind the flights.

In an ideal world we'd make sure airports were built far away from people's homes but in reality that doesn't work, not in the crowded UK.

I just hate to think that we're past our best, not willing to consider that we could do better. That might seem a far cry from our conversation but it's not. If we applied the modern NIMBY attitude of now to 1950s Britain, it's possible that we might not have the motorways we do now. Yet, without those motorways the cost of all our goods and services would be so much higher. Somebody had to dream of something bigger, better and newer and then it had to be done.

My biggest concern about HS2 is that it's just a device for transferring public funds into private hands and that once it's done that the average person wont be able to afford the fare. That does disturb me as I think that's completely unacceptable.

@Ledswinger

What infrastructure would you go for?

Forget 5G, UK.gov is making 2G fit for the 21st century!

Re: I find this hilarious

I already use a network in the UK that has no 2G. I have a great data experience and phone calls are clearer too. I don't have problems with signal either.

It's not all bad in the UK, but like in any country around the world, there are rural areas where there's poor coverage.

I don't have much sympathy for NIMBY nibbled neighbourhoods like Chipping Norton. Like it says in the article, communities need to decide what they want, mobile coverage or no mobile masts.

Microsoft's TV product placement horror: CNN mistakes Surface tabs for iPAD stands

Re: I'm curious about this hate against hybrids and Prius in particular.

I think the Prius dislike comes from a few areas. There are those who say that the production of all the hybrid technology with the batteries in particular causes more problems than it solves. There are those that say that a modern, fun to drive diesel engine can produce less carbon emissions over it's life. There are those who point out the previous two points and point to the hypocrisy of it.

For me personally, I don't hold much against them but they don't excite me at all, if you want a really revolutionary car with everything, look at the Tesla stuff. Can't wait for the car they target for everyone.

It's worth noting that other hybrids are achieving a lot better potential environmental credentials (depending on how electricity is generated) simply by letting their users plug them in.

Mobile carriers keep the promised land on an ever-receding horizon

Re: Perhaps one slight fly in the ointment... shared bandwidth?

That's true to a point Andy Watt, but it's never really made my unlimited service unusable. Sure, at peak times 2 years ago, I had problems tethering for streaming video, but even then browsing and streaming music worked quite well.

If you open an all you can eat restaurant, people don't seem to eat until they die, just because they can. Sure, they eat more, but nothing that can't be accommodated. I think unlimited mobile data is a similar thing. Sure, occasionally I gorge myself on data, but more often than not, I have pretty normal usage patterns but without any worries about bill shock. I have no worries about data usage and I wouldn't want to go back to having them.

Russians hear Tim Cook is gay, pull dead Steve Jobs' enormous erection

Re: Normalising homosexuality = normalising sodomy.

I hope you don't use that astounding logic on anything important.

As pointed out earlier on in the discussion by someone else, since homosexuality often doesn't include sodomy the link from homosexuality to sodomy doesn't stand up. One does not mean the other.

Since sodomy is very popular in straight relationships too, the link from sodomy to homosexuality doesn't stand up either.

Re: This post has been deleted by a moderator

@Abacus

Moral majority? Who declares what's moral, you I presume? Do you not feel that you can say that you're straight without being oppressed? Do you not feel that you can practise straight sex without feeling oppressed? Do you still feel oppressed? You poor thing! I feel so sorry for you.

As for a pro perversion world you're talking rubbish. Only the other day me and my girlfriend were talking about ropes and we got the most horrible looks from the checkout lady. There is still much work to be done.

Nexus 9: Google and HTC deliver Android 5.0 'Lollipop' at iPad prices

$200 Laptop Comparison - Screen Quality

To me screen quality really matters. I know not everyone feels that way though. Tablets like the iPad and Nexus series have IPS screens with great definition, brightness, contrast, colour and viewing angles. Try getting that in a laptop without spending north of £750, you'll struggle, especially if you want a 15" screen.

GET A ROOM, yells Facebook as it stumbles on IRC, slaps it in an app

New Era of Intrusion

If I was Zuckerberg and wanted to take over the world this is exactly what I'd do to learn people's deepest secrets. I'm not sure if I'm horrified or deeply impressed.

If people let their guard down on there neglecting to consider the machine analysis linked to their real identity...

Forgive me for sounding like a member of the tinfoil hat brigade, but I just find it so hard to believe that they might not do that sort of machine monitored data dredging. I just find it too much to believe that the angle wont be exploited.

It's like they carefully considered what the limitations were on all the worst things about facebook and found a way to find a new low.

Ad-borne Cryptowall ransomware is set to claim FRESH VICTIMS

Re: Well lets name them....

"just how wrong can one post be?"

I can't comment on super large ad agencies, but I can comment on smaller ad-fuelled businesses. Having actually worked for them in software development.

In a sufficiently large ad agency the person accepting flash files and media will simply use a back end CMS and may have the problem solving technical prowess to fix a paper jam in a printer.

The conversation between the developers and the business management when implementing that CMS would probably have gone along these lines:

Boss Guy: "We need to support flash advertising in the CMS"

*Developer shows uncomfortable face*

Boss Guy: "There a problem there?"

*Developer considers suggesting that flash might very, very, very occasionally carry malicious code, but doesn't want to present such an esoteric risk to the boss and come off sounding like someone who doesn't want to get the work done with a go get'em attitude when everyone else also uses flash.*

Developer: "Well, it wont play nice with apple iThings."

Boss Guy: "Well, I guess we'll just have to encourage people to move to HTML5 ads in the long term."

Ultimately, it's stories of people getting burnt by flash that will change conversations like the one above. Until then, it's very easy to be the person with 20:20 vision in hindsight and more importantly, you have to make a business case for spending time on things and it's very difficult to justify hundreds of man hours of reverse engineering code 'just in case'.

I have no doubt that this sort of malware will indeed change attitudes in time, but for now I think if you did a little work for ad agencies you'd understand why this sort of thing happens.

I would say that 'easily finding' malicious flash code when you don't know what you're looking for would be a bit like 'easily finding' OpenSSL and bash vulnerabilities in 2012. There's a reason why anti virus companies employ very skilled people who had to climb a steep learning curve.

Re: Well lets name them....

The downvotes don't make mark 63 wrong, also thanks to g00se for pointing out the underlying mechanism. How would you detect malware in a flash file a customer submitted to you? Would you attempt a security analysis before sending it on beyond a check with an anti virus? Flash isn't *supposed* to be able to be compromised like that.

Arguably the bad decision was made when flash was used for advertising, but can you imagine arguing with your boss about letting through a flash advert if you're an advertising company technical advisor? The notion of decompiling and reverse engineering every flash file to check it for safety is unworkable.

I dare say this sort of exploitation was inevitable as flash for advertising became the complacently accepted norm. I started using flashblock myself after one too many websites started playing movies and sound automatically (rude bastards).

It's easy to be reactionary and blame ad agencies, but the problem really lies with..... well.... using software. Proprietary or open source, there isn't a type of software that's immune from vulnerabilities.