Posts by JeevesMkII

Better multithreading offered by Columbia U researchers

Theoretical bullshit

They basically admit it in the paper, this simply doesn't work in the real world. Essentially any program which uses a call like select() to non-deterministically wait on input from outside the process entirely blows up their attempt to make thread runs deterministic. While is... er... every useful program in the entire world. Their hack around to reduce these programs to the simple threading model they can work with essentially destroys the advantage to threading in the first place.

Hell, the whole system requires that programmers can correctly identify critical sections in their code and flag them with synchronisation primitives like pthread_mutex_lock()/_unlock() pairs. If you're relying on them to know that much, then surely you can rely on them to understand what a race condition is, and what happens when you change the execution order of two or more critical sections.

BBC iPlayer to require TV licence

Those bastards

I have a TV set, which theoretically was capable of receiving broadcast TV, so like a good little boy I pay the TV license fee. However, over the last few years I've been watching ever less TV to the point now where I watch none at all. My plan had been that once all analogue TV was switched off, I could finally stop paying for a service I don't use as long as I never have to buy a new TV set.

Now those bastards are going to get me for having an internet connection before I can ever stop paying. I think I may have to resign myself to paying this useless tax in perpetuity.

Apple 'prepping smaller iPad'

Don't make me go back and remind you what the "rumour mill" had to say about the phantom iPhone 5. Stop writing these stupid articles and report some real news. That's supposed to be your job, you hack.

Dutch ISP calls the cops after Spamhaus blacklists it

They're also colossal douchebags, for whom the word "professionalism" isn't in the dictionary. Imagine having to deal with the kind of internet kiddy that inhabits online games, but unlike other species of internet kiddy there's no option to avoid dealing with them.

Whatever good they may do is vastly outweighed by their personal faults, and I think very few would be sorry if they were all had up on criminal blackmail charges.

Dubstep ringtone wins Nokia compo

Honestly, it's not THAT bad.

Consider how much worse it could have been while you listen to this reggae treatment of the Motorola tune: http://open.spotify.com/track/3BWmPG20ba93zUxpjX1XsE (Only SFW if you have headphones.)

Smut oglers told to opt in to keep web filth flowing

Ah yes, Christians. Always obeying the 11th commandment: thou shalt interfere with what others do in the privacy of their own homes. For the good of the children of course.

I have a proposal. How about ISPs block all access to Christian material to kids younger than 16, on the grounds that it's obviously detrimental to their mental development. Seems like the kind of thing the Mother's Union can get behind.

Mozilla co-founder quits Firefox veep role

I don't care about fast or slow as much as I care about interface. As it is now, Firefox is in the position the old Mozilla browser was in before Firefox shook things up. It was bloated and clunky, and had all sorts of bells and whistles cluttering the UI. It seems like they need another revolution to clear out 4 or 5 major revisions worth of built up crud. Plus I despise having to set exceptions for self-signed TLS certificates. That's a misfeature I don't miss.

As it stands, Chrome is lightweight (in terms of UI, not in terms of memory usage - dear god no.) and does the job mostly without getting in the way. So, sadly, I've consigned Firefox to the bin until they get their act together.

Gamer claims complete console collection

Poor lad

So many consoles, but only one controller each.

US Marine gets date with Meg Griffin on YouTube

He's doomed now.

Seriously, there's no chance he's going to survive his tour of duty. Sod's law won't permit it. He'll probably catch a bullet on the last day there too.

Blighty gets gold-dispensing ATM

Crime Machine

Isn't this more or less custom designed for criminals? Steal a debit card, drain the account before the crime can be reported, dump the card and get away with a few grams of untraceable gold.

'Indestructible' rootkit enslaves 4.5m PCs in 3 months

Great solution...

So, the solution to the problem of the nigh undetectable and ineradicable rootkit that will doubtless install stuff to bring your system to a crawl for all eternity is... to preemptively install stuff that will bring your system to a crawl for all eternity.

Can't we just build a linux pre-loader for windows that zeroes the entire memory and then checks to see if anything on your windows partition has changed since last boot, and freaks the hell out if it has? That would probably be less of a pain in the arse.

Foxconn staffers cuffed for leaking iPad 2 design in 2010

Well....

That'll learn 'em for trying to get a living wage. On the plus side, it's probably nicer in prison than being a foxconn wage slave.

US Marines splurge on Brit troops' armoured pants

"terrifies the clergy"

"Combat codpiece" puts me in mind of the "Black Russian" from Blackadder.

Now that would strike fear in to the hearts of our enemies.

Russian jailed for 6 years for smutty billboard stunt

28.8bps modem.

"What are you, stoned or stupid? You don't hack a billboard across state lines from your house, you'll get nailed by the FSB. Where are your brains, in your ass? Don't you know anything?"

"Stupid, man. It's universally stupid."

Hack reveals passwords from locked iPhones and iPads

No, it's very easy to solve

It's not a hard problem at all. For example, Symbian OS solved this one about six years ago. It's just sheer laziness.

What's required is a sensible security model where the data isn't released to any tom, dick or harry process that asks in the right way. Only one process ever needs to read your WiFi or VPN credentials, and that should be the only process that can read it. For the most part, email or browser passwords are similar except in the case where you might want to share accounts between multiple clients, though I don't think I've ever seen such an arrangement.

The folly here is relying on a security model that was invented in the 70s for multi-user mainframes to secure single user devices almost half a century later.