* Posts by CaptSmeg

27 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2011

Tracking President Trump with cellphone location data, Greta-Thunberg-themed malware, SharePoint patch, and more

CaptSmeg

Not just the US and definitely not just the Telcos

You should assume that any mobile app that you allow to access your location will be selling your location stream on.

There is already an active global market for this data and several companies offering analysis as a service on top of these streams. It is mostly aimed at ad slingers to price real world advertising space based on the type of audience that walks past etc. But this stuff is cheap and they are often happy to give out large free samples to get their clients hooked.

As pointed out in the article, these streams are trivial to de-anonymise, especially in lower density areas. I would be surprised if scumbags are not already doing this to support phishing and blackmail etc.

Think twice before tapping on “allow access to your location”...

Scientists skeptical of Lockheed Martin's truck-sized fusion reactor breakthrough boast

CaptSmeg

Two years on.. any more info?

I'm curious. Anyone know any more about this? Mr google isn't helping.

Parliament takes axe to 2nd EU referendum petition

CaptSmeg

Charming

A quick pie chart (https://plot.ly/~Paul-v-young/2/alleged-location/) tells me that...

A part from the 96% that are from UK locations (yeah, pull the other one), the next most popular location is France at 0.67%.....

But then that is only 24710 votes, so I think we can safely conclude that only 0.04% of the French would like us to remain.

El Reg mulls entering Robot Wars arena

CaptSmeg
Devil

Jaws of death?

Hydraulics are ok right? How about something based on the jaws of life, ideally an 'X' arrangement of jaws that could close in all four directions. A high friction coating on the inside to prevent victims escaping. It would be pleasingly cruel to watch the other team's faces, as their baby is slowly crushed in to oblivion in front of their eyes. It would be banned immediately of course.

Just my two pennies' worth

Mars needs TRAFFIC COP to stop probe prangs, says NASA

CaptSmeg

Re: @AC "7 mins"" (whatever that means, ElReg) Americans, Indians and Europeans....

This made me wonder about two things...

One, and I haven't done the maths, I'd imagine you'd have to start doing some orbital corrections if you fired one of those for any length of time. I guess that is why they aligned it with the thrust axis?

Two, if they did test fire the one on the Almaz, where did they point it? Either there is a nasty burst of 32 slugs in orbit waiting for some poor sod to wander into their line of fire - which is rather irresponsible, or they fired it at the planet which might be an act of war?

Oh what fun the military have when nobody is looking.

Visual Studio running on OS X and Linux for free? SO close

CaptSmeg

site down

hmm I wonder why, can't imagine a good reason.

UK's annual PCB waste = 81 HMS Belfasts, says National Physical Lab

CaptSmeg

Re: Reminds me of the classic

Ah yes. I have fond memories of falling for that one. The guy in stores dully provided me with one. After I'd been standing there for 10min it dawned on me. Lesson learned never blindly follow instructions.

Sony's super-frumpy SmartEyeglass goggles are $840 Google Glasses

CaptSmeg

pinchVR ?

Hmmm, not sure where this patent leaves the pinchVR guys. It kinda looks like their planned product.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pinch-vr-smartphone-virtual-reality-are-one

Intuit halts TurboTax filings after states spot mass tax fraud scheme

CaptSmeg

Ha ha!

that is all

Ninja Pirate Zombie Vampires versus Chuck Norris and the Space Marines

CaptSmeg

Re: I fear for the future

+1 for the Vogons, their weaponised poetry is nasty stuff.

Laser deflector shields possible with today's tech – but there's one small problem

CaptSmeg
Alien

A simpler solution

As Traveller was mentioned further up I thought I'd note another simpler approach that I recall first hearing about in that RPG about 30ish years ago. It always struck me as a very elegant and simple way to deal with directed energy weapons in space...

Use a "sand thrower", basically a big shotgun which you fire sand in the direction of a hostile ship resulting in a large obscuring cloud between you and her. Lasers etc. are easily absorbed / scattered by the cloud. It also provides nice cover while you deploy decoys & drones. Cheap and effective. When you shoot back you are much better off using good old rail guns... Plasma or sand aren't going to stop a slug.

I think any real space fights are going to be much more like the Wild West than Star Wars.

Meet the man building an AI that mimics our neocortex – and could kill off neural networks

CaptSmeg

Good job sir!

Excellent article, very well balanced. It would be so easy to write Hawkins off as simply a crank with lots of money, but when you take a careful look, his ideas really do ring true. Best of luck to him.

IRON MAN MUSK: Elon reveals Tony Stark-style 3D design smarts

CaptSmeg

oblong?

I am surprised the guys at spaceX are playing around with building this sort of stuff themselves. If they really think this is going to help, then surely they should just fork out for some kit from Oblong? Then save all their innovation juices to use on rockets. I can only assume they think they can do it better in some way.

Well good luck with that, Boeing and the likes use oblong and it looks much more precise than something leap motion based. It would only take a few botched injectors or whatever to cover the extra cost. Plus oblong were the ones that actually designed the minority report set.

But to be fair, if I was that loaded I would happily spend the money playing with such kit.

NASA working on faster-than-light drive capable of WARP TEN

CaptSmeg
Facepalm

You are doing it all wrong

Hey, I thought this was all sorted out already, with no real need for fantasy physics. In just a few decades from now we will be able to travel pretty much anywhere we at the (perceptual) blink of an eye. Basically, you serialise anyone who wants to travel. Store them in a massively redundant form in a dense, robust and stable substrate, I dunno say a chunk of quartz or something. At which point you have you perfect solid state astronaut. You can shoot him around the universe will little fuss. No need to waste energy accelerating a live support system, shielding, food, toilets etc. and he can take silly-g without becoming pâté.

Ok great, now duplicate him/everyone and fire them off in all directions. You can spend a little energy every now and then and boot up a virtual image to take a look around and make a course correction etc. Once you see a place of interest you spend the other half of your budget on stopping near a good energy source, build a big array of radio telescopes as a relay station, duplicate and send off another burst of seed ships. We can exchange diffs via the relay network to keep the whole lot coherent. Pretty soon the whole of humanity is a RAIDed cloud spread across a massive volume of space that is expanding at close to c.

Just try and wipe us out then you bastards!

The really cool thing is that we can play with our own clock speed at will, to fast forward through all that crawling about at c and then speed up to enjoy the good bits. Like downloading into a new body to enjoy some snu snu on Amazonia.

Serialisation gives you all this plus a whole lot more without the need for Trek style make believe. No new physics needed just a few decades of technology and neuroscience and we're off! I'd strongly suggest checking out some of the novels by Charles Stross to get all the details.

BTW if I kick the bucket before this all happens, I am going to have an extremely rude message to future humanity carved on my gravestone. That'll show them.

'Don't break the internet': How an idiot's slogan stole your privacy...

CaptSmeg
Thumb Up

With you in spirit

Hey, thank you Andrew for a very thought provoking article.

I whole heartily agree with the spirt, especially the protection of property rights and privacy (and liberty). I also do not understand the arguments for treating the digital realm as some other special place removed from the rest of the world with its own special laws, that just seems absurd.

However, as others have said, I don't understand leap you make to associate ownership of data to those that the data is about. Surely, this is too grey an area to base your argument on. It will just attract examples of extremes that with just distract from the important main message.

Do they need to be linked? Is it not simply the case that we need to properly and consistently enforce the laws we already have?

In true commentard form I don't have any answers...

RED MOON to GO DARK tonight in Pacific eclipse

CaptSmeg
FAIL

".. lensing effect of the atmosphere.." hmm.. I think you will find this is not true. Rather it is an optical illusion. Well that's what Patrick Moore told me once on telly.

PROVEN: Violent video games mess with your head

CaptSmeg
Mushroom

Grrrrrrr

Grrrr. Never mind FPS, reading this article makes me want to punch people.

NASA's nuclear laser tank will hunt down any life on Mars

CaptSmeg
Happy

I do hope so

I hope that this or one of the following missions do find life on Mars. It would probably be the most important historic event in my lifetime and I would so love to see it happen.

Of course, It would not make up for missing the singularity (bugger) but it would be a nice consolation prize.

NASA to trial laser-powered space broadband

CaptSmeg
Boffin

One eyed astronomers

I assume those smart folks at NASA have considered any impact shooting a laser at Hawaii might have on the science being done by all those telescopes there?

I'm guessing that low intensity / narrow frequency means it isn't but then looking at all the fuss about laser guide stars, surely someone will have a beef.

iLuv iPad 2 case and Bluetooth keyboard

CaptSmeg
Stop

No and thrice no!

No no no no ... No! If I wanted a laptop I would have bought one.

(plus if you need a case there are much better designed / quality ones out there)

'Real' JavaScript benchmark topped by...Microsoft

CaptSmeg
Coffee/keyboard

@arctic fox (nasally challenged)

"ad hominem attacks that got up my nose"

Dude, this is the El Reg commentards section..

You're gonna need nostrils like zeppelin hangers if you're gonna hang out here.

'Fierce competition' drives Apple's iPhone 6 changes

CaptSmeg
Thumb Up

Re big question

Come on, use your imagination! How about...

a pico projector

a semi conductor laser (low power for pointing/range finding or high power for small scale cutting tasks)

a far infra red camera

A thermometer / barometer / altimeter

A hazardous chemical sniffer

Hell how about an electric razor attachment?

Red Dwarf to blast off on new adventure

CaptSmeg
Unhappy

Expectations set to zero!!

I have zero expectations. ZERO I TELL YOU!!!

Repeat after me. We will not disappoint you, we will not disappoint you.

Please don't....

US Navy laser cannon used to set boat aflame

CaptSmeg
Stop

history... rinse and repeat

Hey, wait before you reach for the tax payer provided pork-o-bank cheque book to buy your new fleet. Don't forget to check beneath the waves for those pesky u-boats. Lasers don't work any where nearly as well through water. Your hypersonic slugs won't make it much further either....

MythBusters: Savage and Hyneman detonate truthiness

CaptSmeg
Stop

Is science a rude word???

I have disagree with many of the above posters. The methodological, experimental search for truth? This is science! My problem is they and many others don't like to use the word. I guess it would damage their viewing figures?

Don't get me wrong I love this show, I just wish they would add the odd plug for something I love so much.

Insert redundant rant concerning modern fashion to be anti science

Fight global warming with Asimov-style Psychohistory - profs

CaptSmeg
Troll

Nice try Mr Reg

Ah you almost got me.

Sinclair ZX81: 30 years old

CaptSmeg
Heart

Happy memories

Christmas 1981 what a great moment for a 11 year old.

After 6 months hanging around in WHSmiiths staring at it and begging my parents.

Ah I can still vividly remember the absolute thrill and joy as I pulled the polystyrene packaging from the cardboard sleeve. Looking at the pictures, I can still remember the smell of it for heavens sake!

Then Christmas day spent typing in the first programs from the manual. Something about the price of oranges I seem to remember.

What a major pivot point in my life. 30 Years on and I've got kids of my own and we're living a great life style. In no small way, thanks to that little black box.

Sir Clive and everyone involved - Thanks from the bottom of my heart!

ps I have a 4 year old daughter who is teaching her two year old sister how to play cartoons on our old iphone. I wonder if they will have similar memories?