Posts by ja

Aereo has to pay TV show creators? Yes. This isn't rocket science

Curious about signals received in International Waters

What if they place antennas on a ship located outside of US territorial waters? Or outside of British or other European territory?

Google barge erection hypegasm latest - What's in the box?

Trash Barges

They are going to dump old servers into the deepest parts of the Ocean. The Marianas Trench in the Pacific and Dildo Tickle, in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland.

That earth-shattering NSA crypto-cracking: Have spooks smashed RC4?

Re: Look at NSA-approved crypto

If they can break it, they must assume that someone else will be able to soon enough for it to be a problem. Remember Venona?

There seem to be a lot of flies in this ointment. Have they broken commercial cyphers, are they leveraging exploits or are they attacking important traffic by brute-force? Probably a little bit from each column.

Secret ROYAL BABY birth VIDEO leaked! (And other malware scams)

Royal Succession changes to be challenged in Quebec.

The separatist governing party in Quebec is challenging Canada's acceptance of the change to the Succession Act. They just want to get attention. I suggest a squadron of ground attack aircraft in Goose Bay, NL would be an appropriate response. Have the RAF got any ?

Boffins flip optics to make booster-free superfast fibre

Aussie National Pastime

I heard a debate on the CBC today about whether Cricket or Baseball was the superior sport. The Canadian comic pointed out that Baseball is considered "The National Pastime" in Canada and the US while in the UK and in Oz he claimed the national pastime is "tooth decay".

In truth all four countries enjoy their beer. US/Canada cold ones, UK warm ones and Oz it's fortified with crocodile blood.

Boffins, Tunnel Tigers and Scotland's world-first power mountain

Re: "photographs are forbidden for fear terrorists could make use of them,"

Quick, somebody run down and check the BBMF Lancaster is secure and I'll call someone in Hamilton to double the guard on the other remaining flyable Lanc at the Warplane Heritage Museum.

Climate-cooling effect 'stronger than volcanoes' is looking solid

Re: So in other words (warning, Heretical thinking within)

And none of those events had any effect whatsoever on life in suburbia.

Most scientists understand that all they are doing is measuring a very large collection of phenomena and they spend their lives trying to explain the complex interactions. It is reasonable for them to conclude that the effects of human activities are beginning to have a significant impact on major aspects of life on earth. The measurements are there for you to review and the community is fully open to reasoned discussion and disagreement. You do have to be prepared to make a significant effort and simple denials do not measure up.

The scurrying monkeys are burning more and very different stuff than they did for millions of years. Our extinction will not destroy the planet itself. The planet will heal itself or not heal itself, that is of no relevance to us. It is reasonably certain that it will eventually be destroyed as the sun itself burns out and expands to a red dwarf or goes nova or whatever.

Re: So what's changed?

Perhaps the chemicals are present in sufficient concentration to compensate for a limited quantity of CO2. Instead of treating the emerging science as a victory or defeat for one ideology or the other, perhaps we should continue relevant research and use the additional leeway to develop sensible plans for control of our most serious emissions.

Nah. The simpletons are in charge (here in Canada anyway) so we'll treat it as a victory for simpletonia and charge ahead converting Alberta to a giant tailings pond. (I so love the English term "slag 'eap" ).

Re: Green Tax Refund

There are quite enough children starving without any encouragement from your government. Stay out of it.

Re: Nordic spruce

Your financial sector was always more important than your crappy manufacturing. You wouldn't have survived the war without the Commonwealth backing you up with manpower and the Americans supplying the guns and butter.

Android FOUND ON TABLETS inscribed with WORD OF GOD

Technology and fathe

I don't understand all the references to Newtonian this and that. Just need an answer to a single question:

How do you get WIFI and browser support for the Apple NEWTON ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/linux_32.png

Researcher sets up illegal 420,000 node botnet for IPv4 internet map

Re: ZOMG Running out of IPv4 addresses!!!!

What about Nortel /Northern Telecom/Northern Electric and the Bell Northern Research 47 network?

Elon Musk: 'Fudged' NYT article cost Tesla $100m

Re: Who cares?

I can tell you've never driven in a Canadian winter. Gas mileage decreases in the cold, although not to the extent that battery efficiency does. It surprises me that a modern vehicle doesn't monitor performance and direct the operator to the nearest charging station. Perhaps the reviewer doesn't trust the systems that are there to advise.

Anger grows over the death of Aaron Swartz

Re: Comparing Turing to Swartz? Complete FAIL!

Turing did (arguably) save civilization from Hitler.

Not psychopaths

They are sociopaths. That makes their authority more dangerous.

Why 'slow light' might just save the Internet

Re: Not much I wouldn't think

We are moving into town and the land-line, TV and IP connection will come in on fibre. The Canadian telco's are really pushing fibre to the home these days. I believe the Americans are doing that as well. What are you up to in Blighty and Europe? Is this another UXO opportunity or perhaps make-work for archeologists?

We can't be that short of green electricity as the big data centre companies aren't falling all over themselves to locate near sources of vast land-locked supplies of hydro-power. I haven't seen anyone offering to build data centres in Labrador yet and there is at least 2,000 MW of undeveloped capacity at Gull Island on the Churchill River. It will be far cheaper to operate in Labrador as the major expense is transmission rather than generation and the ambient temperature is several degrees cooler than New England or Europe. If a customer were to get involved early enough in the design, it should be possible to dedicate multiple generators at multiple dam sites to supply power. That should reduce or eliminate the cost of dedicated UPS. Labrador is remote yes, but it is only a few hundred kilometers from major trans-atlantic cables and it lies close to great circle tracks from the US mid-west to Europe.

Experts troll 'biggest security mag in the world' with DICKish submission

Re: 7TB USB Key?

That's bouquet!

Thanks a bunch smart-*ss

You have just invented the artificial lawyer (note to self, find words with mnemonic DILDO*). Apple will have more monety than there is matter in the gravitational complexity model. By Jove, I think he's got it!

* I live ten miles south of 'South Dildo, NL, Canada.'

Lockheed bags $454m to tool up Pentagon's Cyber Crime Center

Posse Comitatus violation or actual military requirement.

Doesn't this 'cyber crime' fighting violate Posse Comitatus ?

I think the emphasis here is on the wrong threats. There are certainly potential enemies in the form of foreign states that need to be countered with military capability. The potential for a broad attack against national infrastructure (communications networks, energy utilities or even transportation systems) is at a different level than organized crime engaged in identity theft or financial fraud.

Cops and soldiers both need similar tools (e.g. firearms) but the employment doctrine is very different.

Greenpeace calls out cloud names on green claims

Re: Nuclear

Is there any energy source anywhere that has not been through a nuclear chain reaction somewhere ?

Hydrogen, obviously but you need energy to separate it so you depend on nuclear directly or on wind or solar, which are caused by the sun (our giant fusion reactor) or fossil fuels which were originally created by photosynthesis (the sun).

Nuclear is the ONLY energy source.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/go_32.png

Top Gun 2: It's happening - and the choice of star is stirring controversy

Premise failure

So you have the whole plot revolving around two naval aviators going nuts because somebody cancelled the Air Force's bomber project ?

Why ? The US Navy is a serious rival to the USAF and this permeates the culture (e.g. at 1990's Ottawa Intl Air Show - Me: Who has the larger air force? Navy or Air Force? Naval Pilot: They do, but they fly mostly transport planes.)

RCAF Brat

Whistleblower: Decade-long Nortel hack 'traced to China'

Lots of Engineering Workstations

The company developed a lot of different systems on Engineering Workstations from Sun, HP and others. The network was very large and there was a serious effort at keeping out the barbarians. When SATAN first came out, it was announced that unauthorized use of SATAN and similar products in the corporate network would result in immediate dismissal.

I can't speak for the place after the late 1990's but this was not a network built solely on Microsoft technologies. Developers would not have tolerated the performance and reliability of MS file servers of the period. Software was developed and integrated on Unix-based workstation and delivered to stand-alone systems for testing. Production code was always controlled, built and delivered in ISO 9001 approved processes from about 1996 onward.

I would not rule out the use of traditional forms of human intelligence.

Nortel was never a 'telco'

The company was an equipment manufacturer created as a subsidiary of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada well before the invention of the transistor. For many years, it built Canadian versions of Western Electric designs under license. In the 1970's the company began the design of a digital switching system which became the DMS-100 system. Delivery of DMS-100 coincided with the breakup of the AT&T monopoly in the US and the company had its first growth spurt.

After much grunting and groaning the company filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States and other countries.

Domesday Book put on touchscreen at Bletchley Park

Toss out the CRAP books

I finally chucked out my copy of Spycatcher. Its only value was to get Maggie T's knickers knotted up.

I remember going to the donated book auction held to raise money for The Ottawa Public Library .. there were hundreds of copies of it for sale. Some people are unwilling to landfill ... landfill.

Falklands, Cardiff lie beneath track of rogue Phobos-Grunt

Phobos-Grunt to devastate Midlands ?

"However, it's not quite time to flee to Scotland, or indeed the Midlands, yet."

I beg to differ. My ancestors fled London, Yorkshire, Ireland and Dorset over the past two hundred years. There have always been good reasons to flee the UK.

Airship 'Sky Tugs' ordered from Lockheed for Canadian oilfields

Are you talkin about the AVRO VZ-9V Avrocar?

More like a modified Hoover than a modified Otter. Beautiful concept but not quite wacky enough to keep the US DoD interested for enough billion$.

So we started off building Mozzies and Lancs for you Brits and wind up building Sabre engines (Orenda) for the RAF and RCAF before inventing the long lamented CF-105 Arrow. All this in a building originally called "Victory Aircraft" in Malton, Ontario.

Fortunately sanity prevailed and today we have ... the Metro Toronto Convention Centre ... instead of actual industry.

You are on the right track though, skirts are intended for lifting!