Posts by Phil O'Sophical

Big tech firms holding wages down? Marx was right all along, I tell ya!

Re: Competition

to be avoided at all costs.

But in a free market, wouldn't that make avoiding competition a competitive activity?

Sony on the ropes after Moody's downgrade to junk

Re: How the Mighty Have Fallen

the 50% excess in price

I'm curious, which TV 'range' was that? A couple of weeks ago I was shopping for a new TV (42") and for a comparable feature set there was hardly any price difference between the Sony, LG and (slightly larger) Samsung (a few euros at most). The ones that were noticeably cheaper were Philips, and the badge-engineered stuff. The Panasonic plasma has a nice picture, but at 2x the power consumption you could feel the heat radiating from it, and I'm not convinced plasma has a future, even with its slightly better contrast level.

I bought the Sony. It replaces a 10-year-old CRT set that still gives a good picture, and is about to be donated to a charity that jumped at the chance to have it. I certainly couldn't bring myself to take it to the tip.

Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors

Unfortunately Tony Sale died a few years ago

The article is about Tony Carroll, not the late Tony Sale.

MEPs: Specialised services? Oui. 2-speed internet? Nein

"impair the quality of internet access services"

Since internet bandwidth is finite, doesn't any prioritization of one category of traffic naturally imply some level of impairment to other traffic? I do have to wonder how many of these Muppets Elected to Parliament would even know what an RFC was, let alone have read RFC1633 and its successors.

Achtung NIMBYs! BT splurges extra £50m on fibre broadband rollout

It should mean 100% fibre last mile

Why? Unless you're going to fit fibre ports onto all your home appliances, at least some of the last 100m are going to be copper pair. Why should it matter if its 10m or 500m, if you get the speed you need?

Because the internet would be in black and white and cost you £100 per month.

And you'd only be allowed to connect your government-supplied Sinclair Spectrum to it.

French drug dealers regretfully announce 'temporary closure'

Re: Allô ?

It is bizarre to see "shit" used in headlines in newspapers, it has become the usual term for cannabis resin in France, so much so that the quotes aren't used, so you just see headline references to Le prix du shit etc.

Microsoft seeks patent for blade server chassis

They may regret offending the telcos

I don't see anthing there that hasn't been available in VME, cPCI and ATCA for years, and the telco guys that use ATCA and derivatives have plenty of money and clout to push back on this.

We really do need a "sit back with the popcorn" icon.

US card scammers pull $2m petrol heist

Banks are covered as it's a chip and pin transaction

Not in the US. Gas station pumps ask for your postcode, which they presumably compare to the billing address, but I've never seen one that takes the card PIN, chip & PN is still very rare. That's why skimming is still a useful attack, all they need is the card number. No-one in the US ever checks card signatures or names, so fake cards are easy to use.

German frau reports for liver transplant clutching bottle of vodka

I need new glasses

hospital's suspended head of transplants

At first I read that as "the hospital has suspended head transplants", and had a brief "wow, I didn't know transplant surgery was that advanced" moment.

Candy Crush dev stuffs EU 'candy' trademark down gob

Re: Bit close, maybe.

Bonbon Bash?

CERN boffins fire ANTI-HYDROGEN BEAM

Re: Antimatter information that is newsworthy:

Can still create pulses.

True enough, but that still won't work for the "application" (I use the word loosely) described here!

Re: Antimatter information that is newsworthy:

try the experiment.

OK. Connect battery (DC) to transformer. Result, nothing. Transformers don't work on DC. Fail at step 1.

Total bollux.

'We don't use UPS. If we did we'd have huge UPSs and tiny computers'

Re: Argument seems illogical

Batteries? Sounds more like a case for flywheel UPS. Big demand for a very short time to tide them over brief glitches. I've seen a synchrotron facility with > 1MW in flywheel UPS in a small room.

Brit boffin tests LETTUCE as wire for future computers

Lettuce?

Have they any idea how difficult it is to keep rabbits out?

Ancient carving of 'first human-built holy place' = Primitive Vulture Central

Re: There are 60 rooms at the potbelly hill

they dont immediately recognise its function, reach for the cop out of religion.

Isn't that what everybody did for everything 5000 years ago, though? If you can't eat it, worship it.

EU pulls out antitrust probe, prods Euro pay-TV contracts

Re: What "restrictions"?

these territorial restrictions are not enforcable upon the end consumers of the broadcasts.

Not directly, perhaps, but in practice that's irrelevant. If Sky's contract with, say, Warner Bros, says that they won't sell subscriptions outside the UK, and if Sky decides that they will start selling such subscriptions, either from choice of because the EU requires them to do so, there's nothing to stop Warner Bros declining to sell Sky their progammes, or putting up the price 10x to cover the extra audience.

The EU can protest all it likes, but unless both parties to the contract are in the EU they can do sweet FA about it.

It would be nice if such supplier/broadcaster contracts were based on subscriber numbers, irrespective of location, but then you run into "premiere" issues: Broadcasters sometimes pay an extra fee to get "first showing" rights, and the suppliers like to sell those rights per country. If they can only sell them once, on an EU, basis, they'll make less money out of them, and so they'll look to get it back somehow.

As usual, EU atempts to create an unnecessarily-level playing field could simply increase the costs for everyone, for the benefit of the relatively few people who would really gain. But that won't matter, because it will be best for this imaginary social entity called "Europe".

Re: Tight beam

Sky's "solution" to this is to configure their newest satellite to only broadcast their UK service to a more tightly focused region,

1. Sky doesn't have any satellites, it rents broadcast capacity from SES/Astra.

2. Sky doesn't use the tighbeam transponders for their encrypted transmissions, it is the BBC/ITV companies with the free-to-air broadcasts who do so.

Sky restricts coverage purely by where it sells subscriptions, it is the public broadcasters who chose to limit coverage to the UK only, and there is nothing in EU law which could make them do otherwise.

Tesla is on fire! Model S car sales are red hot – just like their chargers (yow)

Re: Power cables

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2014-01-15/

Re: Tesla 1, Luddites 0

Next up, why the solar panel industry in the US is showing almost exponential growth despite the fact they are "impractical".

I think PT Barnum had an answer to that one.

Vulnerability leaves Cisco small biz routers wide open to attack

He gave the journalist enough information to write the story.

I have to say that, having seen his "oh aren't I such a clever dick" slides, the hacker does come across as a somewhat juvenile tit. There are ways to write a report to get taken seriously, this isn't one of them.

Parisian cabbies smash up Uber-booked rival ride

Re: the tourist tour

In my experience a Parisian taxi driver who takes an indirect route isn't trying to fleece the customers, he's just lost. There is no equivalent of the London "knowledge", give a Parisian driver an address and he's likely to ask you where it is, assuming he speaks intelligible French anyway (most seem to be immigrants). On one memorable occasion the taxi drove past my destination three times before finally dropping me nearby and suggesting I ask a passer-by which building I needed (it was only later that I found out we'd driven past it several times already). He still managed to be upset about not getting a tip. Like so much in France, some decent competition could only improve things.

THOUSANDS of UK.gov Win XP PCs to face April hacker storm... including boxes at TAXMAN, NHS

That would first require such a person to stand for public office, and we're not that stupid.

Google is developing flight 'price comparison thing' with us, claims Ryanair boss O'Leary

Re: Ryanair - a mistake you don't make twice

> Would rather walk.

Yep. I'll pay more to fly another airline, if it lets me avoid Aer O'Flot.

Bloke hews plywood Raspberry Pi tablet

Re: "it needed to be sufficiently innocuous for in-flight use"

and at least you can open it up...

Hubble 'scope snaps 600-LIGHT-YEAR-wide pic of star-spawning nebula

Stunning photo

How can anyone look at a picture like that, and not want to find some way, some day, to get out there and take a closer look ourselves? I know Einstein's physics says no, but...

You... (Sigh). You store our financials in a 'Clowds4U' account?

@Don Dumb Re: IT can be a pain in the arse too

Your housemate (and presumably yourself) haven't heard of usb pen drives then?

I have, they are a gigantic security hole and a useful way to store information that can be easily lost and isn't backed up.

And you think that emaiing company information to a private gmail account is better?!. USB keys can (and should) be encrypted, and backed-up. Our company IT policy is simple and strict, external storage devices must be encrypted, and sending confidential info to non-company mailboxes is a disciplinary offence which could lead to diismissal.

Sooner or later there are going to be some high-profile sackings of people who flout their company's IT rules. Maybe then people will take this seriously.

@bailey86 Re: IT can be a pain in the arse too

IT don't like Macs - usually entrenched Windows only types - and simply can not accept that Macs are by far a better tool for many people who need to get work done.

If they really are a far better tool for that purpose, then you'll obviously have no trouble persuading the CFO to authorize funding and training for IT to support such a fine way to improve business performance, no?

If you can't persuade the CFO to finance the better tools, then the problem is clearly with either you or the CFO. In neither case is it IT's fault.

(and in case you're wondering, I'm not in the IT department. I'm in a department that uses Unix boxes in a mostly Windows shop. We not only persuaded IT to support them, we even convinced their paranoid security folks to change their VPN tools and policy so we could also work from home. It can done, with a good argument and competent people).

Pesky protesters FORCE GOOGLE STAFF INTO THE SEA

A boat?

There's something very odd about this story. Redwood City isn't anywhere near MountainView, especially in the morning commute period, and in any case it would be quicker to get there by riding Caltrain than to use a boat from the city. Not as nice as a private boat, of course.

Sony seeks mojo reboot with 147-inch 'honey-you-can't-afford-me' 4K home projector

Re: why?

surely the reflected ones will have picked up some dirt from the wall ?

Hmm, I see a paint marketing opportunity there, to go with the 24ct gold leads for the projector...

Block The Pirate Bay? Arrr, me hearties, new P2P client could sink that plan

Re: Piracy or not

liberated alternative to DNS

The problem I see with this is that these new protocols wil be used by a relative minority of users, many of whom are non-technical. They won't get the widespread use/testing that real DNS does. That will make them very appealing as targets for hackers wanting to spread viruses and trojans.

Even if the protocols from reasonably trustworthy sources are themselves secured, and we know that security is only as good as the users in any case, people will get into the habit of assuming that this is the expected way to get access to content that is otherwise blocked. It won't be long before we see phishing scams advertising other such tricks to get around blocking, and which are designed only to create botnets. Then, of course, the authorities will get in on the act setting up "fake DNS" arrangements to catch the people trying to bypass the blockers to get to child porn, etc.

It's like tax law, the more complex you make it, the more loopholes there are. It's a race that can't be won, but politicians are as blind to that as they are to tax problems. The idea that less regulation might actually fix the problem is unthinkable to them.

I've seen the future of car radio - and DAB isn't in it

Re: Sat radio

hundreds of channels, reliably.

Hundres of channels, each with a repeating 20 song playlist :(

It's also not reliable. Fine on a wide open freeway, but it drops out every time you go under a bridge, and when driving through forested areas on country roads it's up & down as often as the aforementioned tarts' knickers. Unusable.

The service isn't cheap at a shade over £27 a month

So, that makes DAB about £27 a month cheaper?

You get what you pay for, frankly for £27/month I'd prefer to have a decent 3G data plan and be able to stream anything I wanted from any internet station over my bluetooth-equipped phone, along with email and browsing when required. If I'm only going to get "curated" channels and on-demand music it would seem better, and cheaper, just to have my own MP3 collection with me. As you say, the accoustic environment of a car means that decent VBR MP3s are plenty good enough.

This system does sound like a new, improved, version of the Sirius XM satellite stuff in the US, and my experience of that in rental cars is that it's akin to having an erratic MP3 player loaded with someone else's playlists.

Planning to rob a Windows ATM? Ditch the sledgehammer and bring a USB STICK

Re: "PLANNING TO ROB A WINDOWS ATM? DITCH THE SLEDGEHAMMER..."

Round here they just fill the ATM box with butane, and throw in a spark.

Naked Aussie gets wedged in washing machine

Re: In a whirl

Surely that will depend on whether the observer is here or there?

Two white dwarfs and superdense star. Yup, IDEAL for gravity lab in the sky - boffins

the story of Galileo dropping two balls of different weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa

I prefer the Apollo 15 version, where one of the astronauts dropped a feather and a hammer together, on the moon. Both, or course, hit the ground at the same time.

Mars One's certain-death space jolly shortlists 1,000 wannabe explorers

Re: Surely most of these are Trolls

cutting yourself off from everything you know is a serious decision.

A huge part of the world's population lives in communities not much larger than 40 people, and manages tolerably well "cut off" like that. Our budding martians would be less isolated in many ways, since they could receive digital communications (email, films) from Earth. Granted, aiming for 300-500 people would be a better longterm goal.

Ten classic electronic calculators from the 1970s and 1980s

Re: I remember all of these...

I have to admit that I can't remember which Casio(s) we tried, but at that time TI was the only manufacturer (at least among those affordable to sixth formers) which had the feature.

I've just tried on my desktop systems. The Windows 7 calculator shows proper precedence, the Gnome 2 calculator on Solaris doesn't, so they still aren't all consistent!

Re: My smartphone emulates my beloved HP41

There's a TI5x emulator for Android as well, emulates the TI 58/59 family.

I highly recommend a read of Ken Shirriff's blog on reverse engineering and emulating the origiinal Sinclair Scientific, as well:

http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html

I remember all of these...

Didn't get to own many of them, though. I still have my (built from kit) Sinclair Scientific. my original (LED) TI-30, and a TI-51-III programmable. Also a later LCD TI one, can't remember it's model. They all still work.

Although the article mentions HP's love affair with RPN it doesn't mention the other big classroom disagreement of the late 70s/early 80s: the Casio sequential operation versus TI's "real algebraic" operation.

Enter 2*3+8*4+3*7 on a Casio and it would perform each operation as encountered, so the result would be 413.

A TI calculator would respect associativity, and 'stack' partial results, thus giving you 59. On a Casio you'd have to explicitly enter it as (2*3)+(8*4)+(3*7) to get the "algebraically correct" result. Oh, the arguments about which was better... :)

How the NSA hacks PCs, phones, routers, hard disks 'at speed of light': Spy tech catalog leaks

Re: Impressive

assuming everything on NSA/GCHQ's works as simple as this article makes it out to be

Well, that's the thing, isn't it. Some of it is pretty far-fetched, if I worked in the NSA this is exactly the kind of catalogue that I would "leak" to potential adversaries, as disinformation.

Has anyone analyzed this to see if there's a pattern in terms of companies/systems that are not mentioned? Maybe those are the ones we should really be wary of.

Heigh-ho! Tinfoil hats on, everyone

Apple wants sales ban on Samsung smartphones nobody is selling

"colorably different"?

colorably? Apple are even inventing their own words now so they can sue people? It's getting more Through The Looking Glass every day

British Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing receives Royal pardon

Re: What A Crock of SHIT

It was a stupid fucking law, written and enforced by ignorant assholes,

True, as seen by today's standards, but it was less clear at the time. 20/20 hindsight is always easy.

There are several problems with rewriting laws to make them fit modern standards, not least the one of compensation. A blanket pardon for any crime would simply have the no-win-no-fee ambulance chasing scum salivating at the thought of the money they could make by suing the taxpayer for all the past convictions. It wouldn't do those who were convicted much good.

Then, of course, you have the problem of laws that went the other way. What about things which are crimes today, but weren't crimes 100 years ago, like racial or other discrimination? Would you suggest posthumously prosecuting everyone who used to have a "no Irish need apply" statement on their job adverts, etc.?

Realistically all we can do is accept that things were different then, and make an effort to educate our children about our mistakes, so that they learn not to repeat them.

Re: What A Crock of SHIT

Go on then, tell us how they ignored the constitution? We don't have one. Yanks have one:

Wrong. You can have a consitution without having it all on one bit of paper headed "Ye Olde Conftitution". There is plenty of information about the British Constitiution on the web, for example:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/whatis/uk-constitution

DisARMed: Geeksphone's next high-end mobe to pack Intel x86 inside

Re: Not another smart phone? @ted frater

:Shame your phone doesn't come with a spell checker.

He's a farmer, not a Hogwarts pupil.

Or did you mean a spelling checker?

It's the dream: Bill Gates chucks cash at WEE-IN-YOUR-PHONE project

Re: Financial crisis coming?

Pay per shit?

Or maybe Pay As You Go?

COW a-BUNG HER, dude! 'Secret Santa' Bill Gates buys lass a HEIFER

Re: Cows trump Rococo in my book.

looked at eradicating entire diseases

And tackling the serious but less fashionable ones, like malaria, which needs lots of money but probably isn't going to deliver the Nobel prizes that AIDS and cancer researchers hope for. Bill has his fame/notoriety already, he can truly concentrate on "bang for the buck" in purely health terms.

Oi, bank manager. Only you've got my email address - where're these TROJANS coming from?

Re: A number of years ago....

How do you know it gets lots of spam then? You have to login and check it periodically, or you have it forwarded to your account.

No, there is no such account. The spam gets picked up by the catchall filter for "all unassigned addresses to mydomain". Nothing on my computer has any record of that email address.

Re: A number of years ago....

Over 50% of the spam I get is received at [e-mail] despite me having used that address precisely once, many years ago, to order wine online for a family party. It doesn't exist in any of my contacts lists or history.

Why UK.gov's £1.2bn fibre broadband rollout is a bumbling FLOP

Re: BT shambles

Fibre to an ugly cabinet in the street, and using the old copper to the home, is a dead end

Why? Are you going to run fibre between all the devices inside your house? If you're OK with Ethernet over copper for the last 10-20 metres, why is it such a problem to have the last < 1km on copper, given the extra cost of FTTH?