Posts by Phil O'Sophical

This time it's SO REAL: Overcoming the open-source orgasm myth with TODO

Re: Herding cats with long tails

Surely adopters is a more significant metric than contributors? 1000 people working on a project that hardlay anyone uses isn't an indication of much more than faith, certainly not of success.

Devs: Imagine a lithe, lightly-clad, sweaty body and what you'd do with it

Hacker's delight

How long before the twittersphere is aflame with the latest stolen data claiming that some celebrity du jour has gained an extra kilo or three, or hasn't been taking her meds...

El Reg spends One Night in Hell with Queen's Brian May

Re: A nice interest, but ...

Remember View-Master http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View-Master ? You can still buy them. Not sure where mine went, probably in the attic at my Mum's house. We had Grimm's fairy tales reels, Rumpelstiltskin was a particularly evil little bugger in 3D, as I recall.

Caption this: CERN needs pic tags. Serious answers only, kids

Re: "March 1970" looks like ...

It's an early misguided attempt to spin a world-wide web.

Shellshock over SMTP attacks mean you can now ignore your email

Re: Mutt gets so close that I decided to check

When you reply to an email, mutt creates a string by appending the recipient addresses to the sendmail variable, then getting the user's shell (probably bash) to interpret the result.

Sounds dangerous. Sanitizing shell input is notoriously difficult and undependable. There are many tricks to sneak escape characters past filters, especially if multibyte characters are permitted, as they now are in email addresses. A value which may seem like a single multibyte character to some code could be seen as a sequence of 2 or 4 simple characters to code that only handles 8-bit. If one of those bytes happens to be significant to a shell, like a ";" or a "\" then all bets are off.

The only safe approach is never to pass remote user input to a local shell, santiized or not.

BAE points electromagnetic projectile at US Army

If I was in a metal can I think I would be happier with non-explosive munitions as well!

You'd prefer the nuclear reactor?

defend us against a Danish attack

Sounds like a sticky situation.

How iPad’s soft SIM lets Apple pit carriers AGAINST each other

Personally I think the EU should make phone locking illegal.

You don't have to buy a locked phone. Of course, when you buy an unlocked one it is at full price since the carriers can't rely on the lock to recoup their subsidy. By banning locked phones you'd be asking the EU to make us all pay full price, do you really think that will fly? Most people aren't bothered by a 12-month lock if it gets them a new phone cheap. Leave the choice up to the consumer, not the EU nanny.

Sporty in all but name: Peugeot 308 e-THP 110

Re: Yuk

People don't hate BMWs, they just hate the idea of being seen as a BMW driver.

Not a loyal follower of @BritishMonarchy? You missed The QUEEN*'s first Tweet

Who said the Royals don't keep up?

It's only been 30 years since she sent her first email. I wonder if she txts the gr&kids?

Bitcasa bins $10-a-month Infinite storage offer

"our vision of infinite"

Say it all, really. Twits.

Cisco patches three-year-old remote code-execution hole

Re: Encrypted Telnet?

Since when does telnet have encryption keys?!?

When you use the -x option, or the "encrypt" subcommand.

Zuckerberg bombshell: Man married to Chinese woman speaks Chinese in China

Re: Is Old English The Only Real English?

you can't tell the difference between nán 男(male) and nán 難 (difficult)

I have several female friends who would contend that there is no difference between male and difficult...

Trips to Mars may be OFF: The SUN has changed in a way we've NEVER SEEN

Re: Why 400 days for men and 300 days for women?

more body to absorb cosmic rays, and therefore more chance for a mutation

I'm not sure that follows. More mass, so more rays total, but probably the same ratio of cells hit:cells missed, so the damage/mutation rate should be constant.

Computer misuse: Brits could face LIFE IN PRISON for serious hacking offences

Re: "Serious Crime Bill"?

Pedant note: It was from the Frost Report.

Ah, it was indeed, thanks. Co-written by Marty Feldman, I hadn't realised that.

Re: "Serious Crime Bill"?

Hacker: I look down on him because I do serious crime.

Murderer: I look up to him ↑ because he does serious crime; but I look down on him ↓ because he is just a bit of a lad. I don't do very serious crime.

Bit of a lad: I know my place. I look up to them both. But I don't look up to the murderer as much as I look up to then hacker, because he has got real terrorist potential.

Hacker: I have got real terrorist potential, but I don't kill people. So sometimes I look up to the murderer.

Murderer: I still look up to the hacker because although I kill people, I am vulgar. But I am not as vulgar as the lad so I still look down on him.

Lad: I know my place. I look up to them both; but while I am a penniless thieving wanker, I am industrious and trustworthy. Had I the inclination, I could look down on them. But I don't.

We all know our place, but what do we get out of it?

Hacker: I get life in jail.

Murderer: I get 5 years and a feeling of inferiority from the hacker, but a feeling of superiority over the thieving wankers.

Lad: I get stopped and searched. Every day.

(apologies to Python)

Google+ goes TITSUP. But WHO knew? How long? Anyone ... Hello ...

Re: Google+ goes TITSUP. But WHO knew?

Hmm, a computerworld article written by a guy who goes to Google+ to indulge his international cupcake passion. How on earth didn't I know that Google+ was the place to be for such heady delights?

Freescale lassos Ethernet cables around car, calls it 'Internet of Things'

Re: Ethernet to the rare seats... How modern

got to put the rackmount servers somewhere

The cooling would be good...

HPC Wales stretches its reach to Northern Ireland

Times change

This sort of remote arrangement isn't new, when I was at Queen's University in Belfast at the end of the 70's any "supercomputing" needs were handled by submitting jobs to the CDC 7600 at Daresbury in Cheshire. You could burn up a month's computer allowance in minutes. Today I probably have more computing power on my mobile phone!

Lords take revenge on revenge porn publishers

Having two elected houses is pointless, I agree, but a second house with powers of examination and question, and suitably-limited control, is a useful failsafe for the "I'll say anything to get re-elected next time" gang in the Commons. Having membership of that second house based on other things, such as merit or heredity, isn't that unreasonable. It gives them reasons to look at laws differently, and so to see different things. So what if they lean towards things which make sure the country will still be a reasonable place for their children to inherit, isn't that pretty much what we all want? It balances out those who want power for their own sake (yes, Mr. Bliar, I'm looking at you). The Lords is in many ways far less a waste of space than many of the 622 seats in the Commons.

Satya Nadella's $84.3m pay packet: Did he use the 'female superpower' to get it?

Re: Average?

$35,293. Is that the average miserable employee’s salary, or the miserable average employee’s salary?

Mars needs women, claims NASA pseudo 'naut: They eat less

Re: all female crew...

crew-on-crew webcam action

I'll try to resist any dykes/canals jokes. Well, almost...

In any case, given the time delay involved.

"Show us your t*ts"

...time passes...

"too late, I'm already finished"

Luscious LOHAN t-shirts fly into Vulture Central

Re: "we promised that these rewards would be exclusive to our Kickstarter campaign"

Keep them in their original wrapping, then when the SPB lands a man on Mars in a few y̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ decades time they'll be worth a fortune..

Martha Lane Fox: Yeuch! The Internet is made by men?!?

Re: er

doesn't she actually have a point re voting?

No.

If turnout at an election is, say, 50% it indicates that 50% of the potential electorate don't care enough about who wins to actually vote. That's a lot of people who consider their vote to be effectively worthless. There's a clear opportunity there for someone to make it worth something, i.e. "I'll give you £10 to vote for my friend". In some marginal constituencies even 500 votes could make a difference, and at £5k it would be easily affordable to many potential candidates

The downside today is that with a secret ballot, paying for votes is risky. Someone could take your tenner & vote for whoever they want, you have no guarantee that you've got what you paid for,

Online voting completely changes that. You can stand over the person and watch them click the "right" button on your phone, you get a guarantee that you've bought their vote.It's every bit as open to fraud as postal voting.

Want a more fuel efficient car? Then redesign it – here's how

Re: Turn off the engine while downhill!

Manually turning off the engine in a moving car has to be one of the stupidest suggestions in this whole thread.

Firstly because it's pointless, if you're travelling downhill in gear, on a closed throttle, in a modern car there will be no fuel injected anyway, the ECU will see to that.

Secondly, when you're in charge of a ton and a half of steel travelling at several tens of MPH you need to be ready for any unexpected situation, and that means being able to accelerate or steer rapidly as well as brake suddenly. You don't want to be fumbling for clutch pedal and ignition key and trying to restart in an emergency.

Re: Cruise control

Later, with ABS disengaged

I'm curious about what car that was? A switch to disengage traction control systems is standard, but I've never seen a modern car that allows you to turn off the ABS.

Re: Cruise control

Better to maintain the same throttle setting up the hill, and let the car's speed naturally drop from 70 to 65 or 60 rarely even less.

I've driven behind you. Fscking infuriating, either I slow down to keep a safety gap, or I pull out to overtake, just as you decide to accelerate back to 70 on the dowhill. If you can't maintain a constant speed in motorway traffic get a bus pass.

Re: Replace anything with "Lucas" written on it

If you're only getting mid 30's to 40MPG you need to look at the way you're driving it.

Oh, I know that :)

It's a 2.2, lots of torque and great fun when you have a heavy right foot, and my consumption figures are pretty consistent with other owners. I could drive it like a nun and get better, I'm sure, but if I'd wanted to do that I'd have bought a Polo BlueMotion.

Re: Replace anything with "Lucas" written on it

our current car returns 33-35 MPG in UK which changes to 40-44 MPG in France

Funny, my turbodiesel Mondeo gives me a consistent 36MPG in France, but usually over 40 in the UK. I generally put it down to the lower M-way speedlimits.

As to road comparisons I fear that you are comparing expensive French toll autoroutes with British A-roads. Once your'e off the autoroute and motoring on ordinary routes nationales or departmentales you'll find that they're every bit as crap as UK roads in many places. It's like train comparisons, people compare TGVs to UK commuter trains and claim "French trains are better". Commute on a local TER and you'll have a very different view!

Still, for really bad roads you should try a Californian freeway; potholed concrete-slab bumpity-bumpity-bump hell. I've seen country lanes with better surfaces.

Carry On Cosmonaut: Willful Child is a poor taste Star Trek parody

Re: Flip beat me to it...

Picard was such an insecure, self-doubting wimp that I never understood how he made it much beyond lieutenant, never mind to starship captain. As to romantic encounters, he's the sort of guy who was probably a virgin on his wedding night, and still turned off the lights before he got undressed.

Linux systemd dev says open source is 'SICK', kernel community 'awful'

Re: Oh please...

systemd is awful and one of the worst things that Linux has ever got saddled with in the last 20 years!

Let's face it, every Linux distro team has it's own opinion on how to do system management, and as the saying goes: opinions are like farts, everyone has them but you only like your own. Linux system management is a shambolic, inconsistent mess. Just my opinion, of course...

TEEN RAMPAGE: Kids in iPhone 6 'Will it bend' YouTube 'prank'

Re: Conflicted

told him to prove that it wasn't breakable.

Logic fail. You can't prove a negative.

'Google is NOT the gatekeeper to the web, as some claim'

Re: Interesting data on Bendgate

The bendgate complaints came from people who sat on phones in their hip pocket. Such a phone was probably quite warm, especially if the sitter was on the large side. Have the testers considered whether prolonged warming of the phone, with resultant softening of the glue holding display/battery/etc in place might make them more bendy? Rather like a bar of chocolate, the break/bend point will be very different if the bar has been sat on in your pocket for an hour.

Turn OFF your phone or WE'LL ALL DI... live? Europe OKs mobes, tabs non-stop on flights

Re: Don't get too upset

They still asked us to remove personal headphones during the safety announcement and, amusingly, to keep a firm grip on our devices during takeoff.

Don't get too upset

Airlines have been trialling this for a while. I was on a BA flight from Heathrow to SFO on Wednesday, and they announced that they had experimental wifi and phone service on board, active above 10,000 feet. They were upfront that it was experimental, might or might not work well, and would like feedback from anyone who tried it.

They were also quite clear that voice wasn't an option. SMS/MMS/data only, Skype and the like were blocked on the wifi. Any time airlines have surveyed passengers about this, the one clear result is that people don't want to have to listen to "guess where I'm calling you from" for hours on end at 30k feet.

I can't comment on how well it worked. The wifi to the internal login server worked fine, but I wasn't about to pay 6GBP for an hour of trying to surf the web, and I don't seem to belong to any of the partners that T-Mobile work with for roaming.

The most useful bit was the announcement that we didn't need to switch tablets and e-readers off during takeoff and landing.

How the FLAC do I tell MP3s from lossless audio?

Re: This calls for a test

poke their eyeballs out

Well, the customary practice is called a double-blind test, but I don't think that's what they have in mind. They usually just make sure that the people setting up the test don't know which source is which so they don't give subconscious clues.

Then again, for El Reg, who knows...

Re: Missing the obvious test

What it does do is stop your connections oxidizing.

It's also soft, so sprung connectors make better contact, but it only works if both connectors are gold of a decent thickness. A super-thin layer of gold on one connnctor is pointless, and if the other is a standard nickel-plated one there's even some chance of electrolytic action making the nickel side oxidise faster, if there's moisture around. If you're building stuff to milspec, gold contacts have advantages. For domestic hifi it's just bling, and a way to relieve suckers of their money.

Re: Digital Clone - billat29

showed a CD with a hole in the data area still playing perfectly.

Anyone remember the TV demo, I think it was Kieran wossname on Tomorrow's World, spreading strawberry jam on a CD and showing that it still played perfectly? Impressive, but it still made me wince...

Re: Titles are for toffs.

Ah, that brings back memories, of the first time I ever heard a CD. I walked into the lab and was handed a set of headphones (Sennheiser or some such) and told "listen to this". "My name is Luka", the original with just her voice, none of the remixed backing music crap. No tape hiss, no LP crackles. Stunning.

Missing the obvious test

When someone claims they can hear the difference, ask them if they have oxygen-free speaker cables, and a gold-plated litz-wound mains cable.

If they have, then you can safely ignore their opinion on MP3 compression.

until something much better comes along.

You're planning on getting new ears?

Tearful LOHAN Playmonaut bids adiós to Spain

Re: Carnet

and does launching them into space count as re-exporting them?

Poverty? Pah. That doesn't REALLY exist any more

Re: The measure of Poverty

They are neither pre- not post- tax, nor are they gross or net.

For the US I think the more important thing is that the measures are before any welfare aid intended to alleviate the problem, but in Europe that is taken into account first. The US 25% of median could therefore be closer to the European 60% than it may seem.

'Kim Kardashian snaps naked selfies with a BLACKBERRY'. *Twitterati gasps*

Re: is it just me....

Considering recent experiments, reptilian sex in space can even be fatal.

India vs America: Earthling invaders in race to MARS

India is searching for life by looking for methane.

Would this be indications of an ancient Martian curry shop?

Home Depot: 56 million bank cards pwned by malware in our tills

Re: Malware proteced payment device....

For the avoidance of doubt, the falsie I found was permanently taken out of circulation!

Yes, after I posted I realised it could have been seen as a slur on your morals. Not my intention, sorry!

Re: Malware proteced payment device....

Counterfeits aren't quite the same, since it's often possible to pass them on to a person or machine that isn't so picky. Of course that raises an interesting moral question, since people who wouldn't dream of knowingly passing on malware often show no reluctance to circulate a dodgy coin. Plausible deniability, maybe? There's probably a psychology PhD thesis in there somewhere...

Why VSAT? These sort of systems used to work just fine on X.25, many still do (look at how many till and ATM reciepts have unmistakable X.121 addresses printed somewhere). Not an internet connection in sight.

Re: XP based self checkouts

And probably hadn't had an update or security fix applied since they day they were installed. Which is much more likely to be a problem than the simple fact that they're running XP, which was still a supported OS at the time the malware was alleged to be introduced.

Getting to the BOTTOM of the great office seating debate

Amazing

So many companies working so hard to encourage you to work from home...