Posts by Fluffy Bunny

NIST told to grow a pair and kick NSA to the curb

Seriously?

Where is NIST going to get these experienced cryptographers. Remember, the broader cryptographic community are really just amateur wannabes. They have to get them from the (ex?) NSA and (ex?) KGB cryptography community.

Data retention saves Australia from TERROR says Labor MP

Re: In a surprise move!

You misunderstand the situation. The Greens would do just as much spying, it would just be a different target - that knock on the door in the middle of the night because somebody at your house Googled electric heaters.

NBN Co execs: No FTTN product until 2015

Good engineering

When Concorde first flew, a jounalist asked the chief engineer why it cost a billion to develop. After all, it just took off and went through the sound barrier. No drama or anything. The engineer explained, as if to a moron, that is what cost a billion.

So now we have a bunch of people, most of whom don't understand anything about engineering and not much more about telecommunications, asking "how hard could it be"? The answer is that it takes a year to do it so we don't kill anybody, nor even expose them to asbestos.

10Gbps over crumbling COPPER: Boffins cram bits down telco wire

Fibre will always beat copper, except when you have to pay for it. I have installed fibre networks and I know about the cost.

Re: Dumb concept - stop being lazy and just run the fiber to the home

Not lazy - cost effective. Somebody has to pay for all this fibre.

Oh and by the way, recently fibre was being rolled out to Melbourne consumers by tacking it onto the existing electrical poles. They were blocked by the citizens and local councils as being unaesthetic.

Re: not round here

Pair gain - Telecom Australia cabled whole suburbs that way. Result, you could't run a high speed modem from your home phone and there wasn't enough spare copper to run a second phone for most customers. Competition did away with these horrible practices.

This is why creating a new monopoly in Australia is such a horrible idea.

Europe's highest court: Apple CAN trademark its retail store layout

Re: Crack

"Little brown evelopes quietly slipped through their mailboxes" - er, no. What is done these days is to contribute heavily to their grandchildren's schools, local Rotary, Lions, etc. Making sure His Honour is told about the donations outside of the public eye. How do you think Australia got the Olympics in 2000. Or Brazil?

Google went behind our backs and really hurt us, squeal upset porn kingpins

The real problem

The real problem here is that the antis have that sneaking sense that somewhere, somehow, somebody is having fun.

Re: @ Jasper Hamill

"prudes, parents and pastors" - not a pleonasm, but a tautology.

Apple rats on Google to FTC: You thought WE were in-app-ropriate?

Use a pre-paid credit card. Your exposure is limited to the prepaid amount.

Down-with-the-kidz Apple stuffs up with wild 'funness' claims

Try "Goodness" as a substitute for good.

Re: No.

Except in French, where they have banned new words. This now obsolete language should soon dissapear from the face of the planet.

Computing student jailed after failing to hand over crypto keys

Re: Arrests

Yes, but the labor/green aliance make such a sanctimonious production of it.

Would it be bad if the Amazon rainforest was all farms? Well it was, once

"Not your typical... polar opposites that we usually see."

Problem fixed.

Re: What did Gaia ever do for us anyway?

Bad, yes in the sense that there might be something of value in those species being lost.

Disastrous, no.

Re: Surprise?

In the last ice age, so much of the ocean had frozen in glaciers on Europe, North America, etc that it was possible to walk right across the Bering Sea. Since the, the ocean level has risen significantly. So much that it is unlikely to rise any more before the next ice age.

Yes, you can point to places on land where there were beaches 35 metres up, but that is because the land has risen. Sometimes the simple act of removing the ice has allowed the land to bounce back, for example in Scotland and the midwest of America.

So I don't quite understand why you want to nuke the economies of the entire developed world to protect us from something that just won't happen. There is no just in case. IT WON'T HAPPEN !!!!

Re: Sahara etc

But it burns quite well, which is how it got cleared.

In space no one can hear you scream, but Voyager 1 can hear A ROAR

Re: I don't blame NASA for making do...

"would be astronomical"... that was a very bad pun, wasn't it?

Google YouTube U-turn: Indie music doomsday 'postponed'

Alternative to YouTube

If you don't like YouTube, there are lots of alternatives. One I've used is DailyMotion.

NASA: Satellite which will end man-made CO2 debate in orbit at last

Re: The Butterfly effect.

"The global climate is responding to something"

The closest my layman's mind has gotten to the problem is that there is a giganitic thermonuclear reactor close to the Earth - around 93 million miles. This reactor has several overlapping cycles that can combine to create unusual effects, eg an 11 year sunspot cycle.

The mechanism by which the sun affects the Earth's weather is much more complex than just "it gets brighter". It has to do with complexities such as atomic particles interacting with moisture in the air to form clouds.

One of the recent events is known as the Maunder Minimum and it coincided with (in climate science terms, "caused") what is known as the Little Ice Age. We are now entering a similar event, with a large risk we are also entering another ice age.

Re: Maybe CO2 is an issue, maybe not

Option A: we lower CO2 emissions, all the western countries go bust, Islamists invade from all the world's hellholes and impose Sharia law, rape our daughters and then stone them to death for having sex outside of marraige (and yes it does happen - check out the world news).

Option B: we don't go bust, CO2 levels continue to rise and nothing goes wrong with the weather. Nobody has to die a horrible death.

Re: now hope for some volcanoes

Wrong. Humans produce about 5% of the annual CO2 emisions into the atmosphere.

Unfortunately the technical problems with fusion power means it is still many decades away. Worse, the watermellons won't ever relent their religous fervor. We won't be allowed to use it.

Re: On the gripping hand..

"CO2 would have to be disappearing somewhere without trace"

This is quite naive. Adding CO2 in the atmosphere has almost no effect on global temperature because we are already at the 100% level. No more infrared can be absorbed by the atmosphere, no matter the amount of CO2 you add.

Re: Debate settler?

The key point is that the climate goes in a cycle. Far from having pushed the temperature to catastrophic levels, we are just following the natural cycle. If you look carefully at the graph, you will notice that every bust was preceded by a boom and we are right at the end of the latest boom.

In other words, prepare for cold weather.

Google adds 'data protection' WARNING to Euro search results

Re: Just tried it

It's been working that way for years. There is a special ending to the URL that keeps you on the google.com site if you want it to stay. Otherwise it redirects you to local servers.

App maker defends selling S.F. parking spots as a free speech issue

NEED MORE PARKING

Of course the entire argument would be moot if San Fransisco provided enough parking for its people.

REVEALED: Google's proposed indie music-killing contract terms

Why would you...

Why would you pay good money for something you can download completely legally off the existing YouTube? Are you suggesting that YouTube isn't showing all this copyrighted material legally?

Apple wins patent to pump ads to your iDevice while you're watching TV

Apple wins?

I don't think you can describe this result as a win for anybody. We don't want it and even Apple fanbois won't be able to stomach it for more than five minutes.

Please just shove this back into the orifice it came out of.

Appeal to again seek code for Australia's secret election software

10% is real, useful, code. The rest is user interface gumf.

But the real cost is in assurance. How do you prove that the code does exactly what it is intended to do, nothing more and nothing less? It's important when you're choosing the next government. Very pricey stuff, that.

Content control freaks are peddling futility, says iiNet

'If "piracy is rampant in Australia", figure out what caused it and fix THAT'

Great idea and easy too. Just allow parallel importing and the extra competition will drive prices down. But big content won't allow anything that will reduce their price gouging.

Longer flights burning more fuel can cut planes' climate impact

Re: CO2 lasts decades?

Somebody should google the carbon cycle. All it would take is for the topsoil to increase in depth by 1/100th of an inch to remove all the "man made" CO2 from the atmosphere.

Apple files patent for camera lens controlled by 'artificial muscle'

An interesting idea and deserving of a patent if it meets the standard required, unlike most Apple patents reported here. I'm more concerned about the prior art. From the article, Apple is aware of several previous patents. As well, I would be asking Apple to provide a demonstration machine. If you can't do that, you don't deserve a patent.

Apple SOLDERS memory into new 'budget' iMac

Re: Unacceptable

Apple have long hated the 3rd party aftermarket. If there's money in it, it has to go to Apple seems to be the philosophy, except for things a frivolous as phone cases.

Assange™ makes fresh bid for FREEDOM from Scotland Yard's 'physical encirclement'

Re: Slip of the pen/tongue?

Persecute is the plain language form of prosecute.

Re: Why would Sweden send him when we haven't...?

"They'd boot him back to Australia" - why? We don't want him. We'd just onforward him to America. They're the ones that want him.

Re: >"where he will be persecuted for leaking thousands of American and British diplomatic cables"

In America, publishing state secrets is still a crime, even if you didn't do the leaking yourself. Why do you think they have worked so hard to get their hands on him?

Re: Assange should be held accountable

"nothing to hide, nothing to fear" - that was never true about anything or anyone. It's just something the nanny-staters say to stop you from voting against their latest infringement on your liberty.

Re: Fees

The Ecuadorean embassy didn't ask to have their front door watched. The people that deserve that bill are the Swedish, for acting like the lickspittle vassals to the US that they are.

"The worst thing that can happen to Assange is that he's finally dragged off to Sweden"

Actually that isn't the worst thing that can happen to him. The worst is that he gets asked 2 questions, to which I expect he will answer no. Then he will be shipped off to that lovely caribean holiday site, Guantanomo Bay.

Re: Who cost the taxpayer £6M?

He hasn't committed a crime until the courts say he has. Even in Sweden, the accused has the right to a trial by a jury of his peers. The only person who has signed off on the extradition paperwork is an official in the persecutor's office. Not even a judge.

Re: Who cost the taxpayer £6M?

"If he had faced the charges initially " ... I don't think Assange has actually been charged with anything, has he? All the Swedish wanted was to ask him a few questions. I would have picked up the phone, but apparently they do things the old fashioned way in Sweden. Most people seem to think that it is just a political stunt to limit his damage to the US. Oh, and to introduce him to his new accommodation in Guantanamo bay via that old favourite, black rendition.

The official complaints are that he didn't use a condom. In what rational country is that a crime?

YouView loses YourView trademark fight, may have to pick new name

Re: Huh?

In the case of the Apple record label, vs Apple overpriced and underperforming computer maker, there was a settlement. Among other things, Apple (computer) agreed not to make musical instruments. An agreement they kept right up until they put high qualitysound into their PCs.

Re: Seems stupid

British Telecom and British Petroleum are in different fields of commercial endeavour. As well, use of the word "British" is a localisation, much like "<suburb> Car Repair Shop" and not able to be used to prevent other companies from including in their own names.

Re: YouRView or YouView

Trademarks don't need to be identical, just similar enough to allow confusion, to be in conflict. As you well know, because otherwise the planet would be covered in McDonalds hamburger joints.

Missiles-on-rooftops Brit spy Farr: UK gov can slurp your Facebook, Twitter ... What of it?

Why get your knickers in a knot?

Why are you getting your knickers in such a knot? If you don't want GCHQ to know your secrets, don't shout them out to the whole world.

Re: I'd be more concerned

Actually GHCQ can't.

Stopping IT price gouging would risk SOCIALIST DYSTOPIA!

"wouldn't that require them to sell at competitive prices for product (or services) bought from the US"

No, the free trade agreement is about us buying US products instead of anybody elses. At the inflated price the US wants to charge.

Re: I agree

The problem isn't really that we need price controls. It is that we don't have real competition. If I want to buy a piece of software x, I go to my local computer store and get told it costs the RRP. If I go to their competion next door, I am given the same price. Why? Because the Australian distributor tells them the RRP.

There is no incentive to discount on the RRP because everybody charges it. Also, sometimes they can't because they are acting as agents instead of retailers.

However if parallel importing was allowed, I could go to the Internet and look up the price in other countries and choose the cheapest. Let's face it, world-wide shipping costs are a small fraction of what they used to be. That would create real competition that would force the Australian retailers to start to compete. It would also put back-pressure on the Australian distributor to reduce the wholesale price (and hence the RRP).

But it will never happen because parallel importing is banned by the copyright act, specifically to prevent this from happening.

Oz refugee data leak a SNAFU, says KPMG report

"the policies continue to attract much criticism as inhumane in their execution and inappropriate in their lack of generosity"

Mostly the policies are critcised because they work. No illegal immigrants in 6 months.