Posts by 22ten

SolarWinds: Hey, only as many as 18,000 customers installed backdoored software linked to US govt hacks

Re: Back doors

If only it was just the Trump administration! But sadly incompetence is an intrinsic part of any government organisation.

Blighty's first aircraft carrier in six years is set to take to the seas

Russian?? Surely you mean Chinese

Since carriers really don't pose any threat to Russia, the data they are collecting will be for onward sale, probably to the Chinese given that the US is deploying it to the South China Seas - where if anything gets ugly it will remain as an very expensive artificial coral reef.

Britain's on the brink of a small-scale nuclear reactor revolution

Opportunities

Probably because there is a lot of fat on a £18 billion contract with the inevitable overruns and renegotiations that will expand the budget and keep thousands of civil servants employed for decades along with offering consultancy roles for ex-ministers and civil servants along with their families and friends.

Whereas £1.2 billion offers far less opportunity to hide cronyism and therefore is considered far less attractive by senior civil servants and ministers.

These factors are far more important than any advice from technical experts brought in to evaluate such schemes.

Chinese e-tailer beats Amazon to the skies with one-ton delivery drones

Re: A hijack target?

Possibly, the Chinese have a different attitude as to the risks and benefits, so accept the inevitability of drones falling out of the sky that may well injure people instead of not doing anything because the risk can’t be mitigated against

America's mystery X-37B space drone lands after two years in orbit

Re: it is unlikely that it carries any weapons... cough... cough...

BB guns fire steel ball bearings, hence no rifling whereas air rifles typically fire a shaped lead projectile where the skirt can engage the rifling

Leaked: The UK's secret blueprint with telcos for mass spying on internet, phones – and backdoors

emperors new clothes

It’s a great pity that people with zero understanding of what they doing, command large taxpayer (or more appropriately borrowing) funded budgets that they’re allowed to waste on futile endeavors, perhaps the UK should introduce a Tokugawa approach to the civil service, where wastage was punishable.

Apple leaks new thinner, lighter iPad ... revenues

Re: you really got to admire apple

Although, given the sales figures this does seem to be a Western phenomenon, or maybe Asian consumers are less impressed with Western brands and more interested in how much technology you get for the price.

Apple's zippy silicon leaves Android rivals choking on dust

it's just a pity that the real-world human interface, hand, eyes, brain can't be improved to take advantage of these differences in performance

Germany to Facebook, Twitter: We are *this* close to fining you €50m unless you delete fake news within 24 hours

Re: Free Speech

Governments who feel their public support them embrace free speech whereas governments who feel threatened by the opinions of the general public will often resort to censorship typically with vague definitions so news they don't like or adverse political opinion can be suppressed usually under the banner of protecting the public (although in reality governments protecting itself from the public)

USMC: We want more F-35s per year than you Limeys will get in half a decade

Re: The Bad Guys shoot back

Hellfire and Brimstone missiles??? You must love paying tax, since you get a lot of shells and flying time for the cost of just one missile!!!

Insane waste of taxpayer money

Totally pointless plane in the modern world and an insane waste of taxpayer money... for the combat roles it might get to see (beyond imaginary ones) an A-10 would be far more effective or even a de Havilland Mosquito!!

Russia and China bombard Blighty with 188 cyberattacks in 3 months

State sponsored or bedroom warrior?

You have to admire the paranoia of these people that hacking must be state sponsored when the people who have been caught so far have been largely bedroom warriors... But I guess it's problematic to justify spending millions of taxpayers money otherwise!

Why the Apple-Samsung verdict is good for you, your kids and tech

Re: Think again

What I 'm saying is that there are plenty of really bright people with bright ideas (just like James Dyson) but some companies use IP to make it very difficult for them to get any investment to take the ideas forward.

I'm completely for people or companies making money out of their ideas but I am against people or companies actively blocking other people’s innovations with IP to maximize their profit.

It would be better for inovation to offer longer IP rights in turn for a licence fee.

That way the Dyson could have got his cyclone vacuum cleaner to market much sooner since the clearly did not invent the cyclone, it’s been used in industry for years.

Think again

The current IP system stifles invention; all IP’s should be available to anyone for a realistic license fee. That way we would get innovation of the basic idea into something better.

The IP holder would get revenue and the consumer would get a choice. The biggest losers would be the lawyers.

But none of this is new; lawyers working for James Watt held back the development of high pressure steam for years using patent laws.

I wonder how successful Dyson would have been if his business plan had to include a million or so for lawyers to fight some aggressive companies IP claims.

I think he should count his luck that Apple were not making domestic appliances!