Posts by Marcus Fil 175 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jul 2007
Personally I use PS to have everyone be in the group photo they thought they were in, not one of the three I actually took in which at least one person was either blinking, yawning, looking down or impersonating a frightened rabbit. The thought of 'JOKERizing' them after the fact is probably a retouching step too far. This comment may have been tampered with.
Whilst your first paragraph is probably correct, unless the FBI has a sudden attack of reason (has not happened yet!) sadly the second is not. For the same reason the UK has "not in the public interest" to cover up the admission that governement sanctioned agencies are indeed frequently home to Mr. F*ck Up.
The state can and does overreach itself - normally not through dint of sinister Machiavellian plotting, but more often that somebody had a 'good idea' about how to make their job easier without checking with the grown ups first. Once a senior minister, or agency chief, has voiced this arrant nonsence in public then it becomes very difficult to back down without the need to polish up their CV in the process.
For some reason best known to God or evolution (delete as appropriate) the mind set of these people sees no irony whatsoever in demanding exactly the reverse behaviour in captains of industry (with the notable exception of banking?). 'They' will tell you it is all to do with preserving faith in the institutions that form the very fabric of society - you might like to think you had a choice in whether you believe them or not; 'they' obviously know better.
Now pay attention 007 there have been some changes since your enforced stay at the STD clinic. Double oh agents are no longer being sent into the field since this costs the British taxpayer too much in air tickets, casino chips and written off Aston Martins. We are now using the IOT for assassinations. Since you retain your licence to kill it will be your job to click on 'okay' the moment Agent Vrokoff steps into her power shower. There is a spare terminal in the filing cupboard.
In the days before "Europe" stepped in and ensured the great unwashed of Britain (or v.v.) could gawp at pr0n like our mainland brethren UK producers frequently worked under aliases. So if the fwits "in charge" make this law we are merely heralding a return to the "bad" old days. However, given my first sentence maybe this is really a cunning (sic) plan by Davvie Darko to get us all to vote to stay in the E.U. If we do, then any future law requiring ownership of a credit card to access on-line porn could surely be shot down by the European Court of Human Rights. With the usual additional cost to the UK tax payer and the total failure to recoup those costs from the personal fortunes of said fwits, and their "advisers" to being such efin fwits in the first place.
What Apple is doing is rooted in a sensible position of wanting to maintain device, and hence the user's, security. It is part of what you are paying for after all. If you can bypass the finger print reader you might gain unauthorised access. Trouble is that a) random, but not catastrophic, damage can have the same symptoms as an unauthorised repair b) some parts of the world are a long way from an Apple authorised repair. Apple stores (apparently) say the error is irreparable - so buy a new phone and restore from back-up. For the hard of thinking, or a resource starved remote traveller, it is that last word that may be the true crux of the problem. If you have not backed up since leaving for your three month back-packing tour of the far east and then you drop your phone - oops! So Apple, meet the legit user halfway - on discovering an error lock the phone with a one-time key generated from what only you can know. For a fee, and presentation of appropriate purchase history, Apple account details etc. - let the real users get their data back. For those who were genuiely trying to bypass the sensor, or bought their idevice in the back of back-alley pub - cough and die.
Yep, a friend accepted MS's kind invitation to migrate from Windows 8 to Windows 10. No, she did not back-up - she had no idea why that might be necessary; she is not a computer person. Welcome to the "Windows 10 password wrong after update" problem and a month without a PC with no idea how to fix it or who to turn to. If you are lucky you can trigger a roll-back - she wasn't - that needed the non-existent password too (why??). Took me about 8 hours, and several blind alleys, to get in, get Windows 10 to complete upgrade ..and then make a backup. Required decrypting the ESD on my Mac's Win 10 (virtual) installation so I could then build an ISO and create an install/repair disk (glad I still have at superdrive MBP). Then working out how to fiddle the BIOS so I could boot her machine from said disk (ever heard of a 'novo' key?). Then a bit a low-level hacking of the system to creat a new Admin account. Oh, and accessing her barely used Microsoft on-line account to set a password under my control and then associating that with her locked local admin account. Easy - any bloody fool could do it. Dear Microsoft if my friend was not a friend that would be a £700 bill; although next time it will only be £200 because I have been up the learning curve and I have the install disk. FFS force a back-up on people before starting the upgrade process - because your programmers are not half as effin clever as they think they are.
Oh, but think of the bonfire it will make on your local VW dealership's lot. And all that lovely acrid black smoke it will give up - how many cars worth of emission cheating? How many bonfires before Washington tells VW to pay appropriate compensation or forget doing business in the US? Really guys - you should take a leaf out the French farmers' book - they know how to mount a good protest.
'The resultant block to be deep fried to form a solid ingot of saturated fat batter, sold under the brand of "Ledswinger's Drinker's Friend".'
Though I hesitate to mention it anyone familiar with some of the more obscure items on the menu in Eastern Germany/Polish border might suggest they have beaten you to it. At least we now know why - because obviously I was not drinking enough at the time of sampling to appreciate the beneficial effects.
in my company's annual return "98% of business was with foreign clients". So this year lets go for 100%. I don't really know how this proposed change of rules helps the UK - most of my business is in R&D - obviously not happening around here. And the reported downloads of my past papers - well 5 out of 6 are in China. Dear UK government if you want to pick on an industry that has seriously fucked the country over try banking and not kill off one the last industries that UK is halfway good at.
..who wants to do business in a country that routinely reads your post? If this is the slippery slope best the Torys have a think before the world's trade goes elsewhere. A previous comment pointed out what is currently proposed has been done already - at government expense. But the 'experts' at GCHQ do not have their septic cousins budgets to keep pace with an ever expanding problem set. So pass legislation to put the burden onto the commercial sector and call them terrorist sympathisers or closet paedos if they do not comply; is it '1984' or Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' where we are billed our own interrogation? From the spooks' (narrow) perspective it might make their job a little easier in catching the 'Four Lions'-type "bullets" who use the lit net. However, it also opens up a system to woeful abuse down the line - if the government added a clause of £10M per persion automatic compensation for misuse of data I would start to think they understood the gravity of the situation - they don't. Any future abuse will be burried under the Official Secrets Act - revelations deemed 'not in the public interest' - the official term for damning incompetance. Anybody halfway serious (for good or bad) will get round this until the next round of legislation ups the ante. Meanwhile money is wasted and the UK made to look more like North Korea by the day. Write to your MP, get hold of strong crypto while you still can and stock up on lemon juice and stamps.
You don't care about the adults then?
But seriously the OP has a point. Third party remapping is already a problem - or consumer choice depending on your level of self-interest.
IF the offending VW engines are recalled in the UK then those interested in performance over societal needs will be best advised to ignore the recall. However, both the government and, possibly, the insurance companies will take a dim view on that. If you have an affected car under six years old and you allow VW to 'fix' it then you have prima facie claim under 'Sale of Goods' act for compensation. As the OP points out you could even invest your VW 'compo' cheque in re-mapping technology (which with an appropriate 'kill switch' is very hard to pick up at an MOT test station).
I can see 'emergency legislation' being enacted on this one - sadly not to protect the consumer, but to shore up the car industry whilst paying a sop to the health benefits. If this happens then I would suggest VW/Audi usw. (sic) dealers polish up their CVs - you will left be trying to sell a poisoned product. How many other companies will join you in the list remains to be seen.
..but could do worse. I for one find it frustrating that Apple does not reach out to known customers when there is a problem identifed in specific equipment. I also dislike its habit of time limiting replacement programmes to typically three years. However, I will point out that in the UK Apple is all too aware of the 'Sale of Goods' act; this means if a) your Apple product fails within 6 years of purchase b) ..and is in a batch of products known and, crucially, acknowledged by Apple to have your specific problem Apple will very likely fix the problem for free. I speak from personal experience, and obvioulsy this is only going to benefit you if the problem is genuinely of Apple's making and not old age, abuse etc. It does not mean they are obliged to fix any other problems found at the same time as the repair either - at least not without charging you for those. Note that an Apple 'genius' told me that serial number batches are not gospel in identifying a necessary repair - there may be affected devices just outside either end of the published batch list and Apple normally take a pragmatic view on this.
Instead of berating a test mode mandate one - a mode the turns all the dials up to 11 to turn the set into a black body radiator on scale close to a Red dwarf. The equivalent of driving your car, windows down, heating up and every electrical accessorty, A/C etc. on full blast. stuck and left it in 2nd gear. Introduce huge fines, manadatory life sentences, genocide etc. for the manufacturer if anyone ever discovers a mode/feature combination worse than test mode. The challenge becomes who can actually make the best set that performs well in the worst case - because by definition it will always perform better in the real world.
Okay how many Brits have been to the good ol' USA? Seen the portion sizes? It seems all, but the most snobbiest, establishments seem to equate quantity with value for money. Of course, with waiting staff living largely on tips, and lower transportation costs, US establishments can afford competitively larger portions. However, watch the average 'joe' eating; by average, I specifically mean not the spherical, trailer trash, morbidly obese specimens visible on Google Earth. Average Americans are content to leave half a starter, pick over a main, scrape the top off of a desert and, maybe, ask for a doggy bag. Why?
Perhaps food is just cheaper with respect to higher disposable income, but also when did the USA have food rationing? A generation of Brits were brought up to finish everything on their plate because there was a war on. They passed this sentiment to their children who in turn have maintained it until it has passed into social norm. The simplistic cure is smaller plates, smaller portions and, for restaurants, smaller bills. However, the real challenge is educating people to eat according to their needs and not simply consuming whatever is served up to them. To illustrate the ludicrousness of the current catering situation one Italian restaurant chain offers a 'lower calorie' alternative to several dishes at a higher price; so ordering the normal version and simply not eating all of it, and saving some money, could never be an option then?
Has a great firewall that is far from airtight despite millions of dollars spent with western companies helping them build it. What hope then for Fortress UK that cannot even afford the schematics? Cameron please go and bother somebody else about something else you can actually fix. T'internet is about the flow of information and whilst GCHQ can pull the odd stunt with mis-directions they are only for the uneducated masses. People who want to route round or through will, and introducing fruitless schemes of control will be nothing more than needless expenditure and unnecessary embuggerance. Furthermore, swelling the ranks, and skills, of the dark brigade is probably the last thing you want to do; even more concerning (or edifying?) is the number of game keepers who have turned poacher - rightfully paranoid at the unfettered zeal of some of those in power. Snowden is the just the tip of the iceberg (sic). Anyone who thinks this is just about Pr0n think again - as should Cameron. Impact assesment? Law of unintended consequences? Next he will be telling us that only governments can have stong encryption ..oh, wait.
I was going to come up with several reasoned objections to the raison d'etre of this mechanism. However, the more I thought about it the more I realised it is complete and utter abject nonsense. It just does not solve any real work problem in a manner that could not be negated with a few minutes of clear thinking. Could the perpetrators please be redirected into doing something useful?
Brave talk Cameron, but unless you want to award the United Kingdom junk bond status in the world of commerce you should really engage brain before opening mouth. Not everyone who uses encryption is a terrorist or a paedophile - in fact, most are absolutely not. No one trusts governments anymore, and for good reason. Making everyone sensible an outlaw means you will only have the halfwits and the dimwits left on your side - really, really not a good place to be. Work out a way to quietly retract your words - start now BEFORE you face the electorate.
preceded CSI by a fair few years. However, look at "Refelective Eyes" on tvtropes webpage - the whole concept is hardly new. More recently one online reviewer of the Nikon D800 was impressed to find a recongnisable reflection of himself in the eye of a bird he had photographed at a wildlife park. For the full "Blade Runner" track/enhance effect we are probably waiting on an 16 Gpixel Lytro to add the single lens 3D plus ridiculous resolution - so not long now then. Plus the workstation is more likely to be a MacBook Something rather than a box that looks like it came from Amstrad.
Whether it has an 'e-' in front, or not, SUV is a misnomer for the Model X. It is, I believe, better labelled a CUV - the 'C' standing for 'cross-over' (perhaps). Certainly the design is to the fluffy end of 'soft-roader'; the sort of vehicle that might, just, make it across a wet lawn rather than tackle anything resembling a ploughed field. Anyway, if it makes Elon and the tree huggers happy then so what - it still makes more sense than the civilian Hummers ever did.
Increased fragility is not progress. It a disease that started with the MacBook Air, spread to the MacBook Pro and has now infected the iPhone. Apple, do you know some people use their laptops and phones outside in the real world? Out in this real world things like battery life, anti-glare screens, water resistance and overall mechanical resilience matter. Steadfastly putting aesthetic appeal above practicality IS starting to cost you - no need to think the two cannot be combined, but you do need to think. Having "Genius Bar" staff recommend rigid shells might look like an up-sell, but it is also a tacit admission of failure. Have a word with yourself.
"Apple has received an order under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. Apple challenged the order when it was served on it, but to no avail. When our collective balls are in a vice, what we are going to do? You never saw this message, if such a message exists Apple is indisposed to comment about it at the present time."
So the poll, from a reptable company with mutliple data points, is wrong from the perspective of your single data point with a vested interest in not being laden with stock you cannot sell without massive discounting. Hmmm. If 'one' is buying a quality TV now and the price is not too different one might as well buy 4K as a means of future proofing. Just as not so long ago one might as well have bought 3D (still not much content outside of BluRay). However, at a screen size practical for many (most) homes one is buying pixels one cannot see (although in a chain of MTF processes one will still perceive some improvement) . As everyone is pointing out currently getting half decent 1080 broadcast content is problematic let alone 4K. By the time 4K content is abundant the 4K TV you buy now will be poor in comparison to then current models. Just as the LG "SMART" HDTV I bought 3 years ago is getting dumber by the second as its ability to support newer or reconfigured services diminishes (for Roku sells a cheap fix). Which basically sums up as right now there is no compelling reason to buy a 4K TV, but don't let me stop you; personnally I suggest saving your money and going to the pictures instead.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
