Posts by Phill

Mac and Linux Bastilles assaulted by new attacks

Go Fedora!

>> " Users of RHEL and other distributions have been safe for some time now"

w00t, Fedora for the world! Eat that Ubuntu you fucking noobs!

/troll

Microsoft plague threatens 30GB Zune extinction

Should have brought an iPod

Boo ya'

Microsoft's reputation strikes again. No, I don't feel bad for those people. They knew who they were buying from. Ha ha ha ha.

Windows Server 2008 is better than Vista, but why?

What new features?

"The short answer is that Server 2008 delivers new features that customers wanted, whereas Vista delivers new features that Microsoft thought its customers should want."

....what new features are these?

Windows better off closed, says Microsoft

If they open...they lose

Within a week of open sourcing Windows, Wine would have all your Windows only apps on Linux and suddenly everyone would switch

Phorm launches data pimping fight back

I'm seriously pissed off

The information I type into a browser is for the target only. There is a huge difference between a company putting ads on their website and for my ISP to track my browsing across the ENTIRE INTERNET. One is fine. One is completely immoral.

It is irrelevent whether there is money in advertising. My ISP is an ISP and has a sole duty to provide me with nothing but a packet routing server. Injection or modification should be illegal.

This service is opt in because nobody wants it. It is theft.

7000 Leap Year Babies attack Steve Ballmer

Is that the issue?

is it not about the validation of the date? or is it about the fact that calendar goes 28th Feb -> 1st March without processing all the records between those dates? Hence those people who registered their b day on the 29th feb never get their record in a batch job?

I'm confused what you said the problem is. If they can't get on the list then surely they already know they aren't getting a card.

Quake rocks Britain

I felt it

I live in Lincoln and I woke up in the middle of the night confused like i was woken up by an external force rather than of my own brain. I looked at the alarm clock at it was 12:55am. I thought is that right? should be AM? I was 99% sure the clock was accurate and I hadn't even altered it recently but for some reason I was just unsure. I woke up later and looked at the clock and it was 1:10am. Now the am was against the one I was 100% sure it was okay. I went back to sleep.

Then this morning I was watching BBC Breakfast and they said there was an earthquake at 1am and I was like "oh wow, that must have been the reason I was woke up last night". I wasn't concious or quick enough to actually feel tremors and I can't remember what was going through my head when I first woke up but I guess it must have been the earthquake.

Facebook loses a few bitches

Hello I am here!

I think I'm one of those 400,000 people

-- It used to be a vibrant way to communicate with friends and share pictures. Now it's just pages of shit like ninja's vs. wankers or something.

Beware the populist mash oozing out of Facebook and YouTube

comment

This extends much further than you think. For example, Digg and Reddit which are supposed to be a "social news network" has turned into a popularity content with people like "MrBabyMan" submitting shit which automatically makes it to the front page. These "more than average" people are then brought out by companies and soon the notion of "for the community" is left in the dark unpopular home videos of bands who can't resist uploading their "hits" and skateboarders, who devoid of any skill, upload people falling off skateboards.

There isn't a community which businesses haven't tried to be a part of. The open source community and various kernels have developers paid by companies, the new products pages on Facebook, companies editing their own Wikipedia entries and getting away with it. Did you even know that companies can buy their way to the top of the google search results?

Excuse me sir: there's a rootkit in your master boot record

Vista security flaw eh?

Vista: more flaws in 1 year than OpenBSD in 10.

Apple targeted in DRM monopoly suit (again)

It's not the player....It's the format

The problem is not Apple with it's so called "restrictive ipod" but more the fact you downloaded music (or ripped music) to a restricted format. You gave up the option to play the music as you wish when you brought DRM encumbered WMA music files.

But if the hassle of this case helps the RIAA towards DRM free music then I'm sure it's a good thing. Maybe Open Sourcers could sue Apple for not supporting OGG.

Bloody code!

It's a question of IF

I agree completely with Mark Rendle who I think is agreeing with someone else.

The whole aim is to reduce complexity of a function. The biggest factor in complexity is not the number of exit points - but the structure of the IF statements.

Early bailouts are usually based on simple tests - that's why they are effective and easy to understand.

Complicated if statements should be avoided at all cost. If a single exit point comes at the cost of repetition of IF statements in a function then it instantly becomes harder to read.

When I read code, I stop to evaluate the IF statements exactly, in my mind - when the read normal statements, I subconsciously read them as pseudo-code.

Power cut hits Rackspace UK

100% just possible

"I didn't think 100% reliability was possible..."

"I always thought we aimed for the five 9s? 99.999% reliability. :-)"

99.999% reliability...to the nearest whole percent is 100%

Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia

Something wrong in general

In Wikipedia (Community Encyclopedia) were seeing secret lists and power-seekers in groups attacking other people. It's sad that community ideas are corrupted by the few.

We see the exact same thing on Digg.com (Community Propigated (?) News). Of the million members there are a few people who's submissions are upmodded to fuck. Mr BabyMan springs to mind. http://www.digg.com/users/MrBabyMan/history/submissions Nothing he submits fails anywhere short of popular, all 7 submissions yesterday did.

Then there's what everyone calls the massive success, the pinicle of sharing, Open Source Software. What's the one thing saving Open Source Software? It's a feature I call "Forkation" that isn't possible with those listed above. That's why they fail where Stallman succeeds. It's not the only argument. Software is measurable against metrics, much more so than the written word so where as your submission seems better than someone elses you can only compare code, not articles.

In the long run, I think Wiki's reputation will go downhill (And it should. It's full of trolls and empowered idiots) and people will run out of steam for it's development.

Google fitted with (temporary) Digg implant

Good idea

Maybe they can pull this off. Although it would be hard. With Digg.com filtering their content worse than the Chinese goverment and the problem of "Armies of upmodders" and "Bury Brigades" trolling the search results this would need something extremely well written.

What we really need though is a way to disable the google bomb which is "wikipedia".

Gamer takes Microsoft to court over Halo 3 'errors'

Accountability

A lot of the comments above say software vendors shouldn't be able to use the "get out clause" and basically take responsibility for the quality of their software but I can't see this happening, for two reasons.

Firstly, the complexity is too high. Writing software can be more complicated than landing a person on the moon. One is the theory of moving an object (a space ship), the other is creating a virtual world with true-to-life physics, including the modeling of all 4 dimensions (width, height, depth and time) not to mention gravity, handling object collisions (bullets, player contact, player movement on the ground). All this has to be simulated in real time over a distributed network of computers where processor time, ping time and other factors cannot be controlled. object collisions, theory and algorithms that produce *realistic* shrapnel are not easy to calculate. Developer's often resort to cheats in the 3D environment, one being "hit blocks", because of course, even if you represent your data with true-to-life physics, you have to map that back into a grid of squares pixmaps and make it logical to the user. Surely we've all seen bullets kill someone even through you shot over the dudes ear. Then on top of that, you have the problem of speed. CPU, Memory, and Graphics capability are limited so you can't model true-to-life physics due because those physics take too long to calculate and the bullets have less than 10 ms to register. You can increase speed by using a lower level programming language such as C or Assembly but these simpler languages require you to write more code to achieve the final result and your under time-contraints. You can't spend 10 years writing a game because the sales will never cover the cost of 10 years development time for a team of developers.

Whilst I would like to see higher levels of quality in place and perhaps a little forced, where do you draw the line? You have to remember that no program contains no bugs. No developer will ever tell you they are certain their application is bug free.

The second problem is integration. Let's say a bug is found. What happens if the bug is in DirectX or a third party library you didn't write? Do you then sue them. What if that company argues the bug is a feature and you miss read the documentation? Documentation is truly a contract and it would open a whole painful legal process.

Basically the whole area is a mine-field. If it's any consolation, were seeing DirectX and underlying libraries become more robust and games in general becoming more robust so just accept this is a luxury and not a right and that as the field of development matures we can start to take more accountability for our work.

Inventor of revoked payment patent says UK system is a joke

We never managed to sell a licence...

...Which speaks volumes about your "invention" being so novel.

I think this guy is a joke to be honest. Your talking about the smallest change to the internal process of a card reader. It's just an act of blocking other people and trolling what is *supposed* to be a technology designed for the public to keep them safe. Why do you need to patent such trivial bullshit? Why do you even have the rights to develop chip and pin devices in the first place? Surely that was someone elses novel invention? Quit moaning and do something that actually helps move I.T. forward.

Google petrol pumps debut next month

Black, Oily finger prints all over the screen

And big smudges where people are zooming in and out.

Is desktop virtualization important?

Virtualisation is good for....

1) Testing. If your a web developer it allows you to test your site on all platforms at the same time, without rebooting, without swapping machines and without assuming that Safari renders the same on Macs as it does on Windows. You can be writing a script and testing it across all browsers at the same time. The same goes for the development of ANY software. I can test my app on a machine that mirrors the client machines. Ever written a program and completely tested it only to find out that the client doesn't have the libraries installed you needed?

2) Testing. It's a great way to see what a new OS is going to be like without actually trashing a machine in the process.

3) Testing. You can abuse a virtual machine and install freeware on it (to verify it's actually FREEware and not pop-up register ware). You can trash the config to see if new set ups work without actually breaking your existing machine

4) Admin. You can have admin abilities of a virtual machine and not need to check with your real admin. You can compile software and get around desktop restrictions imposed on you without actually having to explain what happened to a machine on "his" domain.

5) Power. You can run different software by different people at the same time.

"Green" isn't really a worthwhile consideration in "desktop" virtualisation like it is on servers but I'm sure I've justified it.

Ballmer: I will buy 20 web companies a year

I plan on buy talent we don't have here

So why would he do this?

- Lack of talent and innovation at HQ

- To reduce competition or potential competition

- To take profits which aren't coming from their usual sources

All in all it's basically a quote from Ballmer saying...we don't know where were going. We'll piggy back on a growing company to ensure success for our investors.

Well...

Windows update brings down TV newscast

Video of the hilarious moment

http://view.break.com/379748

Britney's wares exposed online

How Exactly

How did an unreleased album end up on BitTorrent / P2P networks? Hacker? Inside job? Idiot at the company accidentally running a P2P client?

These questions need answers.

The RIAA will come to regret its court win

Dunstan Vavasour

i agree with him

Adopt this dog or we'll kill it

A better solution

Why don't we just say:

Unless you can't look after this dog because your sick... kill it your fucking self or find another owner yourself. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR DOG.

Less dogs in shelters, less guilt on people who don't deserve it.

People who give up dogs because the kids got bored of it will certainly feel bad for the 2 minutes they have to administer the injection themselves. But in terms of ethical treatment of animals it will make bad owners think twice about adopting.

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

Vista isn't an option

The specs are too high for medium / large businesses to run on their existing kit. Most companies prefer to avoid a mixed environment as well so until there down to their last 50 vista incompatible machines you just won't see the potential benefits to move up a platform.

Anyway what does he mean "more people are buying vista with new machines than ever before"? Does he mean the software forced onto people who buy new machines is doing well because overall sales of PCs are up (of course not influenced by MS) or because OEMS are pressured into saying "up to date" with newest hardware and software regardless of if it is better or not?.

What's 77.1 x 850? Don't ask Excel 2007

More foul play a foot me thinks

As usual Microsoft embrace the 'mathematics' standard, extend it with new 'answers' and extinguish it's the usability.

French court says non to pre-loaded Windows on Acer laptop

I'll sue Microsoft!

They have an unfair monopoly. Every time I buy a packed of floppy disks they come pre-formatted with FAT. Totally unacceptable.

Microsoft eyes stake in Facebook

I'd ditch it

If MS took complete control of facebook (more than just providing the ads) I'd be out of there in a split second.

Should we expect the "Activate your own profile" or the "Genuine Advantage Profile Validator" facebook app anytime soon.

Balls: Schools should police the net

schools should police net?

When I read the title I was like "what? That's impossible", then I read the article which said that teachers should request data is take n down after the incident is reported.

The word police in our society has changed it seems, to be like "monitor or log" instead of "prevent and help"

Anyway, I think the whole subject of cyber-bullying is blown out of proportion. I mean a threatening email from someone isn't anywhere near as bad as a kick in the head on the football pitch, which was what my childhood was like.

Microsoft counters VMware insanity with optimistic frown

Great Quote

Quote:

"It is important to understand that Viridian will ship as part of Windows Server 2008," Microsoft's virtualization chief Mike Neil told us. "VMware is in a situation where they are not an OS vendor. They need a distribution mechanism through the OEMs. This is the approach they have taken."

Why doesn't he just say:

"Unfortunately your not really a rival to us because you don't have a monopoly to exploit"

Bioethics group raises DNA database concerns

Fucking DNA database

I fucking hate this country

Uber-hacker Max Vision misses the killswitch

Atleast he's not writing viruses anymore

the system works!

Top judge: put everyone in UK on the DNA database

I'm in fear...

A lot of people may have to start paying child support when a one-night stand becomes a "reverse lookup" to match a kid with a unsuspecting dad.

This is the end of the world as we know it.

@ Peter Davies

"We're not talking about a complete George Orwell society"

Yes we are.

DNA, Cameras on every corner. What's left exactly?

The UK office: hotbed of net smut addiction

This doesn't suprise me...

...I mean they have internet access at McDonalds now.

Spammers add a new dimension to junk mail

disappointed

Those images aren't very 3D and aren't very impressive if you ask me.

Thousands of computers are hacked and controlled by sophisticated, reverse engineered, virus and worms written by what must be fairly intelligent people....and this is the final product? Why aren't the guys who have the ability to convert entire networks into their own botnets able to do a little bit of word art for their gangster pimp daddies exactly?

Kingston Comms loses BT connection

@Jaster

"they are the default carrier rather than BT"

wtf?

Cadbury bows to 'bring back Wispa' net campaign

Awesome!!!

I didn't even know they stopped making Spira and Wispas. I'm really glad they are bringing them back. I fancy one right now! And also be greatful in a few years when I think about it next.

Intel and Symantec team up on 'bare metal' security

Stupid

Stop piss-assing about with chips to detect if your inside a VM etc and deal with the root of the problem...security of the host system. Symmantec shouldn't even have a product to sell. Make the system secure at the entry point (using a firewall) and stop all this "virus detection" bollocks that's never mattered anyway.

Anyone had a virus alert pop up..."Norton Antivirus has detected xxx." and then when you look at the virus info page on the net it says "this virus is harmless. it just changes a few files and spreads".

Had *that* virus have a destructive payload for immediently after it had further replicated 3 times, your scanner just wouldn't get it in time. deal with the flaws, deal with the incoming traffic.

Perhaps we should have a chip inside the computer to detect if someone is pointing a video camera at the screen and breaking DRM since that's what M$ would clearly like to use a VM detection chip for. As for symantec, there only job is to make mountains out of molehills and to give MS and excuse not to fix it's security bugs.

BOFH: Dodging the auditors

This one was simply brilliant

This is one of the best I've read since the BOFH was running a grep for herpies on against the HR system. They are always good tho!

Google: Kill all the patent trolls

Cross licensing should equal Invalid Patent

There used to be a time where a patent was granted to someone so they could make a sell a product without having their idea cloned and ripped off by a bigger company. The idea was you'd sell your product and no one else could steal the customers or your novell invension.

Today we see the opposite. We Microsoft and Novell agree not to sue each other for patent infringment. Why wouldn't they want to sue each other? I mean after all this is their novel and non-trivial patents! And why can't either of these companies simply obey the law and not rip off someone's patents?

Simple, coz their both patent trolls who are using patents as a means to anyone joining the market. Used to stop anyone from implementing a .NET compiler. Used to stop anyone from using the word "IsNot" without a space in the middle. whoops.

Sun's 'Project Copy Linux' not a Linux copy

Sun's best move yet

I've used Nexenta, which is basically Ubuntu (which i am not a fan) + Solaris kernel and it was absolutely excellent. A fantastic distro that just as good as Fedora or Debian. It could have a really significant user base too when lots of drivers are brought in. Sun has been smart. It feels like they've said "Hey, people are finding free software better and it builds itself instead of our centrally controlled system" so instead of fighting this, we'll make our contribution to the community and continue to grow our profits the same way Red Hat, Concanical and Novell do. Rather than fighting the community they've embraced it.

I can't help think it does look like it can shake up the existing OSS community. I mean, Linus is a really influential person, who undermined Richard Stallman with his "not free, just open source" talk. Now companies like IBM have already spent millions aligning their brand with Linux and we see the first *viable* rival kernel come into play that can deminish the communities single association. (The Linux Kernel)

I'm sure Richard Stallman will push Solaris strongly to make people acknowledge it's GNU + Kernel, not just the kernel.

And doesn't everything think it would be great to see Microsoft overtaken on the desktop in 2 decades by a system, basically called "GNU/Unix"? That would be awesome.

OLPC project goes into production

wifi and internet?

I sense a massive green spammy botnet sometime soon. I still think the project is a nice idea, even though it is putting all your egg-books in one green windup basket.

BBC Trust to hear open sourcers' iPlayer gripes

Fuck you

I'm a linux user and I pay for a TV license. Who the hell are you, anonymous poster at the top, to tell me I HAVE to shell out £400 for an operating system just get my content I paided for.

Open source software IS a right. I own the physical equipment...I happily write my own software. Why in gods name should I be excluded from public services, or rather, tv licenses I am forced to pay because my computer has a TV card in it?

Your the kind of twat that moans when Microsoft charges us double the price of Windows for UK customers and then doesn't do anything about it.

You need to wake up and protect your own freedoms. Your being fucked in the ass and you don't know it. The mere fact you don't care about quality or choice is the reason your forced to Windows.

University boffins squeeze 500GB onto a DVD

Make it like a minidisc

Can they make the disc a little smaller and put a protective cover on it just like a mini disc?

Thanks in advance!