Posts by Paul Smith 549 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jul 2007
Please correct me if you think I have any of this wrong.
A good security consultant will secure your network against current risks and propose procedures to ensure regular patching/updates. For a SMB, call it two days consultancy, once a year. Fifty SMB's on your books and you can make a comfortable living.
A not so good security consultant will not secure your network. In fact they will tell you again, and again how dangerous the internet is and how hard it is to stay safe from zero day exposure and why you need their services at least once every couple of months to install the latest patchs, plus emergancy call outs, plus clean up expenses. Say ten to fifteen SMB's required for a comfortable living?
The good consultant will also configure the mail servers to not accept mail unless correctly and exactly addressed, (no more best guess spam) and will also configure transmission limits, (no more zombies pumping out shite). Has either step been taken on your network?
[We landed on the moon using feet and inches! How many times have we landed on the moon using meters?] You found Mars a bit trickeyer though.
[Which sounds better? "I walked for miles and miles" or "I walked for kilometers and kilometers"? ] How many steps was that? One kilometer is one thousand paces.
[The pound is a more accurate measurement of weight than grams because pounds is a measurement of force whereas grams is a measurement of mass.]
To use a very British term with American spelling, "Bollox". A Kilo of water is the same amount of water at the equator, the North Pole or on the surface of Mars. Slightly more accurate, and useful, then your pound? That Kilo is (by definition) the mass of one litre of water, which is also (by definition), exactly one decimeter. (i.e. 1000L = 1 cubic meter). So if I have some water and can measure weight, volume or length, I can work out everything else without having to remember any 'magic numbers'.
"I'd hate to be the guy who refused to tell the feds Timothy McVeigh was buying fertilizer," Why? When did buying fertilizer become illegal?
I am not condoning what McVeigh did, but no system can completely deal with nutters unless the rest of us are willing to accept that we have no rights or privacy at all. And every now and then, the nutters are right - think of Thomas Jefferson or William Wilberforce, both dangerous anti-establishment figures in their day, heros in our day.
"Moore's Law is gonna run out of gas, and sooner rather than later, because software can't take advantage..."
Maybe I am an old man, but I would swear that I read the same thing written about the 80386 chip when it was launched. "What was the point of a 32 bit chip, when there were no 32 bit applications?"
At that time, a 16MHz 80386 computer actually took longer to do the same job as a 16MHz 80286. This was because it was doing 32 bit fetchs to get the same 16 bit data. but the software caught up... as usual.
"Nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!" The mantra of state control for over 50 years.
I used to live in a society where there was "presumption of innocence", where I had the right to face my accuser, and where judgement was made based on evidence presented to a jury of my peers.
In that society, I could think, say and do what I liked, with very, very few exceptions, so long as I did not interfere with anybody elses rights to do the same.
In such a society, the state had no need to spy on me. Why waste the resources? If I stepped out of line, by interfering with somebody elses rights, the judical mechanisms were in place to deal with it, and if I didn't interfere with anybody elses rights, then nobody gave a damn what I got up to.
My society wasn't perfect. Bad things still happened, and sometimes bad people were not punished, but I still believed that these were the things that made my society "better" then the others.
But no longer. Now the state must spend time and effort trying to finding out if I "might" do something wrong. They must pay people who could have been making our society better to monitor my phone calls and emails. To track my movements and to monitor and record who I met and what I said. If the technology existed, then they would have a "duty" to monitor my thoughts, just to be safe.
So hands up everybody that voted for the Taliban, for they are the ones in power.
One page one the good doctors objections to the F35 claims of low observibility, zero pages countering those objections, 6 pages slagging the man and his history. Very balanced.
When the village idiot tells you that your house is on fire, it is considered wise to check that there is no smoke before you remind him that he is, in fact, an idiot.
I agree that the architects facts were thin on the ground but I regret that your own were not exactly spot on either. Take the 'average' house energy usage figures you use, you didn't mention, and I quote "85 per cent of energy used in households was for space or water heating".
Now since it is no big thing to build a fully passive house, i.e. one with zero external heating requirements (www.scanhome.ie is one example I know well, plenty of others exist) that reduces you 'electrical' requirements for an average house from 60kWh, to 9kWh. This can be reduced further with the use of low energy bulbs, switching off instead of standby etc. All stuff you would do anyway if you were building a passive house. So we are now talking about running a very comfortable house on as little as 3 or 4 kWh.
I completely accept that curtains are not a very viable solution, even if it did get the professor's name in print, but does that really justify getting your hackles that far up?
1) I think you will find that he was bemoaning the way that the natural scepktism and debate was exploited by the nay-sayers.
2) This is not a religious debate - what you believe does not matter. The scientific evidence suggests strong probability of global warming caused, or at least significantly influenced, by human action. That is not belief, opinion or interpretation. It is simple statistics.
3) To say that there is no change in the environment is ignoring the facts.
To say that man has had no effect on the environment is being hopelessly optimistic. To refuse to take steps to protect the environment, when its failure will directly put our childrens lives at risk, just so we can make a profit today is plain stupid.
"Remember, if you aren't a crook (and don't use online banking or credit cards), you've got nothing to hide!"
So I take it you are happy to post your personal finances on the net? After all, if your company uses any sort of computer system to handle payroll, then that data will probably end up passing through a swedish router sooner or later, and once it does, the world can find out what you earn.
Your credit card details? Sooner or later, some shop you use will route their transaction request via a swedish server. (Not deliberatly, they have no control over the routing of internet traffic) and viola, your private data becomes public data.
Perhaps a journalist you respect is trying to uncover corruption in government in your country, a country with strict rules about bugging etc. (so obviously not Britain then), all the government has to do is 'ask' the telecomms operator to route some of the switching traffic related to calls through Sweden and hey presto, instant, legal, bugging.
Of course, you are not worried by any of this because you are an innocent man, with nothing to hide. What do you need privacy for?
And they got paid for that research? Mind you, you got paid for that headline so we can't complain too much.
There are two forms or types of knowledge, recieved and percieved. Recieved knowledge is stuff you believe to be true because you trust the person who told you. Percieved knowledge is stuff you believe to be true because you have worked it out for yourself.
As a child, almost all your knowledge is recieved. When your parent told you not to put your finger in the flame because it would burn, you accepted that as the truth. You also accepted as the truth what you were told about God, the tooth fairy and santa clause. When you put your finger in the flame, as all children do, you burnt your finger. That knowledge had gone from recieved to percieved. But when you began to doubt santa and the tooth fairy, wether due to a questioning mind, peer pressure or your parents telling you etc., then you naturally started to doubt all the similar stuff you had been told. In times past, your belief in God would have been supported and reinforced by your society, (if everyone around you believes something, it is hard to say they are all wrong!) but in the modern (western) world, with so much contact with other religions and none, this lack of support makes anybody with a questioning mind reconsider their beliefs. This is not a factor of intelligence except in so far as a more intelligent person is more likely to have a questioning mind. The more intelligent person is also more likely to answer a question in a way that reduces potential embaressment. In other words, many acedemics will say they are not believers to avoid ridicule from their peers, regardless of what they actually believe.
"And at the moment, if you want it to be relatively pollution free, then it'll have to be nuclear."
A nuclear plant can produce "relatively" cheap leccy for twenty to fifty years, with "relatively" little pollution escaping, as long as the plant is well maintained. It will stop producing leccy after fifty years max and will still release "relatively" little polution, for as long as the plant is well maintained. Great, except that someone will have to pay to maintain the plant even when it no longer produces leccy, and they will have to keep paying to maintain the plant for fifty to one hundred thousand years. That is longer then human beings have been recognisably human.
Still think they are a good idea?
My goodness! Surely Microsoft developers would never use undocumented APIs when they wrote Dynamics Retail Management System, after all, how else would the SP break existing code, unless of course the SP went and changed undocumented API's.
Mines the one thats the same as everybody elses.
There is a long standing misconception that we have freedom of speech in the west. We don't, and never have had. Some countries have laws which limit interference with the press, but that is about as far as it goes in terms of freedom. Almost every country has laws covering 'incitement to violence', 'incitement to hatred', defamation, sedition etc., all of which could be considered to rely on a third parties subjective opinion as to what is, or is not, acceptable speech, and (as far as I know) Swedens laws are no better and no worse then any other country in this area.
I presume that what TPB intend, is to host blogs that will only be removed after a successful approch to Swedish courts, as apposed to the more usual "we will remove it just in case'.
I am intrigued by the presumption that P2P has 'legal' or 'good' usage. Why not apply the same to images. Comcast could be made responsible for monitoring all images which cross its networks because some of them might be kiddy fiddling, or even worse, some of them might not have the rights holders explicit permissions!
Paris because it is the best tosser image available.
"it was grounded, and they had to use another plane, so there was a risk of lives being put at risk."
What planet are you from? Or are you a Boeing employee? It was grounded to REDUCE the risk not to increase it?
"whether its the pump, relay, part of a relay...who cares, it ALL should work perfectly on a brand new plane." Again I ask, what planet are you from? What is special about the plane being "NEW"? You think old planes should have more failures then new ones?
And what do you mean "should work perfectly"? Nothing is perfect. And the more complex it is, the less perfect it must be.
Instead of jumping up and down and panicing hysterically, increasing your risk of heart attack and/or being thought of as a fool, why not use your brain and think intellegently about risk.
What is the risk of failure, what is the cost of such a failure, what is the cost of reducing that risk. What is the 'acceptable' level?
"Britain's new aircraft carriers, though easily big enough, will not be equipped to launch and recover regular fixed-wing planes. This is so as to save money -"
An aircraft carrier that can carry aircraft, but not launch or land them? I bet they could save even more money by not fitting engines. Or only using it on alternate days...
Then don't!
Comments like "However, I doubt it will do things like ..." only show you to be a fanboy. IF you had done your homework, then you would be able to say they DO or DO NOT have these features. (Had you even read the article properly you would be aware that some of the acronyms you list are very obviously supported!) Instead you simply told the world that you don't know what you are talking about. What then gives you the right to be rude and insulting? "these competitors just don't even have a clue of what they are much less implement" when you don't have a clue wether or not they are already supported?
On a positive note, next time I am interviewing a Cisco Certified, I will ask them for their opinions on the competition, and if I get commnets like yours, I will know not to employ.
[Some people deserve flames!]
Years of hearing the tale of three little pigs, and people no longer believe that wood or straw are up to the job. Try telling them that they are cheaper, cleaner, warmer, drier, healthier, prettier and more comfortable and they just insist their cold, hard, drafty, leaky concrete houses are in some way better.
This news story is probably encouraged by the concrete industry as it does show how badly the job can be done if you put your mind to it.
Mines the coat with the word 'smug' on it.
There is no such thing as "Unsecured" in this context. The WiFi router will grant access to the service if, and only if, the criteria established by the owner of the system has been meet. If that owner, despite the manufacturers instructions and the service providers advice, choses to allow remote connections from computers he or she does not personally know, that is a lifestyle choice, but I fail to see how somebody can be accused of accessing the system without consent.
Lets assume for a minute that all the theories linking man's activites to climate change are wrong, and therefore their advice to reduce the CO2 we put into the atmosphere is also wrong. So what? Where is the harm? Mankind is encouraged to use less fossil fuel, and to use it more efficiently. And also to 'think' about energy use in all activities. This is all good. In fact, the only people who would appear to suffer are the shareholders of industries that would have to spend money in the short-term cleaning up their act, which of course reduces their profit.
“The BSA’s legal team will be looking into each case, and, if piracy is suspected, the businesses will have to provide evidence that they are operating legally. If they are not, further moves will be taken which could result in legal action.”
Since when did the BSA get the right to change the law? If the BSA has clear evidence of criminal breach, they can hand it over to the crown prosocution service who will consider taking action (but are not obliged to). If the evidence points to breach of civil law, to the detriment of BSA, they have the right to bring civil proceedings, but the onus will be on them to prove their case and failure to do so will entitled the other party to claim costs.
The alternative is that if I think the BSA may have an unauthorised copy of a script I wrote twenty years ago. I am going to give them thirty days to prove that is not the case or they must give me a million pounds.
(Paris for obvious reasons)
Despite your user name, you don't seem to know a lot about bikes. Japanese companies agreed to limit top speed to 300km/h (186mph)back when the 'busa and the ZX12R were first going going head to head. Since then, all the litre class bikes, including current versions of your own fireblade, have as much OR MORE power then the original 'busa, but are also smaller and more aerodynamic and so can reach their speed limiters quicker. The improvements are not to how fast they go, it is to how fast they go around corners.
@Ian Dedic re "donors":- We (bikers) are called "donors" because when we kill ourselves (and we very, very rarely kill anyone else) we die quickly and cleanly with no secondary damage to the internal organs. Car drivers, and their victims, tend to die slowly of secondary causes (blood loss etc.) significantly reducing the quality of their organs for transplant purposes.
"as I don't see how it can be much more distracting than talking to a passenger"
Concentration.
The phone doesn't include most of the signals that you get when talking (or listening) to a person in your prescence which means that you have to concentrate very much harder to maintain the same degree of comprehension. Think of the effort involved in trying to talk to granny when she has had one glass of sherry to many.
Add the habit that most people have when they use a phone of partially "switching off" their eyes and that leaves you driving by "autopilot".
Next time you are driving, ask yourself which car is closer, the one ahead or the one behind? What colour are they? Now try that while you are on the phone and your answer will be "What car?".
Pah! Fool had left it in 'baby safe' mode! Any competent sys-op would have up-rated the spring to full-on 'mean and nasty' mode. Along with replaceing the soft plastic tips on the darts with sharp metal points - purely in the name of improved aerodynamics you understand.
"...So, like, we ionise the air infront of the intake with this, like, device, yea? Then we take the ions back out of the air with this other device, yea, which makes electricty, right, yea, and we use the electricty to power the first device, ok? And your, like, going to pay me lots of money, yea? Cool!"
If I read this correctly, there are, and I quote, "0.6 discs per [Blu-Ray] player owner". Thats three discs for every FIVE players. What do the owners do? stand around and share? If there were five discs for every three players you would be hard pressed to call the format a success, but at this ratio?
Let me but it another way. Over one and half million people have a Blu-ray player. More the one million of them DO NOT USE IT!
The E8 theory has a so many wonderful advantages over all the popular varients of string theory, that I really hope it stands up to investigation. It is simple. It is predictive. And most importantly, it can be proved wrong.
One irate poster with a PhD told everybody else to shut up as they couldn't possibly understand enough about string (or super string) theory to comment, and they were correct to a point, but E8 is simple enough that it can be understood by 'normal' people. It doesn't need super massive particles to work (that have never been seen). It doesn't require 10, 11 or 21 dimensions of space time (depending on who you listen to). There is no need for pan-galactic branes or entire universes wraped up in the eye of a needle.
E8 predicts the existence of objects that have never been seen before, but which a new machine should be able to measure next year, and it can describe how those objects will behave.
But most of all. The absolutly amazing bit. Physics will return to its original purpose. Even if this theory doesn't work out, another will follow it, fixing its problems and moving foreward. Physics will no longer be the domain of self-serving individuals chasing research grants but will return to individuals asking the same question in different ways. How does the universe work?
Good job that sort of thing couldn't happen here! We have no need to worry about cleaning up a nuclear mess. I mean, $1.4bn just to contain the mess. Not clean it up, just contain it. I wonder how long the shelter is designed to last, and how much it will cost when it needs repairing and/or replaceing?
As I understand it, these guys were NOT charged with spamming! They were punished for using unsecured Wi-Fi while in a public place. Let me try and put that in perspective; you walk in a straight line along a public footpath. You then get arrested, charged, convicted and punished for trespass because, unbeknownst to you, part of the path was not actaully public.
@Will Leamon: "Just admit it. You don't want to pay for music."
Sorry Will, I am happy to pay for music. I am not happy to pay €20+ for a piece of plastic when only €2 gets to the people who make the music. I am not happy to pay €1.99 a track for music I can only play on a limited number of devices when again, only 10 or 20 cents gets back to the people who made the music.
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