* Posts by James Micallef

2173 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jul 2007

Lawyer sues Microsoft rather than slot an SD card into his Surface

James Micallef Silver badge
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Reminds me of BOFH

User is complaining of having filled his 4MB* allocation and wanting more free space.

BOFH: <clickety-click> there you go, you now have 4MB free

User: Cool, so 8MB total

BOFH: No, 4MB total

User: Aaaaaargh

* Shows that this is one of the REALLY early episodes

Israel declares war on Hamas via Twitter

James Micallef Silver badge
Happy

Re: Today, the a major diplomatic incident occurred....

I wonder what facebook will do with the US-UK 'couples' page:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/15/facebook_couples_page/

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Re: I'm sure

Blaming the Israelis and saying they're a terrorsit state is bloody idiotic. Most Israelis want to live peacefully, and they are ready to close one or both eyes to what their government is doing to protect them.

Likewise blaming the 'Palestinians' or 'Arabs' as a group is idiotic, most of them also just want to be able to live a normal life in peace but cannot because they are living under a blockade (Gaza) or as second-class cititens whose needs and desires always come second to those of Israeli settlers illegally taking over their land (West Bank).

The sad thing is that the extremists are in power on both sides and not only refuse to talk, but are actively working against the peace. Hamas leaders don't want peace because with peace they become irrelevant and they stop getting secret funding from rich arabs and Iran to wage their proxy wars against Israel. On the Israeli side, the extremist settlers continue to expand settlements on land that in their mind is given to them by yahweh. They also have no interest in peace because their vision is of an Israel that includes West Bank as part of their territory.

Frankly, the best thing is to ignore propaganda on both sides, they're both to blame and they are both responsible for sorting out the mess, and neither of the governments / officials has any sympathy from me. I'll reserve my sympathy to the poor sods on both sides who are caught in the middle.

Russia restores comms with space station after roadworks cut cable

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Coat

"Russia restores comms with space station after roadworks cut cable"

Russia have a ROAD that goes to space? Sure beats the shuttle!

Humans becoming steadily STUPIDER, says brainiac boffin

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Facepalm

@Thorne

I was going to post about how I agree with your basic sentiment though I completely disagree with the attitude expressed... then I realised that Rampant Spaniel had already said what I had in mind (only much more eloquently than I could hope for)

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: Judging

@AC - I was going to 'thumbs up' until I saw the last paragraph.

ROGUE PLANET WITHOUT A SUN spotted in interstellar space

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Pint

Re: Very strange stuff

According to NASA website, Jupiter's surface temperature is -145C. Core temperature is unknown but "may be about" 24,000 C. Also found this nugget on universetoday: "Jupiter would have to add about 80 times its current mass in order to become massive enough to ignite fusion"

Since this planet is 7 times Jupiter's mass likely no fusion, just compression, and if surface temp is around 400C, core most be rather hot enough to warrant a few beers

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Boffin

Re: Very strange stuff

(a) is just a naming convention. Doesn't fit neatly into any other category, exo-planet will do for the moment.

(b) atmsophere is dependent on the planet's own gravity and composition, only slightly affected by suns and neighbouring planets

What's really curious for me is the temperature of 430C - it's out in deep space and can't be absorbing heat from anywhere else, in fact even considering a thick pea-soup atmosphere it must be losing heat to it's surroundings, and must have been doing so for a loooooong time. So is it possible that it's producing energy through very low-level fusion only happening deep in the core?

SECRET 28 'scientific experts' who Greened the BBC - Revealed!

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Re: scientific (in the physics/chemistry sense)

Thumbs up for AC

Basic chemistry allows us to calculate roughly how much CO2 human activity has released into the atmosphere in the last 200 years or so since the industrial revolution. Basic thermodynamics tells us how much hotter the earth will get per increased CO2 in the atmosphere (about 1 degree per 100ppm CO2), and the observed temperature increase in the last 200 years roughly matches this approximation.

Beyond that, past temperature proxies are built on layers upon layers of assumptions, adjustments and tweaks, and future climate models, however complex, are built on an incomplete understanding, and every few months a new finding comes up that contradicts the models expected outcomes.

So it's got to be clear when 'consensus' is mentioned, what the consensus is about. If the question is: "is the world warming because of human activity", the consensus of anyone with a basic grounding in chemistry and physics is "Yes", and that is a consensus that I accept.

But that doesn't mean that I can arbitrarily extend that consensus to a number of other mantras such as : temperatures now are higher than in the last 500 years, or than they EVER have been in 300 million years, temperatures will continue to increase indefinitely, positive feedback forcing will result in runaway warming, etc etc

James Micallef Silver badge
Paris Hilton

Pedantry alert

"You don't need research to prove the earth is round - just look at the shadow at a lunar eclipse - the round shadow from the earth definitively proves this."

technically the earth could be a flat disc and still cast a round shadow on the moon. I would say there are other more convincing ways to show that the earth is a sphere, like, for example, photos from space / edge of space (have you seen the Paris pics?) or circumnavigation.

James Micallef Silver badge
WTF?

Re: Impartiality about what?

"The models have never predicted any of those things."

Funny, that, since Al Gore, Greenpeace and co keep telling us that that's what's going to happen if we don't stop burning fossil fuels. So what DO the models show?

James Micallef Silver badge
Flame

Re: Impartiality about what?

@Lazy Gun - A very basic knowledge of chemistry and physics should be enough for you to follow this back-of an envelope calculation: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/recipe-for-climate-change/

CO2 increase in the atmosphere is unequivocally due to human activity, and what we know of thermodynamics predicts that this increase will produce a temperature increase in line with observed temperature increases.

Certainly, there can be other drivers for the increase, certainly there could have been eras in the past where both temperature and CO2 levels were higher, most certainly the effects of the warming are not fully understood and will not necessarily be bad, and even more certainly the IPCC reports take higher / catastrophic estimates and present them as likely.

But you most certainly cannot deny that human activity is affecting the climate

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: Impartiality about what?

Research (and, indeed, fairly basic thermodynamics) points to the earth warming as a result of CO2 due to human activity.

All of the catastrophic forecasts, runaway positive feedbacks, metres-high sea-level rises etc that are supposed to occur because of this warming are based on models that keep getting pwned by reality.

Petraeus sex'n'menaces webmail trail leads to NATO A'stan general

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Facepalm

Re: The haters are out again...

Petraus just lucked in that the tensions in Iraq were dying down when he took over, and tribal leaders withdrew their support for Al Qaeda. The tactics might have helped but clearly were only a small part of the big picture since the exact same tactics clearly did not work in Afghanistan.

Petraus was being spun by teh US as a big military success because they simply can't admit what a complete omnishambles their conduct of operations in Iraq (and Afghanistan) was.

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Missing an important point

The story is missing an important and rather crucial point. The FBI, on the strength of a 'harassing email' complaint made by a woman, went on to delve into the email accounts of another woman, extract information about another email account, from this trace her relationship with an anonymous lover, and from there trace that the identity of that lover was Gen Petraus, ALL WITHOUT A WARRANT.

This is where the warrantless wiretapping has led. There was no reason 'a priori' for the FBI to believe that this was a particularly important case, they only followed it up in detail because Kelly had contacts within the FBI. So you can bet your bottom dollar that right at this moment, the FBI could be digging around into the communications of hundreds or even thousands of people, without a warrant, simply "to do a mate a favour"

Google, Amazon, Starbucks are 'immoral' and 'ridiculous' over UK tax

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Facepalm

"Obliged in what manner?"

Obliged by fiduciary duty to the shareholders. Shareholders can sue company directors if the directors are knowingly leaving money on the table that they could legally take.

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: what do you expect them to do

"The quickest way to tax profit is to tax where that profit comes from: sales"

Currently sales tax (VAT) is paid by the consumer... the corporation can claim back the part that it's expenses are on, so that won't solve anything. The way to do that is to start taxing corporations on revenue not on profits. (although that would open a whole other can of worms)

James Micallef Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: what do you expect them to do

"Taxes are an imposition extracted through the state's monopoly on the use of force"

Taxes are also the basis of building a whole infrastructure and rule of law that alllow a large chunk of UK residents to be able to pay £5 for a coffee should they choose to do so. Blatantly taking advantage of that is 'not cricket'.

Having said that, it's not ILLEGAL, only IMMORAL, and if the collective MPs are so outraged at the low level of tax that corporations are legally allowed to pay, maybe they should be pissed at the people who actually made the laws and voted for them.... Oh wait, that's teh MPs themselves! Ah well, maybe next time they shouldn't accept all the wining-and-dining and campaign contributions they receive in return for making the tax law so advantageous to their lobbyists. Maybe they can show more moral fibre in their day-to-day behind-the-scenes dealings than in their public-facing look-at-me-I'm-such-a-paladin-of-the-people personas.

BOSS Bang boffins: DARK ENERGY spreading across the Universe

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: Call me a sceptic

'thermodynamics' has only been proven to apply to the 'normal' energy and mass that we know and understand. If we're basically positing that we know nothing about 73% of the stuff in the universe, why should we impose limits on it, especially when those limits completely contradict observed data? i.e why should we expect it to NOT contravene thermodynamics?

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WTF?

Re: Dark Energy-

Very easy fallacy to fall into, but giving something a name does NOT mean we understand anything at all about it. It's just that it sounds cleverer to say "73% of the universe is made of dark energy" as opposed to "we have absolutely no idea what 73% of the universe is made of except that it makes the Universe expand faster so we'll tag on the word 'energy' onto the name"

Also, this - "We know very little about dark energy but one of our ideas is that it is a property of space itself - when you have more space, you have more energy" . Is this in fact stating that "dark energy", whatever that might be, is effectively being created out of nothing, and thus is a completely different beast from the energy we know and love and which cannot be created or destroyed?

Steelie Neelie admits laptop hack during IGF

James Micallef Silver badge
WTF?

Pinched or hacked?

First line of the article says 2 laptops were pinched, Kroes's post indicated thet 2 laptops were hacked. So which was it? Or was it 2 pinched + 2 hacked?

Did hackers uncover Petraeus' saucy affair webmails before FBI?

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Terminator

Re: using webmail for semi secret communications

"The woman was a total bonehead to send harassing e-mails"

As you point out, they could have had the most perfect security on the email side, but it's idiocy and jealousy that screwed them over. The meatbag is always the weakest link

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: Zilch?

The only moral issue in having an affair is the lying / keeping the truth from his wife. There's nothing intrinsically wrong in having feelings for and/or sleeping with multiple people as long as you haven't promised anyone that you won't do it with anyone else except them. If society in general (and US society in particular) wasn't so uptight about sex, it wouldn't be a blackmailable issue at all, so no security risk, no need to resign.

But then again, the guy knows what situation he's in, he should man up, tell his wife he wanted out and get a divorce, and then feelk free to do whatever he wants with whoever he wants

James Micallef Silver badge
Mushroom

Re: I really hate this

1) Although in general I don't see why public officials should resign for having a fling, and their extramartital affairs are their own private business, in intelligence circles this behaviour is a bit more sensitive. Having said that, an intelligence official can just as easily give away state secrets through his wife or drinking buddies as through his lover. And if he didn't have to keep it a secret it would be LESS of risk because he couldn't be blackmailed about it.

2) It's weird how prudish the yanks are. They basically hounded a president out of office for fiddling around with an intern, and I would guess that would have happened even if the president had been unmarried. In contrast Berlusconi was Italy's longest ever serving Prime Minister and he was a serial adulterer. French public officials have also historically been notorious for their affairs. As long as it doesn't affect the job, what does it matter?

3) The hypocrisy on the US side is staggering. Apparently, ordering your underlings to torture prisoners, writing legal opinions to redefine what torture means to cover your bosses' arse, and destroying video evidence of torture sessions are all OK - not a resignation or disciplinary action in sight for these. But having sex with someone who isn't your wife is "extremely poor judgment " requiring resignation.

Take action on climate change or the panda gets it

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: Cost of AGW

Or why not stop chopping down more and more bamboo forests and building villages in / passing higways through the gaps?

There's LOTS more that the Chinese can do if they really want to save what is, after all, one of their national symbols. The question is, how much economic growth and economically 'usable' land are tehy willing to give up for it?

Samsung turns screws on Apple, hikes A6 processor price 20%

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Re: Wonder how much that price hike brought in?

Quick back-of-the-envelope stuff:

Apple quarterly sales 17 million iPad + 26 million iPhone* = approx 172mil iDevice / year

Wholesale processor cost - $13**

20% increase per processor = $2.60

by 172 million devices = $447.2 million, or approx $1/2 billion.

Considering that due to supply contracts, existing designs, no alternative supplier etc that Apple is probably stuck with Samsung-built processors for at least a couple of years, the $1bn total is pretty spot on!!

*source - engadget.com

**source - isuppli.com

Man, 19, cuffed after burning Remembrance poppy pic is Facebooked

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Mushroom

Poppycock!

"grossly offensive"

I find it grossly offensive that someone can be arrested for posting a picture of a burning poppy together with some insensitive commentary

'Bundle' signals from SPACE seize control of small car in Germany

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Re: Wtf?

"through the BP network in a series of short hops"

I see how that can work to bounce off a few satellites to go, for example, to the moon... but if we want to be sending signals to Mars there's still going to be at least 1 enormous hop involved. Best case I guess would be to have a set of comms satellites orbiting in mars-o-stationary orbit

Swedish boffins: An Ice Age is coming, only CO2 can save us

James Micallef Silver badge

straw man?

"wildly unjustifiable assertions that global warming caused Hurricane Sandy"

The reasonable opinions I have read is that Sandy was naturally occurring, NOT "caused" by global warming, but that increased water temperatures in the North Atlantic contributed to increasing Sandy's strength.

More generally, rather than " isolated events prove theories", the fact that 1-in-100 years* events are starting to occur rather more frequently than once in 100 years mean that things ARE changing. Maybe not all for the worse, but at least let's have a proper look at what's going.

*Of course it could also be that these really are 1-in-a-million events, and are therefore a Pratchettian certainty to occur

James Micallef Silver badge
Happy

Re: If the science holds up...

" expanding its use in power stations"

if I understood this correctly, we want to leave the peat bogs alone so they can capture the CO2 from the fuel we are burning and so balance teh temperatures out, NOT burn more peat!

James Micallef Silver badge
Boffin

WTF??

"Naturally this theory runs counter to the global warming scenario as presented by many other scientists and most of the media" - Only partly

This theory in no way invalidates that (a) humans have been increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere over the last 200 years (b) More CO2 in the atmosphere lowers the amount of heat radiated off the earth and (c) observed temperature increases in the last 200 years are consistent with (a) and (b).

What IS in doubt / arguable is whether this level of warming is unusual for the planet on a historical scale (validity or not of the hockey-stick), whether the changes are self-correcting (positive vs negative feedback processes in models), what is the result of the warming going to be (will the icecaps really melt? how much will sea level really rise?), and whether the change is a good thing or a bad thing (Maybe UK tourists can just drive down to Southampton instead of fly to Ibiza?)

The scenario presented by IGCC is that this warming is unprecedented, that positive feedbacks will accelerate warming rapidly, that ice-melt, rising sea-levels and freak weather will cause catastrophic events and that climate change is a BAD THING.

Hopefully this new study can help to calm things down a bit - Yes the earth is warming because we're pumping too much CO2 in, but the expansion of peat bogs is capturing more CO2 and balancing this out

Sellafield's nuclear waste measured in El Reg units

James Micallef Silver badge
Boffin

1 in 10 million

"1 per 10 million years, which is the probability asserted by NII for a class of HLW tank accidents"

I was recently reading notes / biography of Richard Feynman regarding his role in investigating the Columbia shuttle disaster. Engineers were estimating a 1-in-100 chance of engine failure, based on their experience and knowledge. Upper management were estimating 1-in-10,000 chance of engine failure, based on "that was their desired taget". Guess which one was the "officially accepted" figure.

With extremely rare events estimation is a mug's game. If such an accident has never happened, you can't extrapolate to say such an accident will never happen. If similair accidents or near-accidents are known about, then "1 in 10 million" has been pulled out of someone's arse

James Micallef Silver badge
Boffin

Very Interesting

I'd never seen the figures before - usually it's just quoted as 'x tonnes of radioactive waste', without any reference to HOW radioactive. There seems to be an in-built assumpètion that all the stuff is very dangerous. For Intermediate level waste, why not just excavate a hole that's approx 100 swimming pools in volume, line it with cement hals a metre to a metre thick, and re-fill it with excavated earth + Intermediate level waste. The waste will be diluted, so considerably less than 1 watch per tonne of earth, PLUS it will be sealed in concrete so it will be quite safe.

100 swimming pool' volume is not THAT big, it's about what you would excavate for the foundations of a big tower block, so teh waste would be both securely contained, and it wouldn't be so expensive

Couple of questions for the knowledgeable - How many years of operation of the plant is the 27 swimming pools waste from? And how much more radiactive is the high-level waste?

iPhone senses you typing on table, bit of wood etc, turns vibes to text

James Micallef Silver badge
Thumb Up

Re: Back to basics..

Might still need some refinements for pratcicality, but even if it never makes it into the mainstream, top marks for original thinking

Malaysia protests rare earth processing plant

James Micallef Silver badge
Boffin

fearmongering?

“millions of tonnes of toxic radioactive waste left behind”.

how radioactive is 'radioactive'? Is it 'as much radiation as in a watch with luminousdial' levels (see yesterday's el Reg article re Sellafield)? And, for that matter, how toxic is 'toxic'?

This is a technical site, we're not afraid of numbers, and we can ake up our own minds!

Apple's Cue gets parking space on Ferrari board

James Micallef Silver badge

"be able to buy a Ferrari on the internet, but it will only work on A roads."

No, it will still work on crappy roads and in urban centres, it will just REAAALLLY inefficient and no fun to drive, but everyone seeing you with one will be jealous

Bradley Manning submits partially-guilty plea in WikiLeaks case

James Micallef Silver badge
Coat

Re: Too bad ACs can't pick their icon...

PS - in this specific case since Manning DID release a lot more (and pretty random) stuff than just exposing US pilots firing on civilians, he's still due some accountability, so I don't think he should be getting off scot-free. But 'aiding the enemy', 'treason' is too much, and death penalty seem a bit stiff to me.

James Micallef Silver badge
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Re: Too bad ACs can't pick their icon...

"When you join the armed forces, you agree to follow orders, do your duty, etc"

Even soldiers are bound to higher moral ideals than simply following orers, not only morally but also legally (eg Geneva Conventions). For example if a superior officer orders a soldier to torture a prisoner, or asks the soldier to open fire on innocent civilians, that order is illegal and the soldier is duty bound to inform the chain of command higher up. Similairly the soldier is duty bound to inform the chain of command if such acts are happening that they have knowledge of.

In Private Manning's case, since the chain of command immediately above him was ignoring illegal acts, he was perfectly justified in going as far up the chain of command as was necessary to reveal and stop such illegal acts. In the case of the US, the CoC is the president, and the president's boss is the American public.

Researcher names world's favourite smartphone

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: Samsung? No surprise!

"Better comparison for what?"

the way I see it, it IS teh better comparison for "high-end smartphone". I have no dog in this fight and am certainly no fanboi (I have an HTC One V that I'm very happy with). What I was pointing out is that if using sales volume as a proxy for popularity, you have to compare the phones that are competing against each other, so only the high-end models. Including low-end models will give you a measure of... what? total sales? Of course Samsung will sell more units than Apple, like Audi will sell more units than Ferrari, they compete in different markets. (Oh, and by that comparison, I would personally prefer an S3 - or an R8 :) )

"By the same reasoning, in Q2 2012, we should have compared the S2 and S3 sales, to the iphone 4 and iphone 4S "

Yes, I agree.

James Micallef Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Samsung? No surprise!

"Well, if we're including Apple's other phones, then sure - Samsung also sold around an extra *38 million* Android phones"

That's not, pardon the pun, comparing apples with apples. The true comparison is the newest high-end phone vs each other (S3 vs iP5). Since iP5 is only out less a month, a better comparison is include BOTH the predecessors (S2 + S3 vs iP4 + iP5). Adding all the other smartphones in Samsungs range is not a true comparison.

Medical scan record that the NHS says will cost £2k to retrieve: Detail

James Micallef Silver badge

Re: Just a thought

"In the event that any patient requires future treatment all clinical decisions and treatment are based on diagnostic tests undertaken at the time of admittance and as required rather than from historical records"

In some cases sure, a completely new scan is all that is needed, but I'm sure that in some cases there is some value to being able to have a before-and-after scan, and the comparison of the old scan with the new one can be medically relevant.

James Micallef Silver badge
Thumb Up

To be fair, I think the article title is a little misleading. It is quite clear from the article text that the £2000 figure is coming from Philips US as the cost to ship over a new drive.

It seems to me that the hospital is acting very responsibly - they are checking with the Information Commissioner what their obligations are, and they did the background work to see what would be required to comply even before they received an answer. They have said neither that they won't provide the image nor that they would pass on any bill to the patient, just that £2000 on this instance would not be an efficient use of public money - and on that I agree with them.

Of course, the question remains - if they have the disc in this format, they must have had a drive for it at some time, and presumably some other UK hospitals were using similair tech. Isn't there a single working drive in the whole UK they can borrow to just read the disc and get the file out, without needing to BUY a drive (new or eBay)?

Judge denies move to ban ad-skipping DVR

James Micallef Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Didn't TiVo get into problems for this

"not only breaches its content supply contract with Dish but that it also amounts to copyright infringement"

the copyright infringement accusation is pure bollocks.

the content supply contract line might be valid, depending of course on what's in it.

Apple kicked out of China smartphone top 5 by, er, Yulong and pals

James Micallef Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: Even the most brainwashed iSheep can see the pattern now

Erm, isn't it fairly obvious that Apple's market share by volume is only going to go down?

The Samsung vs Apple is a bit like saying Audi vs Ferrari. Since Audi cover the whole market (competing with Ferrari only with the R8), of course they have higher sales. If you are including the Kias and Tatas of the smartphone world, of course they are selling a lot more volume. Why is this news? And why do some people seem to insist on equating volume with quality / desirability?

*And please note that comparisons to car brands are intended to correlate to market sector operated in, NOT to teh quality, perceived or otherwise of any phone*

UK prosecutors, cops ponder new probe into NASA hacker McKinnon

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Re: FFS Leave him alone!

"Bottom line: criminals should be punished. end. of"

I don't think anyone here is arguing that criminals should not be punished, but that the punishment should fit the crime. Extradition + lifetime sentence in a maximum security prison in a country notorious for the prisoner abuse in it's jails is a tad over-reacting.

Especially when combined with the US hypocrisy by which the "punishment" for approving, legalising and enabling torture is a host of fancy posts (Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo et al), the "punishment" for selling toxic assets and causing the global economy to melt down is at most some fines and extra regulation for banks but nothing at all for bankers etc etc

James Micallef Silver badge
Facepalm

Re: FFS Leave him alone!

"UK prosecutors will review whether McKinnon, who lives in north London, can be tried in Britain"

Astounding, I would have thought this would have already been established a long time ago as part of the extradition will-we-won't-we shenanigans. Or maybe it was purposely not looked into, because if it turned out he was prosecutable in UK it would have undermined the extradition case?

The genetic button that could turn a WOMAN into a CHIMPANZEE

James Micallef Silver badge
Happy

Wrong direction?

"Certain regulatory mechanisms in genes are all that's stopping the human race from turning into monkeys, boffins have found"

wouldn't it be equally correct to say

"Certain regulatory mechanisms in genes are all that's stopping apes from turning into humans, boffins have found"

??

Torvalds: I want to be nice, and curse less, but it's just not in me

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Thumb Up

"just saying what he thinks"

One of the reasons I like Finns, they call it like they see it.

(eg Raikonnen - "Leave me alone I know what I'm doing")

Ohio voting machines have 'backdoor', lawsuit claims

James Micallef Silver badge
Boffin

The US is the ONLY democracy in teh world where elections are not overseen by an independent authority but by located (i.e. partisan) officials, which is why it's quite common for the electoral authorities themselves to try some dirty tricks such as not having enough voting booths / machines and/or closing polling stations early in areas where their rival is stronger.

Regarding e-voting machines, they CAN work well as long as certain conditions are met: Get the machine to issue a paper receipt that the voter can check matches his/her vote, and the receipt is popped into a ballot box. If there is any doubt or discrepancy, the paper record is waht counts. Print the receipt on a proper printer not one of those that has ink that fades after a few days. Physically secure the machines the same way you would secure paper ballots and ballot boxes. And most importantly, DO NOT CONNECT THE FRIGGIN' MACHINE TO THE INTERNET!!!