Posts by Pete "oranges" B.

Novo Minoru - the world's first 3D webcam

Oh dear...

I seem to remember an episode Star Trek: The Next Generation in which the crew is chased by flying killbots that bear a striking resemblance to that thing.

It got really bad, they had to detatch the saucer and everything.

Glastonbury new-agers protest WiFi

Verily!

"Wifi / WiMax is worse.. I had a Wifi/Max Mast on my roof. As an internet connection between Bracknell and my ISP in Reading (TELE2).

After a few years I could not remember what I had typed on an A4 page. My Typing became erratic, my spelling was terrible."

Yes, yes. These are all common side effects of having an internet connection. Seen it a million times.

But that's not the worst of it. Soon you will have uncontrolable urges to seek out cat pictures with funny captions, become embroiled in long pointless arguments in comments sections, and spend hours on end editing Wikipedia pages about Battlestar Galactica!

Trust me, I too suffer from this dreadful illness. I speel liek carp, and mae grammer r totuly unwel! Ceiling Cat halp us all!

Market watcher heralds 'Age of the Notebook'

Does this mean...

Maybe we'll see a few notebook designs with cases that don't bend, warp, crack, flex, deform, etc. during normal use?

Mac fans see MS porn everywhere

In Search of Safes

"OMG just used Google Image search and types in some rude words and OMG it's like well full of porn...."

You might try setting that SafeSearch thing to 'strict'.

Amazingly it doesn't actually govern the number of images related to safes displayed in each search! Bloody usless if you ask me.

Cellular repeaters: Can you hear me now?

Being in The States...

I have always wondered how it would work out strapping one of these to the car and mounting the antenna on the roof.

Better coverage every where you go! Though I don't know how the unit would respond to having the power cut and comeback so often. Some kind of protection circuit maybe?

Free eco-friendly font saves ink and toner

Retrotech?

Looking over at the printout from my trusty IBM 5152 (an Epson rebrand IRC), the letters are full of holes, mostly between the little dots made by the pins hitting the paper :)

Lego terrorist threatens democracy

Guns don't kill people...

Lego kills people. But only if you eat certain varieties of the bricks. Thus the warning labels on the back of the boxes. Duh.

And besides, It's /obviously/ a depiction of T.E. Lawrence, brought back to the future by the inventor of The Time Machine to aid Nikola Tesla and Alan Quartermain in an epic battle against Lovecraftian monstrosities unleashed on the eve of the New Millennium, "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" meets "Terminator" style. Duh.

But in all seriousness, that hood mold was first used in the Ninja themed sets any. There's actually a little two pronged clip on the back to hold the katana piece. And those custom molded pieces from brickarms are perfect for those of us who use Lego as wargaming/RPG'ing materials. Hey, they're cheaper and more customizable than lead and you're set ups can morph as the game evolves.

Getting my coat, I think I may have just com up with a new scenario!

Harvard prof slams US nut allergy hysteria

Ha!

"full of 10-year-olds who, unlike two-year-olds, could actually be told not to eat food off the floor."

I would very much like to know where you get your ten-year-olds from! All the ones I've known (much less *shudder* been responsible for watching for any period of time) don't have a vocabulary which includes the word "not."

GPLv3 to reinforce FSF open-source license position?

I want some!

So all this software I've been using was written by /imaginary/ programmers?

Cool!

Can I imagine up a whole bunch to work on cool new Plan 9 projects for me?

Is filming someone in the street a breach of privacy?

A Hypothetical...

You are in a place you are legally allowed to have a physical presence in.

I am in a place where I am legally allowed to have a physical presence in.

There are no express restrictions on relating to the physical actions I am about to take, as set by the legal controllers of the property (perhaps I even own it).

I operate a typical camera, which is a passive sensing instrument.

Am I to be told that I'm am not to be allowed to move a little shutter in front of a strip of film or a CCD?

This is absurd. The fact that you do not wish your presence to be known, but have not taken any measures to defend yourself from the probing of passive sensors is your problem, not mine.

And yes, I do keep my shades down, all the time. No I am not paranoid. OK, yes I am, but that has nothing to do with this.

Facebook ignores huge security hole for four months

I told ja, I told ja!

No gosh-dern good would come 'a these whipper-snappers and their gosh derned Web 2.0!

Armed anti-paedophile cops swoop on video site uploader

So, does this indicate...

... that somewhere in the UK there is a "Stupid and Disorganised Crime Agency?"

Tux makes home on the iPhone

We do what we must...

...because we can!

(the Portal reference had to be made at some point in this discussion)

Sanyo intros 'iPhone-on-a-stick' home internet terminal

Rollin Old Skool...

http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/Shustek/37-Xerox-Alto.gif

<insert additional slang I don't understand here>

Additionally, who else thinks "Albo" sounds like "Alpo" but for the Aibo? Anybody?

BBC's TV detector vans to remain a state secret

So...

I suppose it would be very naughty of me to take the EMP cannon (which I /do not/ have in my basement) and direct it at large vehicles with odd looking antennae which I suspect of operating on behalf of a government agency, in order to see if doing so results in sounds of annoyance and confusion from the occupants?

NASA: Google Gulfstreams not science experiments

O Rly?

"...the FAA does not regulate experimental planes in the same way they regulate passenger jets..."

Do they now? Hmm... There's this one spot in my backyard that would look real nifty with a steam catapult + high-angle launch rail on it...

All for launching flying things of a highly scientificle nature of course. Of course.

US Justice Dept builds microwave heat-ray 'rifle'

Fine by me...

...but only so long as they don't start giving these gizmos protected status under the law.

EG:

"No person may posses any article or garment intended to reduce or circumvent the effects of microwave based riot control devices."

and/or

"No person may posses any weapon which generates painful or destructive levels of heat at distance by use of microwave radiation."

Fair is fair after all.

US boffins: Laptops will be as hot as the Sun by 2030

Or

We could write clever software that needs a less powerful processor and couple it with newer, more efficient hardware. (See Palm/Handspring/Handera, Alphasmart, Psion, HP 200lx, Apple/Newton, etc.)

But that would make sense, and nobody would want that now would they?

Evil Hobs, because he killed the Messagepads.

EFF sues Dubya over warrantless surveillance

This string of comments...

... reminds oranges of Gene Spafford's description of Usenet:

“Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it”

Come to think of it, that describes the government too.

And the Parties.

Thinking about them makes me depressed.

Screwit! Who wants pie!

Democratic rep fathered alleged Palin hacker

Really!

Boring. Script-kiddie gets into politico's personal email account. Finds nothing interesting. Boring.

It's Friday, entertain me dagnabit!

Obama: McCain can't email, remembers Rubik's Cubes

The irony! It's killing me! (Not really. It's just the chemtrails)

" flashing images of[:]

a dumbbell-sized mobile phone"

Clones of similar designs are still manufactured to this day. Unlike their ultra-miniturized, "modern" counterparts, they have retained their casing size in order to actually take advantage of advancements in battery technology, giving users useful real-world talk and standby times. They aren't terribly popular because they're not cool or hip or bitchin or whatever the hell it is now, and they can't be rammed into the hip pockets of tight jeans.

"a vinyl record player"

OK, I'm not going to open up this debate, let's just leave it at "At least I can make copies with it in whatever manner I choose"

"a monochrome monitor"

I would place good money on the idea that 65-70% of devices that use color panels would actually function better with monochrome ones. Yeah that's right, your SMS messages read just the same whether they're black-on-white or gray-on-green. Also see the products marketed under the e-Ink brand.

"Rubik's cube"

Last time I checked the stickers are still fun to peel off and stick back on.

Someone with a proper command of any of those older technological paradigms can still outclass most modern end users in exacting functionality from their equipment.

I'm no McCain fan, but this just further confirms my opinion that "Obama" is merely a brand sold to a target (apparently Web 2.0 using) audience. Whoever controls that brand may soon control the nation.

What do you call 1000 politicians at the bottom of the ocean...

Web designer sues Brat City for assaulting hyperlink

What is "Link"?

So, if I take the link tags away, does that make it not a link?

What if I make jpegs of the link characters, is it still a link?

What if I put the link in a plain text file and then link to that?

What if I use binary to spell out the link?

How about Morse code?

What if I write it on a little scrap of paper?

And photocopy the paper?

Or burn the link in a text file to a mini-CD-R and use a home made ballista to chuck it over to my friend's house?

Does any non-standard manner of convey the link information count? Who's standard?

It are fryday. Me are confused.

Homeland Security backs deportation with Wikipedia

A bunch of drooling idiots...

...missuse tools and ensure that the choke hold of the Industro-Academic cult on daily life grows ever tighter.

Council clamps down on 'man on the street'

Randomness?

Bad politicos, don't you know, every time you drag semantics into a discussion of colloquialisms, god kills a cat girl. Please, think of the cat girls.

BBC to 'reimagine' The Thirty-nine Steps

Hope

There are to I would like this to pan out (forgetting the nigh-infinite number of atrocious ones):

1. A very long, very close interpretation that will be enjoyed by those who like the book (my self included), but eschewed by pro critics and the general public.

2. A James Bondian / post-steampunk rewrite, which will be the first in an epic trilogy.

I can see it now, three whole movies packed with, Zeppelins with lighting guns, huge landships, flying u-boats, steam powered mecha, rocket assisted biplanes, Russian clones, death rays, auto revolvers, water cooled submachineguns, motorcycle lance cavalry, daring escapes in hijacked enemy aircraft, secret bases in medieval castles, the list could go on.

Ok, so that wouldn't be close to the book at all, but it would be ripping good adventure/war/spy movie.

Of course there is also the distinct possibility that I'm the only one who would go see such a movie. But I can dream can't I?

Did we say you can read that?

A minor correction for Mr. Bryan

"Not to do so would be to avoid their [in reference to the police] main reason for being - to protect the general public"

The police are not officially there to protect the general public. They are members of Law Enforcement, which is (not surprisingly) solely concerned with criminal activity against the state (either directly or by proxy,through the breaking of the state's laws governing others). Through some mysterious (and dare I say arcane) system of abstraction, the state's laws theoretically protect the general public, through Law Enforcement.

In essence, Law Enforcement is simply an internal military, protecting the state's interests (which are theoretically "the people's" interests) by force within just as national armed forces do abroad. If you want proof, consider that the two have been shown to be interchangeable: In times of internal violence, soldiers from the state's standing forces may be used to suppress it, while in times of great external threat, the police may be used to combat foreign agents e.g. terrorists.

I don't mean this to offend any members of Law Enforcement, particularly those whose personal conviction is that they are protecting the public (based on what the state defines "protection" as at any given moment), but I am simply stating the facts as I understand them.

On a lighter note, would material on the "Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development" be considered a threat? After all, we wouldn't want the terrorists to develop Flaming Rocket Wheels Of Exploding Doom would we?

No wireless sex please, we're American

My level of support...

...depends entirely on how easily, rapidly, and accurately they are able find users based on measurements of their outgoing transmissions.

I would actually propose a completely different plan to the FCC, an outbound-only wireless text-casting service. Receivers could be very basic monochrome LCD affairs or USB dongles, that would simply be programmed to collect a programming schedule at the start of the week, from which the user would select articles, news feeds, maybe even whole books to be listened for at given times during that period, recored and saved, most likely with frequent repeats for convenience. No it wouldn't be the internet, but it would go a long way in helping create better informed society (which is at least what I hope the FCC's goal is), albeit one in which you must ignore the little ASCII art sponsorship adds.

No one would really like that though, they'd much rather wipe the drool of their keyboard while watching a skateboarding dog on youtube, and go around poking people on that book of faces thing. Ungrateful whippersnappers.

Swedish men left frustrated by state sex aid policy

Truly, we live in a...

...Brave New World.

Sorry, but the headline alone scares me. While the story is rather benign on the whole, it provides a very sad picture of the human condition.

Besides, I have no need of such devices. No, wait that didn't come out right...

Someone pass the soma...

Joint Committee gets it (mainly) wrong on human rights

Item #1:

Thous shalt not attempt to land thy surplus Harrier on thy front lawn.

SUBSECTION A:

Thou shalt not aim at the neighbor's cat while engaged in the same."

I have no idea how it contributes, but for some reason this is all I could think about while reading the article after "responsibilities" were mentioned, and the visual was too funny not to share.

Linux risks netbooks defeat to Microsoft

Am I the only one...

... who cannot resist pronouncing "gOS" like "DOS" rather than "gee - oh - es"?

Openmoko to reveal Linux phone's inner workings

@Drak

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateway

A good number of carriers have them, providing eMail > SMS and SMS > eMail services free of charge. Great for when you want to send a quick message from a WiFi enabled device or a wired connection. It works out even better for me, since I have an unlimited (by which AT&T apparently means 5GB per month) mobile data plan, I can communicate with most of my contacts through my eMail application with no per message costs to me. Now as I said above, actually trying to tack out a message on the Centro's lilliputian keyboard is a completely different matter.

Evil Bill, because I still like my Palm better than his WMDs*

*Windows Mobile Devices*

*Very bad pun, I know.

@Drak

Because they want you to keep buying phones. If they were to give you such an uber-device, you might be tempted to keep it after your contract was up.

Additionally, (as far as I can tell any way) most people just get the subsidized drek that comes with their plan anyway. Cell culture / popular features are then built around the features included on the cheapened / freebie models (notice even Palm makes such a phone now, never mind the fact that it's much to tiny for anyone over the age of 13 to use). It takes a fairly dedicated geek or a business professional to seek out a phone based on specific features that are useful to them on an individual basis. Which means more than just "Like ZOMG does ur phone do PiXmssgs?"

(I hate phone culture. I really do. I like confuse them by saying "SMS messages" and laughing as I send and receive unlimted messages through the gateways.)

Free passports for WWII generation hit 500,000

Was I the only one whose first thought was...

...have they gotten bored with "1984" and started moving towards "Starship Troopers" instead? Any one?

Of course, I should be one to talk, here in the US passports cost at least that much, but we seemed to have introduced our own, systematized, version of bribing officials know as "expedition," which if I remember correctly, comes in several packages and can almost double the cost. Good work America, extort your citizens by threating to expose them to the full and wondrous efficiency of the bureaucracy.

Doctors: Third babies are the same as patio heaters

Space Race 2.0 time...

If you want my opinion, what we need is a good ol' fashioned international Space Race; this time for self sustaining colonies on other planets in our system. Many problems now pushed more in the "solved" direction. More than that, it paves the way for interstellar colonization and escape from the looming burn out of our star.

I propose UK vs. China vs. USA.

Now go on governmonkies, pull out those hidden program funds, don't want lose face in front of those: (Commies/Limey Bastards) / (Commies/Redneck Yankees) / (US/UK Capitalist Pigs).

And now we get some popcorn and wait...

Speachless...

From the article:

"isn’t contraception the medical profession’s prime contribution for all countries?"

0.o

Because things like antibiotics, immunization, life saving surgeries, radiology, etc. are just fun extras?

I'm sorry, this man must be deranged!

Sony to bring E Ink eBook reader to UK in September

Design flaw...

I have handled one at Boarders, and while the screens really are a wonder to behold, a quick glance at the box reveals a critical (to me at least) design flaw for a device of this nature: rechargeable batteries.

What is the point of having a display which doesn't require constant power, coupled with flash memory, when the batteries powering it all /self discharge anyway/? A slim bulge / ergonomic grip on the "spine" of this thing would have easily permitted the use a set of 1.5v AAA size lithium or alkaline primaries, which hold a charge for years instead of days or weeks. Does the display have some massive current draw for each page turn that requires a Li-Ion rechargeable?

Sony hit the nail on the head with their MD players, 50+ hours of playback @ 292 Kbps ATRAC on a single AA, which will last years so I can leave the thing in my bag without a second thought. This thing, not so much.

Who do you think you are, knitting Mr Hitler?

So...

When will the other bosses from Wolfenstein 3D be available?

Texas Memory Systems makes mighty big RAM SSD

They should sell...

... portable HDD sized RAM SSDs with batteries, so when you have to take sensitive data with you, it will have a reliable self destruct mechanism.

Border search not going well? just hit a button and erase.

Add a proximity bracelet, and anytime it leaves you person, total erase.

And no big deal if it's left some were by a moron posing as a public official, a timer can be set to go off if the device isn't plugged in by a preset time or the battery's drain time.

E-Gold cops to e-money laundering

A place for anonymity?

"[E-Gold] allowed customers to open accounts with names such as "Mickey Mouse" and "No Name"

Though there may be some more specific regulations here, but my understanding was that it is only a crime to use a pseudonym in most US jurisdiction if you A: present your self as another real person or B: illegally gain from doing so in some measurable way.

Weather or not it's a violation of the service contract is a separate matter.

"and made no requirements that customers not use the service for criminal activity."

Which brings up an interesting point: Should they?

After all, it seems clear that there is considered to be a place for "blind" services. My telephone company is not (as far as I know) liable if I make calls relating to a crime using their service, nor is the post office if I send letters relating to the same. If I remember correctly, ISPs have a similar level of immunity under certain circumstances. Seems a bit like shooting the messenger (or in this case the banker).

Of course, this does nothing to stop the harassment of lawful businesses by bleeding heart / special interest groups when a product/service is abused (just look at KMart).

Mine's the one with the camera scrambling IR hood.

A correction...

I heard the the KMart story second hand, and was unaware of Mr. Moore's involvement. This makes the final portion of my closing line untrue, as Moore* technically does not constitute either of those groups.

* while being much slimier, for lack of a more exact term.

i can haz semantics?

Torvalds brands Digg users 'W*nking Walruses'

Hmm...

"Nah - she'd beat the tar out of him."

Wouldn't it make more sense to say that Linus would be beat out of the tar?

(or perhaps into one?)

Grand Theft Auto reportedly inspires teen rampage

Hmmm...

Considering the hours I've logged on: Age of Empires (1&2), Empire Earth, Empires Dawn of the Modern World, Star Wars: Battlegrounds, Command and Conquer: Generals, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2, Rise of Nations and numerous others in that vein, should we be at all worried? Realy...

Must...

Resist...

Urge...

To...

Conquer...

World...

Using...

Dolphins...

GAH!

Or, alternatively, to stand on tall buildings and attempt command those below to do my bidding.

Evil Bill, 'cause all those games are for his O/S. I blame him. Hand me my money down Mr. gates!

(I kid! I Kid!)

UK culture sec wants a public service web

Yes, right, good. We'll look into that right away.

““I’m thinking of guiding principles like impartiality and accuracy in TV and radio news, the integrity of programme making and the 9pm watershed, protecting against harm and offence, that have stood us in good stead for years.”

On the internet?

*points and laughs*

HA Ha ha ... Oh wait you were serious? ....

AHA HAHAHAHAHAHA. E-hem. What was it you were you saying now?

New York talks net giants into child pornography crackdown

YES!

"newsgroups" by AC

"Clearly a decision made by some web 2.0 idiot who thinks the IntarWeb is his AOL portal and MySpace."

Finally, some sign of intelligent life on this godforsaken rock. VIVA LA USENET!

But, but... I thought...

...it was a series of tubes?! Everything I know is a LIE!

P.S. Be very, very afraid whenever an elected official utters the word "immoral".

American auto dealer offers free handguns

Numbers and Some Parody

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Number of people killed by automobiles in the USA: 43,005

www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr50/nvsr50_15.pdf

Number of people killed by firearms in the USA: 28,663

These are all deaths regardless of intent. Numbers are a little on the stale side, being from 2002, but I think stats for both may exist up to '05. Never the less, it would seem that owning a gun purchased with the certificate might actually prove safer than driving on the fuel from the gas card.

And now:

(What follows is a piece of humor, based on an oft referenced but little confirmed bit of history, neither the spelling nor the situation are an attempt at serious historical parody.)

Com down to Arther's Fyne Carte Emporeeum for ourr Crosbowes An Cabages prommotional! Due to a resent decision by the Pope regarding the usse of crosbowes, we havv decided to offer you the choyse of eyther onne free crosbowe or 20 of our fynest cabages with the purchas of any new or usid

carte! Horry, suplys are limted!

(I'm going to hell aren't I...)

Intel wants to own the weather prediction business

New motto:

Intel: Building Meteorology A Better random Number Generator.

(The slicker, seeing as there's a 39.999856738903 percent chance of rain here)

Pain ray really killer ray gun, many goats dead, says 'expert'

Maybe...

...Skippy has a buddy in the Air Force and in an unfortunate attempt to make the world's largest s'more, they have succeeded in covering the thing with sugary residue, which is still in the process of being removed to this day?

OK, no but it makes for a funny visual.

This DVD will self-destruct in 48 hours

@ Stiles

"Personally, I'd like to see it made law that any "disposable" item must not be sold more cheaply than a reusable item intended to perform the same function many times over (so zinc-carbon batteries should cost no less than NiMH ones, cardboard plates should cost as much as china ones, a fountain pen would not cost more than a non-refillable ballpoint, and so forth) with the revenue raised from the "disposability tax" used as a subsidy on reusable goods."

A brilliant idea actually, excepting the batteries, for two reasons:

1. Wiki says zinc-carbon batteries are inferior to newer alkaline chemistry batteries, which could explain why I never see zinc-carbon batteries for sale.

2. Even ignoring the above, NiMH are not really equivalent to either chemistry, due to their higher rate of self discharge, different performance under load, and different nominal voltages.

So while they make a good replacement for disposable cells in some applications, they are completely unsuitable in others, such as flashlights, emergency radios, remotes, etc. because of the self discharge and can mess with devices which demand exacting voltages.

In other news...

... a company has introduced a new product: VidiFix! Just spray on the surface of your disposable DVDs as soon as you open the packaging and the video stays for days and days! Now in Fresh Lemon and Forest Pine scents!

j/k of course, though I would not be surprised if such a thing was created.