Posts by joe

Department of Homeland Security to destroy swine flu victims

@DZ-Jay

They're talking about the border checkpoints - San Diego has the world's busiest border crossing, handling about 50 million people each year.

Apple banishes Macs to old folks home

something doesn't add up

Does "Powerbook G4" only refer to the original titanium models? The aluminum G4 systems were in production until 2006, which wouldn't put them in the "more than 5 years old' category.

Microsoft updates Mac Office 2008

rtf?!

How on earth are they still finding security issues with the code that parses RTFs? Surely this code is (a) simple enough and (b) mature enough that they shouldn't be having to patch it anymore...

Green-loving California may dodge utility bill bullet

california

@Prevaricator: possibly, but it turns out the EU's auto emissions standards are too lax, you'd need to toughen them up if you want to join us. (Hey, we're already run by an Austrian.)

@anonymous coward1: Actually wasn't most of the power deal negotiated while Gray Davis was still in office?

@anonymous coward2: I've never had my utilities go over $100 in California. Maybe you need to turn a few things off.

Mine's the sweater, for wearing in the winter...

Microsoft kicks Ubuntu update in the hardy herons

security.ubuntu.com

Actually by default ubuntu uses your country-selected mirror (us.archive.ubuntu.com for example) to download normal updates, but security.ubuntu.com for security updates. I assume this is to speed deployment, but it also makes everyone dependent on one server for security updates.

Should Europeans pay to receive phone calls?

us calling

For the past four years, I have been using T-Mobile prepaid as my only telephone. If you add your minutes in units of $100, you get 1000 minutes, so $0.10/minute to make or receive normal domestic calls - no monthly balance deduction, and the minutes are good for a year. It doesn't matter what network they're on or whether it's a land line or a mobile - it costs me $0.10/minute either way. Over that time I don't think I've gotten a single "spam" call. Charities and politicians _can_ legally call you, but they tend not to since calling people and costing them money tends to elicit a hostile reaction, which isn't generally what they're looking for.

The carriers have a pretty good incentive to go after people who are spamming their customers - they might make a bit in per-minute charges on it, but they'll lose a lot more in time spent dealing with irate customers demanding something be done about it, and calls to 611 (customer service) are free. :)

Systemax saves CompUSA from knacker's yard

not all retail stores in trouble

Fry's seems to be doing pretty well for themselves too, and they may be the only retail chain in existence where the customer service is _worse_ than CompUSA.

EU tunes in to DVB-H

how hard would it be?

To just integrate a DVB-T receiver into a mobile? Would the power requirements be too high? (Or perhaps you'd need a stupidly long antenna?)

Fox News: Filthier than the internet

airwaves

Actually the FCC broadcast decency rules wouldn't apply to Fox news anyway, since it's a cable channel and they apply only to terrestrial broadcast channels.

Reno 911: World's largest reboot underway

indeed

Even when the systems are on their home turf, many academic centers operate their clusters (especially those based on commodity hardware) with no UPS protection at all - sometimes it comes down to being able to buy a cluster+UPS or being able to buy a cluster that is 2x as big. Assuming you've got even remotely reliable power, for this application the tradeoff is easy. Yes you'll lose jobs in progress when the power goes out, but even if that results in a few days of lost compute time the numbers are still in your favor if you can double your compute resources.

Some sites have a dynamic UPS (otherwise known as a "big spinning heavy thing attached to a generator") which provides a few seconds of power via inertia--enough to ride out 99% of power outages at a much lower cost than a "real" UPS. This sort of device would be kind of impractical to bring along to a trade show, though the potential for things to go horribly wrong might add to the excitement and increase attendance.

Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail strike out Iran

long term effects

First, in response to one point: I think regardless of where the company is based, if you are a citizen of country A and are sitting in country A when the the police come knocking with a warrant, you're going to be expected to comply with that warrant, and pointing to the flag of country B under your corporate logo isn't going to carry a whole lot of weight with the friendly sgt. at the ministry of public security.

But there might be a positive long term effect of this idiocy: as Americans become a smaller and smaller percentage of total internet users, maybe we'll get to the point where a few of the big net players don't bother doing business in the states at all. Who was it that said the internet views censorship as damage and routes around it?

Striking writers target Desperate Housewives

ummmm

Isn't Jay Leno in Los Angeles?

And as for Ellen skipping her monologue, I think it's an even bigger favor for her audience. Now if she could just skip the rest of the show.

Prince's anti-YouTube crusade halted by American mommy

are you insane?

> In the end of the most dangerous criminal cartel in the world: The RIAA/MPAA.

Perhaps you've never encountered a real criminal cartel? You know, the ones that kidnap, assassinate policemen, blow up airplanes, or kill 100,000 Iraqis (but I digress).

Get some perspective. From a global perspective, the RIAA/MPAA are only relevant to the wealthy few who have a profitable amount of money to blow on content.

Orange puts plum back in mouth

Virgin

The Virgin Mobile lady in the US is just as annoying. She's young, she's hip, she's bubbly, she makes you want to cram the telephone down her throat and throw the two of them off of a very tall building.

On top of that, it's one of those menus that you have to talk to rather than pressing buttons. I'm a native (US) English speaker with no particular regional accent and sometimes she doesn't understand me. I can only imagine what she does with people who are speaking their second language.

Adobe gifts internal file permissions to unwashed masses

7 years?

Haven't bugs like this been known for a whole lot longer than 7 years?

US Navy to remodel Hitler's San Diego bunker

starving children

> Think about how many starving children would be fed for months on this remodelling...

<JAMES EARL JONES VOICE>

This is the United States government. We're not into that sort of thing.

</JAMES EARL JONES VOICE>

New euro coin stuffs Turkey

@Glenn

America is busy struggling to remain a secular nation. We'll get back to you after the next election.

Cops seek 179mph net vid biker

bike speedometers..

are notoriously optimistic...at that speed, it could be over-reporting by 20% or more.

which would still make him a moron, just not a record-breaking moron.

AT&T turns screws on iPhone unlocker

@responses

@j: Central America is not a continent. It is generally considered to be a part of North America, although the actual geological situation is somewhat more complex than this.

@Gary: my mistake, I added when I should have subtracted.

@Dan: my mistake on the population density, but I still consider Bush a Texan (he was governor, after all), and hope that one day the Texan nationalists will secede and take the whole family with them. Besides, the Pacific time zone will grow when the governator decides he needs more "lebensraum" and annexes all of the nearby states.

And I stand by my statement that the name of the country is the fault of the Englishmen who created it.

@Daniel Ballado-Torres

Speaking of not knowing things:

- The last time I checked, the Americas included *two* continents ("North America" and "South America") plus quite a large number of islands. Perhaps that nice young lady from the youtube video can find you a map.

- The Eastern and Pacific time zones (the two with the largest populations) are +5 and +8, respectively. Nobody wants to go to +7, because that is where George Bush lives.

- I agree, the Englishmen who named the country probably could have made a better choice. But what's done is done, and even saying "United States" instead isn't perfect, both because it results in having to use really stupid words to describe the citizens (United Statesians? Estadosunidenses?) and because the Estados Unidos Mexicanos also have fair claim on that name. Thankfully, their country was named by more sensible folk who understood the importance of scope and unique identifiers. (See, even an IT angle.)

Monster.com torpedoes rogue server as malware scam rolls on

if people can commit identity theft...

If somebody can get a credit card with the information in my resume, than the people giving out the credit need to fix their procedures. I'm not going to waste my time trying to keep my whole life a secret because they can't set up a better verification system...

EU officially endorses DVB-H

dvb-t?

Other than trying to protect a nonexistent revenue stream for the telcos, what's to stop a handset being able to show dvb-t broadcasts? Would the power consumption be too high?

Seems such a model could work for a handset manufacturer here in Europe, where people are more likely to pick up their phone separate from their plan...