Posts by Alan Parsons

Three questions for the Jesus SDK

meh

My phone is a phone. It doesn't have a camera and the screen isn't in colour. I charge it once a week. I think it might have a game on it somewhere but I use it to text and make calls. That's it... Call me a luddite but really, that's all I want it to do.

I think we have to be careful here. Last week I was accosted by some chap from some happy clappy part of the company that thinks that Outlook is a good mail client and he demanded to know if I would like to trade my mobile for a blackberry. As far as I am concerned email is the "last bastion of asynchronous communication". If I get sent an email at 17:02 on a Friday I'm quite happy with the current arrangement where I can at least pretend I haven't seen it until Monday morning thank you very much. Seriously, what the fuck do you think you're doing to yourselves?

You know how there's a "Gateway" argument for drugs? That one about cannabis leading on heroin etc? I reckon that overly clever phones and blackberry style devices are but a stepping stone to daily use of powerpoint (and the accompanying addiction to adjectives and aversion for verbs - sorry but "systematized integration process" is NOT a sentence) and using the speakerphone at your desk despite sitting in a cube and not having an office. Fuck me it might even lead to playing golf.

You have been warned

A third of online shops undermine consumer rights

not got an account yet?

Then give us all your details please!

THAT really pisses me off. All I wanted to buy today was a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce - yeah I like hot food, but I had to 'proceed to checkout' on three different sites before I found one that would let me buy it without creating an account. If I walk into a shop, whether I pay by cash or card, I want to just pay and walk out.

The only high street shop to try this crap when you're there in person is PC world - they wanted my name and address etc recently when I was paying CASH for a 15 quid webcam.

So what about a law that makes it illegal for sites to prevent you from buying something without creating an account. A law that states that you have the right to buy stuff without them permanently storing your info.

Steve Ballmer lies to my mother

haha

This is precisely why I don't use any Microsoft products. And neither should you.

EU wants RFID tags turned off

@Andrew - rubbish

I removed the tag from my dustbin, microwaved it and put it back. I guess I could just microwave all my clothes and shoes from now on..

Thigh-drive phone charger put through its paces

Fidgeters to charge laptops..?

I'm sure I once read somewhere about an idea that would allow "knee jigglers" and "foot tappers" to charge their laptops by means of a device under the desk.. Wonder if something like that's available..? The last office I worked at I knew a chap that could power the whole bloody floor.

3 fails in court bid to uncover evidence of alleged collusion

Agreed

Yep, they suck indeed. Also - if you didn't buy the phone from them you can't use it even if it is a model that 3 sell themselves.

I lost a phone on holiday and it wasn't insured (I don't like the odds). I called them and was told a replacement sim is 15 notes. Fair enuff. And that I had to buy MY OWN PHONE (note the wording there) also fair enuff - I chose not to insure the handset they gave me..

So I did buy my OWN phone, an unlocked, unencumbered phone which worked with the new sim no problems. Then, 2 weeks in I get a text - you can't use this phone - keep doing so and we'll cut you off.

So I call them and it transpires that apparently in the fine print of the contract it says I have to use a '3' phone.. (to my knowledge no other network in the UK has this policy) So I say 'what now?' and the guy says - 'well if you keep using that phone we'll eventually block it and disconnect you.' So I say that I'm happy with that, I can go get a vodafone sim cos their network is better anyway and then I get told that I'll have to pay early cancellation charges.

So my stance became - I'm not paying charges if YOU cancel the contract, and theirs became - YOU broke the contract when you started using that phone. So my stance then became - well YOU changed the contract when you instructed me to get my OWN phone..

So if they're having so much trouble getting people to switch, you'd think it would be in their interests to actually provide a usable service.

@Leslie - best of luck with whomever you migrate to. At least you know it HAS to be better than this bunch of halfwits.

IBM snubs OS/2 open source plea

Tape libraries

I'm pretty sure that a lot of IBM tape libraries still run OS/2 on their library management console.. And ATMs... Wow - I'd quite like to buffer overrun an ATM. :)

Boffins: Antimatter comes from black holes, neutron stars

So what is it?

CAT: So, what is it?

KRYTEN: I've never seen one before -- no one has -- but I'm guessing it's a white hole.

RIMMER: A _white_ hole?

KRYTEN: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A black hole sucks time and matter out of the universe: a white hole returns it.

LISTER: So, that thing's spewing time back into the universe? (He dons his fur-lined hat.)

KRYTEN: Precisely. That's why we're experiencing these curious time phenomena on board.

CAT: So, what is it?

KRYTEN: I've never seen one before -- no one has -- but I'm guessing it's a white hole.

RIMMER: A _white_ hole?

KRYTEN: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A black hole sucks time and matter out of the universe: a white hole returns it.

LISTER: (Minus the hat.) So, that thing's spewing time back into the universe? (He dons his fur-lined hat, again.)

KRYTEN: Precisely. That's why we're experiencing these curious time phenomena on board.

LISTER: What time phenomena?

KRYTEN: Like just then, when time repeated itself.

CAT: So, what is it?

They all stare at him.

CAT: Only joking.

LISTER: (Suddenly upright, and minus his hat, again) Okay, so it's decided then. We consult Holly.

CAT: Hey, wait a minute -- I missed the discussion!

RIMMER: (Suddenly on the bench, where the CAT used to be sitting) We all did.

KRYTEN: (Suddenly on the table previously occupied by LISTER) Time is occurring in random pockets. The laws of causality no longer apply. An action no longer leads to a consequence.

CAT: (Back on the bench) So, what is it?

KRYTEN: I think we've experienced this period of time before, Sir.

CAT: Only joking.

KRYTEN: And that one. Since we're no longer affected by the laws of causality, we can override these time jumps if we concentrate.

RIMMER: Look, the only way out of this is to consult Holly.

CAT: (Snaps fingers) I'll go with that.

KRYTEN: Gets my vote.

LISTER: Okay, so it's decided then. We consult Holly.

KRYTEN: Ah, I think we've just encountered the middle of this conversation!

CAT: So, what is it?

LISTER: Ooh, someone punch him out.

EMC does flash drives on big storage

Overwrites?

I'd be more interested in how many times you can write to these devices. I know that it's a different tech to your USB pen, but in a datacenter, if every block can only take about 300,000 writes (to pull a figure completely out of the air) before it goes all "Quantum-physics" (maybe a 1, maybe a 0, maybe both) on you then that's not a lot of good. EMCs announcement and FAQ on their powerlink site don't cover this at all..

A quote from Wikipedia on the "endurance" section of the article on Flash Memory: The endurance of NAND flash is much greater than that of NOR flash (typically 1,000,000 cycles vs. 100,000 cycles). So can we assume, best case, that you can only overwrite a block 1M times? And how does the array handle this? I guess it could keep a write count for blocks and slander a drive as 'failed' if a block gets written > n times.. The info on powerlink confirms that these drives do hotsparing just as traditional drives do, but how/when does the array decide a flash drive is dead?

Just an element that I thought might need discussing - anyone who knows more about high end flash, or who works for EMC and can clarify the overwrite position without breaking any NDAs please feel free to tell me if I'm communicating from the wrong orrifice.. :)

Bikini-clad pin-ups cover old school jailbreak

Not how I did it..

I rubbed my hands together until they were 'saw', used the saw to cut the bed in half. Two halves make a 'hole', which I climbed out through. Then I shouted until I was 'horse' and rode away on my trusty steed.

...because it's Christmas I'm not even sorry about this post...

BBC's iPlayer launches Christmas Day

@Richard

I, for years, had a plasma TV up on the wall with a built in tuner - never tuned it, never watched TV, never bought a license. Had several visits, each time explained the situation, even on one occasion demonstrated it as untuned and every time the officials were happy to accept that I wasn't watching TV and didn't need a license. Now I have a wife who is slightly confused and thinks there's stuff worth watching, I've bought a license and tuned the TV. I do, however, have several friends who own TVs capable of receiving a signal but chose not to, and so, don't pay.

I'm not saying you're wrong - I don't actually know the specific rules of it, but no-one ever insisted to me that owning the equipment meant needing a license regardless of whether or not I used it - and I guess they'd know - and not let it go if they thought they _could_ extract funds?

Frenchman calculates 13th root of 200-digit number

s/programme/program/g

Or at least a [SIC] if he's being quoted?

Auction watchdog says eBay is illegal in France

/etc/hosts

I have been tempted on more than one occasion to add a line to /etc/hosts that reads: 0.0.0.0 ebay.co.uk ebay.com in order to curb my better half's propensity to purchase tat via this particular auctioneer. "It must be at their end, darling - the rest of the web seems fine.."

Biometrics won't fix data loss problems

@Speen, Andy Taylor, Fraser et al

You need to affect to key points (deltas/loops/whorls) to change/destroy your prints. It doesn't heal back the same if you use a chemical like lye:

This is (sort of) common knowledge. If you use a scalpel to cut the core, delta, and any other really bold characteristics (epidermis only, not deep into the dermis), making a 2-3mm incision and then use tweezers to insert a small grain of lye (yes, this will really really really hurt, and the chemical burn will take about a minute to complete) there will be a nice dark cavity burnt into the dermis with not too much outer damage. Clip away epidirmis to leave the cavity completely open, apply healing salve, bandage finger and move on to the next finger.

The traumatised dermis will heal, but it will do so unevenly and although the ridges in the epidermis will heal to an extent, the ridges will be misaligned, and your cores and deltas will be destroyed.

I've never tried this but I'm confident that it would work. I do have one missing print due to a sustained 240V shock that burnt a very deep hole into the end of my right index finger. This happened 14 years ago and theres still no ridge detail at all there.

Drink rats' milk, suggests battling Heather Mills

25 Alternatives

I'm a vegetarian. And although I miss some aspects of eating meat (more texture than taste - it's hard to find stuff to actually chew when you're a veggie) I know that I won't go back to eating meat. But I just couldn't give up milk. All these '25 alternatives' taste horrific and soy/rice milk just doesn't have the viscosity (sp?) of even semi skimmed. On top of that, for me, the universe would lose all purpose without cheese.

<sarcasm>Additionally I'm really pleased that organisations like Viva can hire nutters to help the world see that all of us vegetarians are grass munching, tree hugging, eco warriors with a penchant for telling ather people what to eat.</sarcasm>

Singapore allows sale of 'lesbian' video game

Pics

Err.. Pics/Footage -? anyone?

Marvel launches digicomics initiative

...Can't download material

I view such statements as a challenge..

NetApp vends $3k iSCSI storage array

oh dear, no CLI

I was about to buy it too... Then I saw that I would need to have a Windows PC to manage it as the StoreVault version of OnTap has no ssh/rsh/telnet/http and no CLI..

This is a real showstopper for me.. I'm a massive NetApp fan - OnTap is so feature rich, but the 3k$ pricetag is less attractive when I need to add a PC+Windoof licence to manage the thing.

Singapore Airlines bans A380 rumpy-pumpy

Right....

So I pay close to eight grand for a plane ticket. I get a private room with a double bed. My wife and I settle in, drink some champagne, watch a film yada yada yada. Sorry but we're going to have sex. What in the blue hell does the airline think it's going to do about this? Heck if we keep it down how are they going to know? Bounce measurement of some sort? I can hear it now:

"Sex in the private suites is strictly forbidden on all our flights. It is a federal offence to tamper with the sex detector under the bed."

Perhaps it's a necessary measure. You never know, terrorists might invent a new way of dangerously mixing two fluids if this is left uncheked, after all.

Utter nonsense.

Record industry pushes ISPs to cut off file sharers

Legal use?

How good will this 'digital fingerprinting' be?

My boxes at home seed and share pretty much all Fedora distros from the last 5 years, along with Gentoo Live CD Isos and other perfectly legal OSS etc. I use the same broadband link to run my commercial business. If I got kicked off and subsequently lost earnings when I'm not actually sharing anything illegal, rest assured that I would sue the shit out of everybody involved with making that decision.

US court demands stronger copyright filters for Morpheus

Who cares?

Seriously - let's look at what is out there:

eDonkey network

Overnet

BitTorrent

FastTrack

Kad Network

OpenNap

SoulSeek

DirectConnect

to name just a few.. I know, I know, some of those are broken for some or all clients, but a decent client 'protocol aggregator' like mldonkey will pretty much allow you to use some or all of these. Pull the plug on one network and about five more will spring up. It's driven by what the consumer wants. And the consumer wants to share. You absolutely cannot stop it. period.

EMC NetWorker adds de-dupe and CDP management

...will support 1TB SATA ... and also offers RAID6

Well it would have to, wouldn't it? Essentially RAID6 offers protection against double disk failure, and given the MTBF of even 1/2 Tb SATA drives there's no way I'd commit my data to it - even backup data - without at least RAID6 in place.. High density SATA drives seem to be assembled in factories whose idea of a clean room is sprinkling some water on the floor to keep the dust down.

Only Sky can save digital TV

Not the money but the data..

Although I would object to giving Murdock any money whatsoever, I would object even more strongly to having his box plugged into my phone line collecting info on what times of day I'm likely to be at home, what my interests are, whether I watch ads or channel hop etc etc etc... Information is worth more money than .. er .. money these days methinks. I have friends who were hounded and persecuted by sky intermittently for weeks for 'unplugging' the phone line, when it actually turned out to be a fault somewhere at the other end..

Besides all that, I don't seem to be able to pick up digital TV at all in my corner of Bournemouth.. Not that I really watch TV - when they get round to turning off analogue I guess the only real impact for me is that I might not have to endure my wife's obsession with watching sh!t like Hollyoaks... Quelle domage!

CERN BOFH needs a bigger storage array

Anyone remember John Titor?

Can anyone remember that chap who claimed to have arrived in our time using a Marconi Time travelling machine that was effectively powered by two micro-singularities of the type we discover (willan on haven discovered) in 2008?

Techies sue Universal Media Group for overtime pay

Yet another option

Work as a contractor, selling a service for a fee, based on time spent. Over the 8 years I've worked this way, nearly every office I've worked in has at least one or two permanent members of staff, putting in ridiculous hours on a 'salary' basis rather than hourly pay. Every one of these situations those people seem to believe that the large, bloated corp they work for will eventually recognise this Herculean effort and reward them with something of real value - a huge bonus or shares, or a promotion. Maybe I'm just really cynical, but every single instance of this I've encountered, those people have actually not been singled out or recognised in any way. Now it seems I'm not alone in my opinion that 'salary' translates as 'way to get you to do twice as much work for half the cost'. At the last client I contracted to several members of permanent staff turned down a promotion from "Associate" level to "VP" simply because ( associate pay + overtime ) > ( VP pay ) given the amount of overtime they had to work. The company's response? Deny overtime for associate level and offer half days in lieu instead. The staff's response? Start looking at the contract market where you can charge clients a fair fee based on skills and services provided and better still, demand payment for the ENTIRE time those services are provided.

HMRC loses landmark tax ruling

Get down off that horse!

Sorry - I can't agree with many of the comments above. I'm a contractor who splits divis with my partner exactly as these two did. My net retention rate is 81% - I pay myself a salary af 10K / annum and we divi the rest up. I get the benefits of an increased take home pay in return for taking the risks - like being completely unable to protect my mortgage payments, having no sick or holiday pay and working under contracts where my 'client' can terminate my company as a service provider with little or no notice at all.

People who aren't prepared to take these risks themselves are always the first to bitch when they work out what we're taking home - but they still won't cross over and do the same thing themselves.. It's exactly the same on my motorbike - the car drivers stuck in the traffic jams can't stand the fact that I can keep moving - but they're not prepared to get out of their nice warm safe car and ride in cumbersome leathers in the p!ssing rain.

Don't moan about people getting a bigger return on more than you're prepared to put in!