Posts by Sean Thompson

Atlantis spacewalkers complete ISS battery swap

375 pound batteries?

Pounds are a unit of weight on earth. A unit of mass e.g. kilograms should have been used.

Jobsian drones shackle gamer with 'lifetime' iPad ban

exporting without permission?

Why would someone need permission to sell something they own? As far as I know Apple has no governmental authority.

Computer Engineer Barbie coming soon to a toy store near you

Real Engineer

Though I have an engineering degree, I realize that any job title like "Engineer" is based on a job description in a purely competitive manner. If someone has an engineering degree yet works at the local grocery store ringing people up, are they still an engineer? Schools stopped preparing people for a career a long time ago. If someone has proved themselves through merit they should be given the proper title.

What is up with 61?

I'd much prefer 1000101.

Looks more like a marketing chick.

I was hoping for more of an Abby Sciuto (NCIS TV show) look.

http://ncis-fanatic.tripod.com/id5.html

Hotmail phish exposes most common passwords

Weak Passwords

Personally I don't mind weak password requirements. It takes the bull’s-eye off of those like me who care to secure their stuff.

Also, for those admins who like to REQUIRE that passwords use 8+, symbols, uppercase, etc. you are actually limiting the brute force possibilities. It is even worse when you say that the first and last cannot be a number, symbol or uppercase. To a skiddie, this means it must be lower case.

Statistically the best password is a random one, though this will result in it being placed on a post-it on the bottom of the user’s keyboard. I prefer pass phrases myself, though I've been known to use a weak password for expectedly insecure sites like the reg.

California skateboard dude swipes Reg logo

IP Lawyers and IT Pros

It is actually quite common for IP lawyers to be into IT. It is understandable if you think about how may tech patents are approved each year.

breach of copyright?

Breach of copyright? Try trademark infringement.

Boffins identify inherited 'werewolf' mutation

managed to persuade

"managed to persuade 16 sufferers to have their DNA scanned" They are talking about *#! China!

Managed to persuade my @.

BOFH: Burying the hatchet

American Dictionary

The Germanic - Angle - Engle - Englisc - English language spoken now in the UK is as far removed from the English spoken in 1775 as American English is. In fact since English was an underclass language, a greater percentage of Americans would have spoken English than in England where the uperclass Normans speaking French ruled for many centuries. Also, the most prominent dictionary used in American schools is "The American Heritage Dictionary". Oh and, Paul Donnelly, saying "bad English" is poor English.

Painting by numbers: NASA's peculiar thermometer

NASA's motivation

NASA: If you don't give us more funding to explore outer space and find us a new home, global warming will destroy all life on earth.

Sane Person: But the earth is in a cooling trend.

NASA: oh, than if you don't give us more funding to explore outer space and find us a new home, global cooling will destroy all life on earth.

SP: But earth cooling trends and warming trends are a normal part of human history and humans are better prepared to handle them than ever before.

NASA: oh, how about an asteroid?

SP: You watch too many movies.

NASA: But it COULD happen, right?

SP: Yes there is a slight statistical chance that sometime in the next 80 Quattuorvigintillion years, an asteroid large enough to kill all life on earth may collide with the earth.

NASA: But that means it is possible.

SP: Yes but by that time the sun will have swallowed the earth and gone completely dark.

NASA: oh, the sun could swallow the earth some day?

SP: How about if I pay you to shut up?

NASA: That will do!

By the way, I do think it is important to explore outer space. I am fascinated by it and I am sure it holds many great discoveries that will be beneficial.

I'll get my coat, mines the one with arms that strap tightly in front.

Taser unleashes leopardskin C2 and MP3 holster

Do a little research

Tasers are less-lethal not "non-lethal". The use of a taser is the primary cause of death in about 40 cases per year. As an alternative to firearms use by police and for self protection, they save many lives each year since firearms use death rate is over 90%and taser use death rate is less than 1%, hence the "less".

Microsoft dispels rumors of stealth Windows updates

firewall software

3rd party firewall software will do very little to stop MSWin from connecting to the internet if it is installed on top of MSWin. A hardware or OS Virtualization solution would need to be used to effectively keep the OS communication under control.

Patent law passed in US, but Presidential veto could follow

Worst idea since sliced bread.

Lets enable the abusive companies in corporate America to be more abusive.

1. This will bring the cost of infringement down to a level at which large companies will be willing to infringe smaller companies patents. Smaller companies will not fight actual-infringement due to the marginal payoff.

2. The idea that someone could file and be awarded a patent for something you have been doing/providing commercially for years yet have not filed for a patent on is borderline criminal. The argument that the person should have filed a patent is ridiculous, if someone wants to provide a new product without requiring everyone else to ask them before providing the same product, then so what. We should have no responsibility to document and file our production/trade methods with the federal government.

3. This legislation is more about controlling and tracking start up businesses then it is about protecting start up businesses.

4. Put on your tinfoil hats.

Not only should we slice the bread, we should remove all nutrients, add some sugar, wrap it around a bit of sweet cream like plastic paste and feed them Twinkies to the fat cats.

Project Hostile Intent plans 'non-invasive' DHS brainscan

Actually it is not that far fetched.

We already have facial recognition technology that can differentiate between people. It should not be difficult to use the same technology to differentiate between moods, wellbeing, stress and/or if they are trying to disguise their appearance. The important part would be the formulas used to flag someone who’s overall profile is within a specific window of relevance. e.g. certainty of: 60% a disguise, 82% determined purposeful walk, 75% repeated watching key security, etc. In such a case, a transvestite on their way to an important business meeting who is interested in a sexual encounter with a specific security guard might get flagged otherwise if enough variables are used, false positives would be nearly unheard of.

There are some negative moral issues that could come up though:

Racial and sex based profiling could be universally used, allowing for a white man to be given a 5% race based airline terrorist level, a middle eastern man a 25% and other races somewhere in between. This ability would more easily be used by those with both good and bad intent. On one hand it would be less invasive (at least directly) on the other hand it would be much more powerful and could easily be used for more invasive uses.

From one perspective such a tool could be used to increase security and decrease hassle at the airport. From another perspective such a tool could be used to subjugate one portion of a populace in relative slavery and class to another or better yet enslave the entire human race to a dictatorship government. But when has that ever happened. Besides Lenin, Mao, Hitler, etc.

Yangtze river dolphin is an ex-cetacean

part of nature

Somewhere there is a superior alien civilization looking down on us and not stopping the human induced pollution of our earth because they do not want to interrupt our ever changing environment and cyclic ecosystem.

Intel revolted by its own 'insensitive and insulting' ad

Quit crying colorblind and seeing color yourself.

It is obvious that the black men shown in the add are actually just 2 pictures of one man in duplicate. From an ad designers perspective he was saving money and creating increased interest through pattern. Screw the politically correct idiots who can see nothing but differences in color. It seems that the people at Intel are less racist than everyone who had a problem with this. They are finally getting to where we need to be. Color indifferent. There are 2 men in the picture. Had the color roles been switched it would have created a different issue. Had they been both of the same color; again another issue. It would only have worked if they had all been the same man and that would not have necessarily had the same effect.

Quit crying for everyone to be color-blind and than crying when they don't see skin color.

It is a pretty good add if you can look at it through non-racist eyes.