Posts by JC

RIAA chief calls for copyright filters on PCs

Over my dead body

Over my dead body, or should I say, if we were in a dark alley only then would you have ONE chance to state this?

Cigarette ash proves a drag for Nintendo's Wii

How is such a simple concept misunderstood?

It is not cigarette ash to blame, it's tar buildup. Smoke != ash. Why is an article so wrongly titled and how can it happen?

Hamster-in-rain emergency prompts 999 call

perfect

Big freakin' deal, if there isn't even enough pork in the budget to hire a couple operators to handle calls can't we just overclock those we have so they're 10% more efficient?

For all we know, after that gal's boyfriend put the hamster out in the rain and she saw no other recourse, she flipped out (already there?) and took a butcher knife to him. The thing is, THEY don't know what the situation is from only a few seconds on the phone. Go ahead and send the police out, because while on the way there they are also surveying the path and deterring crime by their presence instead of only sitting in one place doing nothing but waiting for a call (that just came in).

It'd be different if all our law enforcement officers were terribly overworked, but even if they were, taking a drive out to see about a wet hamster might be a nice break and a good laugh.

Employee's silent rampage wipes out $2.5m worth of data

Took a long time

Either she didn't have a clue what she was doing, or in that FOUR HOURS(!) she was there, she'd have had ample time to mess with the on-site backups.

However, the interesting part is that they're probably going to try for damages at the value of the files - files that they already admit aren't lost.

In other words, the actual damages are only the actual files still lost, downtime, fee to the data recovery expert, and time to assess the restored files. I'm sure they'll pad that figure as much as possible but I'm suspecting that if it were just a basic mass file deletion the total shouldn't be over $15K or so and not knowing the circumstances, might've actually been quite a bit less (or more).

Drive-by download menace spreading fast

@ jrb

No point missed jrb, it doesn't matter at all how the zombie sites are getting infected, NOT THE TINIEST LITTLE BIT when it comes to resolving the effect on the masses pseudo-innocently surfing the web.

No matter what, a properly secured browser will not infect the host accessing a webserver. At worst a fault in the server side will just prevent the website from operating properly, which we can say is a fault in it's security but the drive by download menace is only a menace when the host browser allows it.

Remember, when surfing the web you run software that downloads code. The code could be anything at all, and the software you are running has to deal with it. No amount of trying to prevent random code from flowing could ever work, it has to be the client side that limits what could happen.

USB 3.0-sporting devices start to appear... sort of

@ you silly geeks, it doesn't matter

There is no need for MS to "support" USB3 in XP. Like any other piece of hardware you'd buy that came after XP so you needed to install a driver, so too you would with the USB3 controller. It would show up in Device Manager as a USB port the same as always and be used just fine.

@ Shakje, what an embarrassing position you took calling someone else an idiot when you too, had it wrong. By the way, any customer is entitled to display their opinion about the producer of a product they bought, whether that be a toaster oven, a cow, or an operating system. If you want to use some random labeling of it like bash, it makes less sense than the person who provoked your statement. People are in fact entitled to express negativity and ultimately nothing in this world would never be fixed if it weren't the case.

Feds to probe Comcast's BitTorrent busting

Still surprised

I'm still surprised at how seldom anyone mentions Comcast's conflict of interests.

Comcast wants you to pay for their ISP service, but not actually use it. ESPECIALLY they do not want you to P2P multimedia content because they want you away from your computer at your cable TV set paying for Comcast premium and On-Demand offerings.

Why do women get plastered at fancy dress parties?

Research Geeks Need To Get OUT More?

It seems rather simple to me. They're taking averages here, meaning at the more tame parties you will have a mix of society with a few of the heavier drinkers (women drinkers I mean) that are a smaller minority and more of the conservatives who don't drink as much no matter what the occasion. At the sexually themed parties you tend to weed out the more conservative women who don't attend, with the remainder being the heavier drinkers.

It's a bit like they would claim puzzlement if attendees at a Kiss concert were more likely to have their faces painted and wear black leather. They just need to get out more and taste the life they're trying to sample out of context.

'Draconian' Microsoft promises to make Office work again

Novel Idea

Here's a novel idea I'm sure MS would never come up with - Fix the service pack so it is right by default, THEN allow someone to add a reg patch or change an office app menu setting to disable the functionality.

I'm all for disabling insecure features by default, so long as the app starts out that way, not when it takes away existing core functionality. I also save docs in backwards compatible formats whenever possible because others may do as we do, request someone resend a compatible format when it isn't.

New Office Button Proposal

I propose a new standard for interoperability between the user and program. MS Office has has an "undo" button for a long time but now we need a special new [undo - self destruct] button that restores all features and settings to how they were before MS tried to save us from ourselves. The importance of the button versus uninstalling is that some things can't be uninstalled and the new files may have some other bugs fixed without compromising the features.

I also wanted this button on Media Player for several years. One-click to make it look and act like WMP 6.4, no more and no less, though they missed the boat on that so we now use mostly Media Player Classis instead.

New Jersey bans sex offenders from the web

Easier solution

As Bryce Prewitt pointed out, the arbitrary title of sex offender is being quite misused to the point of being a political issue not a justice issue.

It seems there is an easier solution. Ban everyone EXCEPT sex offenders from the web, then we have a much easier way of keeping tabs through the ISPs and all those offenders won't be able to resist being online to get caught.

BitTorrenters seek sanctuary in Pirate Bay

@Kenny Millar

Kenny I love you for trying to save the world. Now quit piddling around and do something that matters instead of worrying over people enjoying culture that they weren't going to pay for either way.

Windows Service Pack refuseniks offered temporary respite

@ Gordon

It is not the developer's burden to rewrite their code to make it work again after MS breaks something with a SP.

It is not the system owner's burden to "test" anything to be sure it doesn't break because MS wants to shove a SP down your throat.

Support? Gordon, you're saying they won't support it later, but not supporting is exactly what they're doing now to the extent we have to test and ultimately, the SP delay is only temporary, thanks to MS it will still happen. That is the opposite of "support".

Gordon seems to think support means supporting MS' agenda, not supporting the customers' needs.

World's Dumbest File-sharer megafine gets DoJ thumbs-up

False Logic

"it is unknown how many other users - 'potentially millions' - committed subsequent acts of infringement with the illegal copies of works that the defendant infringed."

Except that she didn't commit these crimes, and if they had rounded up and fined all those who did, the summed fine would be many times what the (even ridiculously high) initial estimate of loss was.

Best Buy kicks out misbehaving Geek Squaders

What'd you expect?

There's a difference between a discount store who throws together a raggamuffin team of kids with computer skills, and a professional paid adequately for their skills and reputation.

I won't even go into the bad judgement of buying a system at bestbuy or taking it back to be fixed, let alone storing sensitive, err, data, on that system then handing it over to a stranger.

You might as well put a fly-strip in the kitchen then curse at the flies for landing on it.

Tasers can be instrument of torture, says UN

Put 'em in prison

That's the only place these police should be if they choose to recklessly harm others by tasering them.

9 times out of 10, if the police had just screwed their damn heads on straight and waited a few minutes the suspect would have calmed down and realized the futility of resisting, but instead these criminals dressed as police officers decide to force a violent confrontation, then have the nerve to act as though tasering is a defense. Yes, tasering is a defence, just like shooting someone and both can be lethal or not depending on application.

A taser is not a safe weapon, particularly because it's being used by someone without enough sense to resolve a situation without using it. Only a defense against a persuing person should justify it and yet it is typically used in pursuing the suspect instead. If there were real danager to the officer s/he'd draw a gun instead so let's just get rid of the taser so officers can't hide behind this lethal weapon with excuses anymore.

US judge debenched for jailing entire courtroom

About time

It's about time people started learning how to act responsibly and this judge did the right thing. Others in the courtroom had opportunity to point out who had the phone or at least narrow the suspects but they did not, after being warned.

What is it with fools these days thinking they'll do whatever they want without any regard for the impact on others? A little civility and effort to maintain order is manditory for us all to get along.

Man sentenced to 20 years in murder of online rival

Irony?

I'm not responding to only this tragedy but justice in general.

Isn't it ironic when the family of somemone who was engaging in questionable behavior, especially when they have skeletons in their own closets, suddenly takes the high road and makes statements as if they are good moral people when it comes time to punish someone? The next day, they're back to their usual seedy lives.

Usually this is just a pathetic deception, supposed victims pretending to have very high moral standards in an attempt to seek the most revenge possible. They want to feel good about themselves by posturing and pointing the finger at someone else.

I certainly do not condone what happened, but this trend in the justice system is very disturbing. IMO, victims' families should not be allowed to speak, any human life is as important as another and sentencing should never have an emotional background of what a family member had to say. Particularly disturbing is when they claim loss and sue, as if they weren't required to make their way in life doing what is fruitfull and of profit like everybody else.

Sorry scumbags, but there is no monetary settlement that is proper for losing a loved one. If you really loved them, I am sorry for your loss, but a boatload of money is only a distraction, not suitable restitution, and you show your true colors when seeking that.

US man sets himself on fire and cuts off his own arm

What sad comments.

Every last one of you has done something stupid at one point or another. It's just a matter of odds, if they catch up to you in a big way or only a minor one. Instead of thinking this fellow is stupid, think more about the odds catching up to you and be more careful instead of more insulting.

Blu-ray discs outsell HD DVDs almost 3:1 in Europe

How is this news?

How is it news, when they've been cooking the figures all along? What did you expect the backers to suggest, they were losing ground if not already behind?

The truth is simple, only gaming boxes gave blu-ray backers any illusion of competition, consumers have already chosen HD-DVD as the higher volume seller for the core video playback purpose. We knew this would happen all along because blu-ray drives cost too damn much for the masses to adopt.

Gene Simmons blames college kids for ruining music biz

Isn't it sad

Isn't it sad when a burnt-out old rock star feels he can sit on his arse and whine "gimme gimme" instead of getting a real job like all those who funded his fantasy life for so many years?

Get a clue Gene, your worth was when you were cheered for and on stage. Get up and do something we want to pay you for or get lost.

Canadian Taser death caught on camera

Murderers

They chose to keep trying to handle this fellow instead of just leaving him alone. You can take any person who gets just a little upset and they will either calm down or you could continue aggravating them.

That's what these people did, kept trying to act like he should submit to him BEFORE he'd actually done anything problematic, then kept at it, and kept at it, until he was dead.

Prison sentences for all involved, that is justice.

Software cracking tools open the door to malware

@heystoopid

Since browsing the net or other 'net connected activites are one of the primary uses of a windows system, you're proposing someone buy the (non-cheap) system so they can install software that needs cracked, then mostly use the other system instead.

How does that make sense? It is wrong on so many levels. Maybe a better solution is never install this junk on any system that needs to be used for important work or financial transactions, nor network it to the system serving up it's own little bot-party, or even better, instead of two systems get one mediocre system and use the $avings to buy the software whose functionality can't be resolved with freeware.

Or just say screw it, if you're running windows you didn't have control of your PC anyway.

Ubuntu's latest OS not so Gutsy

Gutsy works fine here.

Surfin' the 'net right out of the box

TV-Links man: 'I'm no master criminal'

What IF

What if this guy is a master criminal pretending to be a normal person pretending to be several different people who rip these shows pretending to individually share and host the content pretending not to be the one normal person, to obfuscate things by linking to his own sites to throw people off even further when he claims to be an IT person instead of claiming complete ignorance of all things technical?

I'm fairly sure you won't even be able to get me to agree that this chameleon exists at all! We all know web links are self-propigating.

Man who urinated on dying woman for YouTube glory jailed

What's coming

I'm sure this sick fellow will get what's coming to him in jail once his fellow prisoners hear why he's in, but what about the friends watching, laughing, and especially the one who filmed it? Just as they'd be considered accomplices if they'd followed him around robbing banks, they're not quite guiltless in this act.

The fellow is a perfect example of why we have to have prisons. People who think they can do whatever they want to others need removed from society, and this fellow should also undergo some therapy once released.

Steve Ballmer reveals why he can't change TV channels

Oh nonsense!

Steve can't change TV channels because his monkey species hasn't evolved to the point of having opposable thumbs.

Fight malware by upgrading to Vista, urges MS

60% Deceit, 40% Pork

What a deceitful claim about Vista & 60% less malware reported by the scan tool, when used to prop up their marketing.

Look at the context. Brand new Vista boxes not running for even 6 months on average, maybe not even having any user-installed 3rd party software yet, versus years old XP boxes exposed multiple times as long.

The key element here is that the Vista users still felt their Vista boxes needed to be malware scanned, and a large percentage of the time they were right!

Yet again MS fails on one of their core marketed features, but thanks anyway MS, my computer was too fast to keep up with and had far too much available memory for applications in XP.

Ballmer: Microsoft will power the mobile revolution

Why oh why?

Why do people...

A) Allow this guy to work, even for free.

B) Give him the impression they're listening while he speaks

C) Not just lock him out of the building.

D) Like to watch monkeys

E) Report on what monkey does, as if we haven't seen one before.

F) Not just put a chair in front of Steve and see his natural compulsion to throw it like a Pavlov dog reaction. If nothing else he has entertainment value once in a while.

TV for those who enjoy massacres

What to buy

Buy one of those new-fangled TVs with a remote control, then it won't be such a torture to switch the channel when a show you don't like comes on.

I think we can generally say 95% of modern day television programming is terrible, but what a waste it would be to rant about all those shows one after another.

Ballmer: All open source dev should happen on Windows

Fun for the kids

... when the Steve Ballmer Traveling Circus comes to town. I'm a bit amazed MS keeps him around, or maybe this is their solution to give Steve "busy work", but they had no idea at the time what trouble a monkey can get into.

Florida man faces trial for feeding homeless

Taste of their own medicine

I'd like to see those responsible for passing this law, corralled for a few days without food, and a plate full of ham sandwiches just out of reach. Every time someone comes up to nudge the sandwiches closer, they're cuffed and taken away at the last moment, and those in the corral are cited, for inciting criminal activity. After about a week, give them a sandwich in a giant block of ice and let them lick their way down to the food.

Sun grabs patent for magneto-hydrodynamic heatsink

worthless?

worthless without a 'C/w vs passive airflow rate graph. In a typical chassis it might be good for 50W+ , or it might not.

Facebook 'friend request' lands UK man in jail

Ex-Wife Obviously The Problem

The ex-wife receives a spamlike invite, and instead of just deleting it like everyone else, she's actively LOOKING to do harm to him when he's otherwise stayed away.

Would a "friend invite" ever be considered a form of harassment when otherwise nothing has recently transpired? Seems like if anything it would be like extending an olive branch. Even so, if he had done in intentionally it's in violation of the order so I couldn't condone an intentional action, but regardless of intent or lack thereof, his ex was very petty in reporting this spam invite and by this action it would seem she doesn't have enough sense to just stop fanning the fire. It takes two people to have a conflict.

Microsoft shouts 'Long Live XP'

Re: Proof Of Concept Please?

"All i ever hear is people bitching, constantly about windows Vista, it sucks this, and it sucks that..."

If that's all you ever hear, your entire post was already disproven.

So you feel you alone have an understanding, this based on ONE WHOLE SYSTEM(!) that can discount every single valid point made? Incredible.

"I've been using it since early beta, and yes i will admit, on old hardware it sucks, but so did 2000/XP trying to run it on win98 hardware."

That's ridiculously wrong. So called Win98 hardware was later Pentium 2 era or newer. That spec runs 2K or XP on millions of business systems and home systems. Such systems supported at least 768MB memory, plenty for caching the OS, Office, an email client and browser. The GUI was fast enough, the hardware limitations were in application performance.

"mostly what i see is people bitching to be part of the crowd, hang with the cools kids, fighting change and so on. show me some proof concept of why vista sucks?"

So you're counter-bitching and asking people to state the same things they've been saying all along, as if suddenly their valid complaints disappeared if they don't make a special effort to prove to you what everyone with any sense already saw for themselves. Head in the sand?

"I just bought a HP DV9500z laptop, 2.3ghz AMD Turion64 x2, 2gb ddr2-667, 7200rpm 120gb drive. once i formatted the drive to remove home premium and all of the HP super crapware, and installed a clean Vista Ultimate install, this thing is a screamin demon!"

You mean it's fast enough for your needs. Not everyone has your low expectations, would rather it ran even faster by using XP instead, and did without the annoyances of Vista. We could as easily demand you show proof of concept that you have any need for Vista. Millions upon millions of XP users don't, and pretending you have an advanced insight to their needs is subjective enough to be pointless.

"it installed Vista, boot to desktop in 24 minutes... its extremely fast, completely stable, and all of my software runs on it. and did i mention its really fast..."

Who really cares how long it took to install the OS? XP takes minimal hands-on time to install, and it's a one-time effort. You are pimping something that in actual use, is already equalled in practical terms with XP, and exceeded.

"So lets see some proof of concept, put your money where your mouth is or stay on the porch..."

All you have to do to see the proof is reread everything you were too obtuse to accept.

"Long live XP, my ass, windows XP old tired and ready for bed, its becoming so bloated that hardware the was once designed on the high end to run it falls on its face anymore, you damn near need as much ram in it as you do vista, 512mb of ram is hardly functional anymore..."

With all due respect, that's the most moronic comment so far. To suggest Vista because XP had become bloated is a sign of your horrible confusion. If you install a lot of crap on your Vista system it becomes even more bloated. 512MB memory can run a small number of common tasks very well on XP, while that brings Vista to a crawl. Put enough memory in to run Vista acceptibly, and you have enough reserve on XP to do enough filecaching to no longer have the hard drive be a substantial bottleneck. Add 2GB of memory and you have less performance degradation with Vista, but website after website prove the Vista penalty still exists running applications (which BTW, is the whole point of an OS).

MIT student walks into airport wearing circuit board and wires

Nobody's THAT stupid

Whatever this girl's problem is, she was obviously misguided and looking for attention, nobody is stupid enough to put a makeshift circuit board on their shirt and walk around an airport if they weren't looking to be taken into custody.

As for the fellow who felt it didn't look like a bomb, yes it would be stupid to draw attention by displaying the electronic parts which are unrelated to a bomb yet still foreign enough to the average person to alarm them, but isn't that exactly what someone toting a bomb would want you to think, that it's obviously not one? Depending on how large a bomb, there is no requirement for it to look like what you would see on some hollywood movie, at least not externally.

Judge parks 172mph Porsche driver for 10 weeks

Wrong punishment

Jail time isn't going to effect the desired change, the fellow needs psychological counseling to determine why he felt his life and those around him were of little enough value to drive this excessively. If he were a 16-20 year old kid I could see it as youth folly and a feeling of invincibility but by the age of 33 he had more than ample time to outgrow such behavior.

Being barred from driving for a year or two seems quite reasonable, providing this is the standard penalty for such an offense and he wasn't singled out because of a number, since 172MPH in that car is bound to be as safe as a lower speed in some other cars.

To those who cleverly tried to calculate out stopping distance, if you want to do that then practically everyone on the road is a dangerous driver, especially with wet roads, except that we have a modern luxury now, the steering wheel. That doesn't excuse his behavior nor make it safe, but it does invalidate an overly simplistic idea about the only options being crash or stop in time. Most accidents are not avoided with brakes, it's the steering wheel and driver skill that matters. Often, aggressively appying brakes is why the driver loses control.

Florida uni cops taser shouty student

Excessive

Charge the officers with excessive use of force, it is totally unjustifed for a group of them to attack a regular sized student who has not inflicted any physical harm upon the officers. If officers are going to start out tasering, it will ultimately provoke more people to TAKE offensive combat positions instead of a more peaceful surrender.

Staying connected?

Re: Research Note

The distinction of techie vs mobile pros with profit-tied incentives is understandable. In the former group there are those seasoned and most proficient at getting the content they need in short order. In the latter group there is not as much a thirst for the content but rather being accessible to perform job functions (or networking, also social functions as the techs tend to have a smaller closer group of friends).

Further, many techs are a bit burnt out on connectivity, they had that phase in their online life and have since learned where to draw a line to maintain some balance. The newer adopters of this tech have yet to progress this far into realizing tech is a tool, maybe a way to make a living or hobby, but not necessarily a saddle or status symbol.

The distinction may not be important though, more important is the underlying perception of how important it is to have access when it is perceived necessary, what loss it would seem to have no connection if/when one is desired and what one would do to compensate, and what (if any) emotional response was elicited from being disconnected unintentionally.

Malware spectre haunts Adobe Reader

Re: Go on, block PDFs! You know you want to! And blame Microsoft again!

Wow, for Gordon to preemptively complain they must've really made some good points and he's still sore about it.

In honor of Gordon I want us all to abandon our subjective software needs and practice Gordonism.

Retailer sets legal attack dogs on protest website

Half Right

The Lowes installer certainly did a pathetic job installing the fence, but one primary complaint about how there are gaps is wrong. A standard chain link fence can't be installed in an area where there is unflat ground beyond a certain grade without there being gaps, unless the installer were to manually custom trim the bottom which is very laborious, and practically never done. Where ground is this graded a wood fence is installed instead so the planks can be lowered to ground level.

The installer should have made this clear before starting the work.

Kaspersky: Maxtor markets password-pilfering Dutch disk drives

@ Dustin

You actually believe that anything you have not personally seen, couldn't happen?

I guess we never sent anyone to the moon either, eh?

PC superstore unhinged by Linux

Simple Solution, Fire the Tech

Fire the Tech, this was an idiot who is undeserving of a job, it can't possibly be the company policy that a purely hardware defect or failure has anything to do with having Linux or some other OS instead of Windows.

Well, then again maybe some loon did try to circulate such a memo, and should also be fired.

The thing to remember is that your point of contact with a company is supposed to be a rep. for the company but is (sometimes, unfortunately) a human being. If that human made good judgement calls would they even be in a retail store return tech position?

Cursing senior plod samples electric justice

Re:Too quick to judge

Mikey obviously overlooks that when the coppers promote something as safe, they're suggesting it's OK to use it more frequently.

It will be used not only as an alternative to more deadly force but additionally in cases where they would have done nothing but ask for compliance because they had no justification to use lethal force. Would it surprise you that a large majority of people who are asked to comply, including to a handcuff and arrest, DO comply without any force necessary? It's the exceptions to the rule that are newsworthy but that misleading picture is atypical.

In all liklihood, people will end up tasered out of self-preservation concerns by an officer when the suspect would have complied without being tasered. The problem here is that although an officer has a reasonable concern, for most crimial acts the suspect likewise has a right to self-preservation and that can be a lottery when any device powerful enough to completely disable a person is used.

Mikey the knee jerk reaction is yours when you assume if we don't agree that we must have ignorant opinions. Officers are not looking to carry these so that they won't use them, that would defeat the purpose. They're looking to carry them because they feel they are then allowed to act more aggressively with the same impunity. 9 times out of 10 all that is required for the suspect to comply is just some patience, to give them a few moments to realize they are going into custody no matter what - instead of being bum rushed.