Posts by Dave Bell

V-22 Osprey downblast scatters spectators like skittles

Good landings

If you can walk away from a landing with a flying boat, somnething weird is happening.

iPeds, iRobots, and the Chinese iPad clone machine

Already done

I had a quick look on eBay.

Windows CE seems to be an option.

This general class of kit is a low priority for me, and I doubt they'd be much use. First reaction:

Pros: SDHC slot, not locked down like Apple

Cons: Lousy battery life. Old version of Android.

Top 500 supers – The Dawning of the GPUs

Don't ring us...

I see New Zealand is worth a mention. And most of it is down to a company called WETA Digital.

I wonder what Pixar and ILM have. Not as easy to spot in that BBC graphic.

Time to kill the zombie health records

But is the data correct?

I'm well aware of the advantages. I've had a few too many emergency admissions to hospital.

But the mailshot had NOTHING to say about ensuring the data was correct,

If this information is supposed to include such things as drug allergies, and they're not willing to mention this part of the problem, can any competent medical professional rely on the results?

Found phone leads to paedophile ring

Misleading terms

The term "making" has, for years, included the act of downloading an image to a computer. It all started in the early days, when prosecutors were stretching existing laws to fit computers. Getting the law interpreted in that way enabled them to confiscate the computer, just as they has been able to confiscate cameras or printing presses.

I don't have a problem with the computer being confiscated, and your response isn't stupid, but you are showing the dangers of this particular piece of legal history being continued.

iPad queues worldwide

Maybe I should watch more TV?

OK, I know PC World sells Apple products. But it's not the place I think of for anything innovative. I saw your mention of them selling it, but obviously I don't watch any of the TV where they place their advertising. I wonder if they're trying to sell it to the right people.

Terence Conran slams 'appalling' Olympic mascots

Furries?

Well, the mascot for the World Cup in South Africa looks to be a better job of design.

And doesn't anyone remember Animalympics?

There's certainly better models for a cuddly toy.

US wireless not competitive enough - FCC

So that's what we're talking about?

"Wireless what?" I wondered.

At least I knew it was unlikely to be wireless telegraphy, but you ought to be a little embarrassed by how vague your summary turned out to be. There seems to have been a rather large lump of context set adrift in the mid-Atlantic.

2012 Olympic mascots cop a shoeing

And what about World Cup Willie?

OK, I'm not saying that ancient cartoon lion is the sort of answer which would be better, but at least the design had a clear visual connection to England. Most of the World Cup mascots since then do keep that idea of a national connection, though team kits for football help a lot.

And I rather like Zakumi--he hits all the buttons.

OK, so football is easier, being just the one sport, but when I hear what the Olympics organisers say they wanted, and see what they picked, I have to wonder if they have the same biochemistry that I do.

Best Buy tech finds 'child abuse' wallpaper on broken PC

Simple Answer

External Hard Drives. Or Flash drives.

If you know enough to be worried by the vagueness of these laws, you can spot solutions. Heck, British Child Porn laws only need the performer to appear to be under 18. In the USA, proof of the person's age it a defence. Now we have Extreme Porn, the Furries are nervous.

Trouble is, reasonable care to keep your private life to yourself can be taken as an attempt to hide something. And even something involving a fictional entity of obvious unreality can be targeted under current laws.

British Library to scan 40m newspaper pages

You might be surprised

I was looking up something for my father, details of a story he half-remembered, and Google found the answer in a digitised copy of a newspaper from Melbourne.

The OCR was patchy, but the scan was quite readable by a human.

And I wouldn't want to bet on anything printed in the 20th century being out of copyright, unless I knew when the author had died.

Microsoft: 'Using IE6 is like drinking 9-year-old milk'

I know the feeling.

Computer intended for access by un-trained people, with UK keyboards, running on US keyboard drivers.

And you were expected to type in an e-mail address, quite often.

The last time I installed Windows, it did give an option you could change, but it defaulted to UK settings. The only plausible answer I can come up with is that the company had done a dodgy deal via a US channel.

It is suspicious...

There's one outfit I deal with that wants me to use my User-ID and password in four different places on their system, and the same at all four. One is a set of user forums, and the others are access to different parts of a system holding money.

They recently warned everyone about a phishing scam involving the usual trick of confirming your user-ID and password via another site.

Boffins warn on car computer security risk

Not a comforting attitude.

I have to agree. Ken Tindell's attitude is a bit worrying.

It looks as though it's a bit too easy to inject a signal into a car's internal network which messes with safety-critical systems.

It used to be that running out of fuel stopped your engine, and there might be some hassles getting air out of the fuel lines. But that was it. I know of a recent case where the effects of running out of fuel included damaging a sensor in the engine control system. Fixing the fuel gauge was cheap. Replacing the sensor was not. Sabotaging a fuel gauge isn't as trivial as it once was.

Is the thinking on what parts of the system are worth the effort of protecting a bit out of date?

Welsh police come down hard on Octopussy porn

Sounds correct

That "making an image" thing seems to be a hangover from the days when the law didn't explicitly mention computers, and the prosecution was trying to find a way to justify confiscating the hardware.

It really is a serious misapplication of law to still be using the term. It suggests that the guy was actually standing over the abused child with a camera.

Win XP SP2 support to cease in two months

It's the corporates...

The same people who don't support your web browser, and recommend you use IE6.

I'm seriously looking at Linux+WINE, rather than a retail copy of Windows 7. There is little I do which needs Windows-compatible software.

Oh bugger, I forgot the film scanner and all the family history to transfer.

Competitors vie to provide earthquake-proof radios

So what?

I can see this little competition as having solved some interesting little problems, or at least having publicised some solutions which already exist. It's like the Internet, packet-switching, and the effects of a nuclear war. Not really a solution, but look what came out of the question.

It's possible that the useful part of these solutions will be in how SDR can be used at the base station level, so that a warship arriving on the coast can figure out how to talk to any operating radios there might be.

Election losers? Our clapped-out parties

I don't think Andrew realises.

Sir Oswald Mosley, ninety years ago, was one of the original "bright young things"

Green Berets to get Judge Dredd computer smart-rifle

Nothing much changes

Kipling was writing about "Arithmetic on the Frontier" in 1886.

A scrimmage in a Border Station --

A canter down some dark defile --

Two thousand pounds of education

Drops to a ten-rupee jezail --

The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,

Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

NASA tests amazing bailout rocket which will never be used

Testing the design process?

My guess is that there was a lor of computer simulation done before metal was ever cut. Now they can compare the reality to the predictions. And the chances are that most of the money had already been spent anyway. Why waste all the effort to build the test sample?

Lost mental hospital memory stick had health records

NHS Website errors

Data Protection Act...

Both the idiots sending the faxes, and the idiots running the NHS Website.

Actually, I know of one local GP practice which hasn't updated their own website in at least two years, and I rather doubt that any NHS website will know about the changes either.

Solar Freeloader Pico solar-charged back-up power supply

Solar Gimmickry

It just doesn't have the solar panel area to be useful.

Though you might get an improvement with a mirror to bring in more light, if you don't cook the thing.

US netwar-force Cyber Wings badge unveiled

Maybe they can't afford airplanes any more?

I've seen far worse examples of design, but I think you've hit on the big problem.

It wouldn't astonish me if the RAF has a few guys around who could dig out their "Elite" badge.

Heck, this guy has made his own.

http://www.ianlawrencemodels.com/elitebadge.html

DVLA off-road system seriously off-message

Not just the DVLA

They're not the only outfit to be slipshod about keeping track of correspondence.

And I remember, a long time ago, a government department showing sudden panic (a totally new piece of official paperwork, which everybody had to complete every year) at the suggestion their supplicants should use recorded delivery. Somebody would have to come to the office early to meet the postman.

Sony sued for dropping Linux from PS3

Er, careful...

Last I saw any of the paperwork, you paid VAT in the UK on both, at the same rate. But you can't advertise a games console at a price "+VAT".

Still, I'm sure there are places where there might be a difference in the tax rate, but who would be liable?

NPfIT ignored NHS culture, says Halligan

My experience

I've had too many up-close and personal experiences with the NHS, and the problem isn't really the Doctors and nurses. Or, individually, with others such as physiotherapists. But there's a bit too much internal division, and my most recent experience has left me wondering if, sometimes, things get lost in the gaps.

I'm quite willing to believe that soldiers, rather than accountants, could do a better job of managing some things. Can the NHS really be run without spare capacity? How do you measure efficiency?

Personally, I'd be inclined more towards the Royal Navy than the Army. Hospitals are more like ships at sea: complex systems that have to work, rather than something that can be parked in a barracks.

Hackers crack Ubisoft always-online DRM controls

Out of balance.

I can see the point of DRM that stops the disks being trivially copied

If I have to be on the internet to play the game? I know my internet connection has been down twice in the past month, by the look of it my ISPs side of things. If the game needs the internet--other players to communicate with--it's part of the package. If the internet is needed to check the install. there might be updates and other advantages for me.

If Ubisoft, or whoever, need to massage executive egos, why should I pay? They can get their own whores.

Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx stalks PC and Mac converts

So?

So some people have bought Ubuntu-running machines and been shocked when they realised it was a different OS?

What a surprise. Maybe the salesmen didn't know what they were talking about.

As for the hassle for a software producer to properly set up their product to install on Ubuntu, there's a lot of frantic, out-of-sight, work in running a Windows installer.

We're used to the hassles of Windows. We've forgotten the costs.

Reverse-engineering artist busts face detection tech

Confused

It seems pretty easy to spot a face in a picture, which is what this scheme may defeat,

So why are people wittering so much about identifying faces, which is reckoned to be hard?

Nazi soldiers pose for Red Army calendar

Hello, cheeky.

Nice pictures.

But the tank wasn't in service before 1944.

Marmite sends in the lawyers against BNP

Remember their Spitfire?

The BNP does seem to have an unfortunate habit of being reckless with other peoples' copyrights.

US X-37B robot minishuttle: 'Secret space warplane'?

Wrong-sized keyhole

There's some pretty basic optical theory which limits what you can do with an optical system of a specific size, so an X-37 derivative smaller than the Shuttle is not going to be able to handle some spy satellites.

Amazon sues US state on customers' privacy

US confusion

The trouble is that the USA has 50 states, all with their own local tax systems. There have long been "loopholes" for mail order, nothing new, but the internet makes it easier to avoid local taxes.

In the UK, you can avoid dealing with the VAT system if you're a small enough business, no hassles over stuffing eBay with the contents of your garage.

Last I heard, in California you have to do local sales tax paperwork if you have a garage sale.

Google: botnet takedowns fail to stem spam tide

What;s too big?

Never mind "too big to block", what else is too big?

Why aren't new PCs delivered with some decent protection installed?

Shouldn't Windows be better protected? Why does everyone seem to sell Norton, despite a long history of lacklustre results in testing?

What alternative do the less-informed users have? What alternatives do the ISP helplines offer? My analogy, based on experience, is agricultural crops, attacked by an incredible range of diseases, protected by a variety of chemicals, and with far more genetic variety for just one species of plant than there seems to be variation in protections for computers.

Farmers value the variations, both for the different qualities of the final product and for the reduction of risk. Business IT, it seems, wants an intense monoculture which is horribly vulnerable to the virtual-world equivalent of an Irish potato famine. They don't want to change. They use old versions of Internet Explorer with all the certainty of a rabbit staring blindly into the headlights of an oncoming car.

I don't have an answer, but they're not going to call me Bright-Eyes.

Epic Fail: How the photographers won, while digital rights failed

A bit mixed

OK, so "Professor" in the UK maybe means more than it should. There are chairs at UK universities funded by corporate interests, and skill at fund raising seems to count for more than ability, these days, but that's a bit of a snide comment about Professor Edwards. Digging out something that sounds embarrassing is a standard political trick when you can't respond to the message.

And when you've pointed out so many of the weaknesses in one campaign, compared to the one which did succeed, the specific point you make does seem less than relevant. What did Lilian Edwards say that was, somehow, wrong in this situation? All that's easy to find about her running of Science Fiction Conventions (I checked Wikipedia) is from over 20 years ago, and includes a Worldcon (in 1987, with over 4000 people in Brighton).

It doesn't look as shabby as your comment makes your journalism look.

Police send Reg hack CRB check database

Big Question

As far as we know, Gwent Police were contacted by The Register. If they already knew what had happened, why had they not contacted The Register.

How do we know this hasn't happened before?

There seems to be a gaping hole in the security model they've based this system on.

(But note that a great many Police Officers might have an unpredictable need to check this data. So, with Taxi drivers on the list, how do they check a drivers license?)

School secretly snapped 1000s of students at home

Bizarre Details

The claim about the insurance is a trifle odd. If you can't take the laptop home, what's the point?

Even if that provides an excuse for using the software, we're talking potential child porn images. Semi-clad young men? Whay shouldn't they be as well-protected by the law as semi-clad young women?

OU: Digital divide now between clued and clueless

Workplace Education implies Long-Term Employment

It's all temps and contractors: employ somebody for long enough to be worth the training cost, and they have all those awkward little legal rights that companies have been dodging for years.

Blighty's first home grown war robot takes to Welsh skies!

Don't knock Soldiers

It's the intelligent ones who do the best job of fighting. One of the problems of WW2 was that the infantry were last in the queue, and got the recruits who didn't qualify for anything else.

And there's a lot of very skilled jobs in the Army.

From my own knowledge, the Army is taking young people who are the sort of smart kids who don't always do well in a school. And the sort of person you need beside you in a battle is maybe never going to be quite comfortable in civilian life. Yes, they should be better paid, and their families better provided for. And, yes, anyone who has been in a war is going to need help.

It hasn't changed so much since Kipling's day.

Facebook rejects CEOP 'panic button' demands (again)

And who will be next?

Looking at what Facebook are doing, Gamble is looking like a bit of a plonker. It almost looks as if he doesn't trust the National LEO Agencies which Facebook already talks to.

And I glad that Facebook are willing to stand up to him. I am not at all sure what the services I use would do if he came after them. But who will be next?

Bloke threatens BT with giant plywood cheque

The Negotiable Cow

While one shouldn't rely on the story, A.P. Herbert did train as a lawyer, and many of his stories did have a point to them as a mockery of some specific element of the law at the time.

My own father was once paid by a cheque written on a sugar bag. The rules have, from time-to-time, changed. Back then, there was some sort of stamp duty, and a postage stamp had to be affixed to the cheque. And banks didn't have computers.

Commodore 64 reincarnated as quad-core Ubuntu box

Not convinced, but...

A lot of LCD TVs are usable as computer monitors. It does depend on whether you have a compatible output from the computer.

It's a niche market, reliability is an issue, and if you want a games machine, get a games machine. But, with USB drives as well, this is a workable idea. One thing's for sure, you only covered this because of the Commodore name, so somebdy maybe had the right idea to buy the rights.

US Navy plans self-building floating fortresses

Are you sure this is DARPA we're talking about?

A few containers on top of a container ship would give it a useful bit of self-defence--something like a Phalanx system bolted on top of an ISO container. But what sort of war needs that sort of protection?

Oh, it must be the whole thing about floating self-assembly. Now that's an idea that meets DARPA standards.

YouTube accuses Viacom of secretly uploading videos

And Google wouldn't want to be caught telling lies...

If it's false, Google are in trouble. At the least, they'd be stupid to make this claim if there wasn't some evidence to support it. It's possible that Viacom outsourced their PR, and didn't authorise the posting to YouTube. But would a PR firm in that business be so reckless?

That's one of the reasons for having a trial. Both sides make claims, and present evidence, and challenge the other side's evidence.

Viral marketing, of course. A PR firm faking a grass-roots enthusiasm. It's sometimes called "astro-turfing", and is common in politics. It's the product of professional blog-comment spamming. Google's claim is very plausible. Get this into the courts and the implications could be interesting. An "anonymous coward" label here might still be OK, but I post some stuff under a nickname--what might come out of a case this big, involving material posted under false names?

Nerd alert: First Lucid Lynx Ubuntu beta fun

A bit of puffery?

OK, it's fair enough to publish such an account as a first impression.

I'm using Linux on one of my machines. Ubuntu is in the running as a replacement for Windows when I replace this machine.

This doesn't really tell me anything useful.

Irate Aussies go after US website

Nothing New

That's the legal principle that lets people sue under English law for on-internet libel, isn't it?

Health records riddled with errors

Bad labels

From my own experience, different parts of the NHS system don't even use the same jargon. A few years ago, my mother was discharged from hospital, and I had the chance to see the summary. It was a mass of TLAs. I found some sources on the web, and the different professional medical bodies were listing different TLAs for, apparently, the same thing.

(I am, incidentally, waiting for my mother to be discharged from hospital. A reliable way of getting info out of the GPs practice would be a good thing. It's possible that the letter from the GP (a miracle getting a visit, I think) to the Hospital went missing somewhere in the chain.)

I'm sure we can all see ways in which IT could improve things. They're still using fax machines, and lack even the message-tracking possible with RFC 1149.

Loch Ness Stig blurred into oblivion

Real or fake?

Geting a real Stig would be something Clarkson and co. could use, and I'm not sure what would be wrong with the image. It's something really happening in public place.

If some ingenious Scot managed a fake Stig, well done, sir, but I can understand the BBC wishing to suppress the image.

The last I heard, the blue Police boxes around Glasgow and Edinburgh are now very small coffee shops, and no longer blue. Would the BBC have objected to them, had they not been changed?

LHC boffins crank beams to 3.5 TeV redline

How do you know?

I mean, those Kilrathi get everywhere.

Facebook stands up to UK.gov's cyberbullying

It just doesn't make sense

A "Panic Button"?

The inference is that the evil people using Facebook can somehow sneak up on you at your computerm and the only chance of escape is a frantic mouse-click, before you are dragged head-first through the monitor as if it were a "Doctor Who" episode.

I know I'm older than some of these nutjobs. Clearly I have some terrible mental flaw which excludes me from the political arena. Perhaps, rather than a single-minded pursuit of political power, to the exclusion of all knowledge of reality, I had one of these things called a "Real Life".

More likely, I just run a good simulation on this machine.