Posts by Dave Bell

David Davis tells El Reg that Labour is 'mesmerised' by tech

Come the next election...

...if my apparently decent local MP has voted for the 42-day limit, I'm not voting for him.

(My local MP is Labour, but has a good reputation as a constituency MP.)

PC World pips Asus to UK Atom sub-laptop premier

This looks serious...

I wouldn't be unwilling to use this for some of the computer graphics stuff I do. Apart from screen size, it's about the same as the machine I was using 5 years ago.

Though 1GB of RAM would be a bit tight with my current software.

DARPA calls for 'DUDE' combo infra-nightscope

DARPA are slipping.

This idea actually makes sense.

Has somebody given the uber-boffins decaf?

Brit carrier deals inked at last

Complicated choices.

Routine use of catapults only started after WW2, when the steam catapult was devekoped. And if the RN can't get a twin-engined plane off a flight deck in less than 467 ft they're really not trying. If the US Army could do it in 1942...

Booster rockets, maybe.

But the big problem is that saving money paints the aircraft development into a nasty little futile corner that nobody else wants to use. And that's going to blow the budget.

Who will be the next Doctor?

It's going to be a reset

It has to be, or RTD has just totalled the stars of three BBC TV series.

(I'm feeling horribly old--I realised that Donna and Sarah-Jane are the two hottest babes on the show.)

Duff UK nukes risk 'popcorn' multi-blast accident apocalypse

Extreme Po[pco]rn

Can't we just amend the new law on Extreme Porn and ban this horrifying threat to out precious bodily fluids?

(New Scientist seems to be setting a new record here, even worse than when Farmers' Weekly reported on Chernobyl.)

King Arthur was English 'propaganda', French claim

The most famous Frenchman...

...was a Corsican.

Maybe they should claim Bonnie Prince Charlie?

Science MPs horrified by UK bio-lab management

Bacteria and radiation

We're in a natuarl environment full of both.

Some bacteria (and viruses) are nasty enough our immune systems can't cope.

There is evidence that we're a lot more tolerant of low levels of radiation, and the model used to set safety standards is pessimistic. Erring on the side of caution isn't a bad thing, as long as we recognise that we're doing that.

We're being reckless about bio-lab safety, and running scared of nuclear. Check the radiation output of a coal-fired power station. Bird-flu, anyone?

UK gov publishes 'kids and videogames' action plan

I'm all for more awareness

And, if we have a ratings system the parents can understand, perhaps we can tell the politicians to STFU.

Or maybe not.

But we definitely need good information for the parents.

(OK, so it's less than twenty years ago that video chops were ignoring the "18" ratings on some Japanese animation. Which is an existence proof of the futility of a ratings system as a means to prevent outright bans of material.)

RFID could kill you

Not just RFID

I really hope they've specified good shielding on all the ordinary computers they use.

And then there is the cellular telephone farm on top of the local hospital.

UK clamps down on bus-spotting terror menace

Cameras with telephoto lenses?

Now that's going to get a lot of us arrested.

Apart from the ultra-cheap digitals and the mobile phones, they all have zoom lenses which get into the telephoto range.

Leeds thieves target Ford Focus chips

Some people will believe anything.

Perhaps if I put this chip in my PC it will improve my Windows experience?

Better get that the right way around, I don't fancy doing 70mph on the M62 and having my windscreen turn blue.

The war on photographers - you're all al Qaeda suspects now

Austin Mitchell?

OK, he has a decent reputation locally, and he's well-known as a serious amateur photographer, just the sort of person who it likely to get hassled because he's not an NUJ member and is using an expensive camera.

But I really wish he hadn't voted for 42-day detention without charge, using the ridiculous excuse that he did.

Thanks for everything else, Austin, but can I trust you after that?

Daewoo's laptop is child's play – literally

Tempting...

With a decent battery life, there is a lot of useful stuff that computer could do. Small screen, yes, but that was what we used to have. Ten years ago this would have been red-hot office hardware.

How long before a Linux version for such machines?

Of course, it isn't the least expensive laptop of this performance. I hope some of the money is going on making them harder to break.

Cardiff 'copter coppers give chase to UFO

Cardiff?

It's the 21st century, guys, and you gotta be ready.

UK.gov ready to get muddy again on GM foods

I've a farming background.

Some of the scare stories exhibit huge ignorance: Herbicide tolerant GM crop plants can still be killed, by using a different herbicide which kills the plant by affecting different biochemistry.

But the big danger is that the GM feature comes at the expense of genetic variety. There are dozens of different varieties of wheat, with variations in such things as the protein content of the grain and the way in which a variety resists common plant diseases.

If one fails, whether from a mutating disease or from a freakish growing season (That's what killed the variety Moulin), there are plenty of alternatives.And a good variety can come from a small company. There are all sorts of niches which can pay back the breeding cost.

The GM varieties, on the other hand, are a genetic bottleneck. And the gene transfer processes needed are big-budget industrial science. GM hops might be good, and safe, but there'll only ever be one flavour. Only one sort of potato--do you want good bangers and mash, or good chips?

Maybe the GM-tech will get affordable for the small breeder, but how much will the patent holder charge, while they can make their money from selling herbicides rather than the seeds?

A monopoly on GM tech allows a GM monoculture that could destroy agriculture's ability to survive a changing natural world.

Flirty texting could land Scots in jail for 10 years

And all those late-night TV adverts for Text-dating...

The key point is that the person receiving the message didn't ask for it.

There's going to be edge cases--arguments about the timing of the "stop that" message.

And argument over just what is going to fall within the potentially illegal category. It'll be interesting if some advertising posters got caught.

My friends in Scotland already keep their work email addresses private: "Human Resources" sometimes seems to lack a sense of humour and proportion. But I can't see this changing how I relate to friends.

AVG fake traffic spares Google AdWords

I decided not to upgrade all my systems.

AVG 8 is bloated, slow, seems to generate false positives for quite old virus types, and behaves in ways which threaten the integrity of my data. The scanning process is also far more resource hungry--it doesn't seem to play nice in the way AVG 7.5 does.

I can't work easily while the scan continues in the background, yet I can't trust the scanner to work while I'm not watching for blink-and-miss virus reports.

Luckily I have backups.

Do you know how much of your porn is extreme?

If it looks real?

I mess around with CGI.

The prosecutors would hate having me on a jury on one of these cases. I can recognise all the standard CGI models of women.

Few of the people who make the CGI porn images seem to bother to change the faces.

Oh, and I used to be a farmer. I've some idea how real animals stand and walk.

Finally, and this may be a 5-point quirk, I find it quite easy to look at a "shocking" image and ask rational questions about how real it is. Why isn't the jet of blood pulsing with the heart?

Could pen-sized GPS jammers paralyse UK shipping?

Does anybody still make Chronometers?

Mind you, a good digital watch is probably good enough, though what really matters is a stable error rate. Lose ten seconds a day, every day, and you can allow for it.

(Secondary note: a bog standard railroad watch would be accurate enough for a 1930s Pan-Am Clipper on the trans-Pacific run. The error over the flight time is still less than the error in sextant readings from an aircraft.)

AP may have to take on entire blogosphere

Word count is red herring, says blogger

As few as eighteen words can contain the key parts of a news story, says blogger Dave Bell.

Lincolnshire blogger, Dave Bell, examined news stories published by his local newspaper, and found that short introductory paragraphs could contain all of the story which mattered.

He has pointed out, on the well-known Making Light blog, and word count alone is particularly misleading in this instance. AP news stories, as do those of other wire services, start with a very condensed version of the story, which is repeated and expanded by later paragraphs, allowing sub-editors at subscribing newspapers to easily fit the story into available space.

Despite the apparently flawed reaction to AP's statement about word counts, which can be particularly misleading, there is much else about their current action which can be criticised. Several professionals working in the US publishing industry, including Hugo-winning editor Patrick Neilsen Hayden, have decribed AP's action as a blatant grab for IP rights not recognised in law. He claims that they want you to sign away your rights, and suggests that at least some of the material AP claims rights over was never their exclusive property in the first place. Furthermore, the terms offered by AP for use of their material has you sign away the right to criticise both AP and the subject of the news story. If AP reports President Bush saying something foolish, he points out, they don't want you to explain what the foolishness is.

(Note to editor: None of this is invented. Go read Making Light.)

AVG scanner blasts internet with fake traffic

Update after checks.

AVG8, even without Linkscanner active, appears to be a resource hog. On my portable (old slow and cheap) I've gone back to AVG7.5, which I know doesn't drag the machine down to near-death. AVG 7.5 has a specific setup option which forces a slow, less resource-hungry, scan.

I'm still looking at options for the longer term, but AVG8 is looking like the Windows Vista of anti-virus software.

The Stupid, it hurts.

I upgraded to AVG8 in the belief that anti-virus updates for AVG7.5 were about to end.

Luckily I run Opera.

I anticipate changing my AV software in the very near future.

'Humvee of the Skies' robot air-car design unveiled

I recognise the colour scheme...

It looks like a texture file you can download for free at www.renderosity.com

And the way the UVmapping of the model doesn't quite work is also suggestive.

Microsoft: 'We will save America from foreign domination'

I don't think either side is right

Anyone remember CB radio?

That's uncontrolled spectrum use (there are licences).

And just auctioning off the space is the regulatory authority refusing to do its job.

Microsoft's ideas are just as broken as those of the people who want to bribe the FCC into giving them an exclusive property. In American broadcasting and legal history, the radio spectrum scarce is a public asset, which must be regulated for the general public good. It seems a pretty good base for working out answers to these problems.

Right now, corporate America seems to have too much power, and I don't expect anyone to come up with a decent answer.

And I don't expect a decent answer when the problem comes up here. But at least, as the people in the middle, the EU doesn't quite seem a coporate shill.

Becta schools deal stuns British open-istas

Something else doesn't add up.

I'm not sure if I'm reading something into the report which isn't there, but they seem to be talking about some of the open source software coming out of schools.

Are the skills there for this to happen?

Do the staff have the time to use their skills to create software?

Is this going to do anything to change how the software is written, or will it just be a different way of paying the educational software industry?

Ex-Sun chief to fight Davis in '42 days' by-election

Vote for the pratt, it really matters.

It's possible, still, that nobody else will stand, and Davis is returned smugly unopposed, able to say Labour are chicken.

It is a stunt, but if an election is held, and people vote for Davis, rather than any other candidate--if people come out and vote--it's going to make Gordon Brown look rather tired.

Biggles battles Yanks for right to sport tash

A sad day for the RAF

So it's true.

We don't have enough aircraft, so we have to cadge flying time off of the yanks.

Mind, the F15 is a very nice place. It does a really good one-engine taxi at air shows.

Foldable sports plane gives Everyman a chance at crashing

I like the seaplane...

But somebody has forgotten the mooring line...

Seriously, all the pictures have the feel of CGI images.

Let me know when I can point a real camera at a real plane.

New York talks net giants into child pornography crackdown

And confusion continues...

Are Time Warner shutting down their news servers. or blocking port 119? People seem to be confusing the two.

Remember, there are independent news servers which don't carry binaries. And it's the binaries groups which consume insane quantities of bandwidth and storage, with a lot of illegal content.

I've been following one popular newsgroup for over fifteen years. From hundreds of articles a day, it's slumped to near-death. Most of the current article count is trollery, and at least some of that looks like Republican astroturfing.

Almost all of the old community frequents a very few blogs, with aggressive moderation policies. It's not about following some party line: it's about whether you can carry on a conversation.

If you want to think of Usenet, think of a calendar, turned to September, for ever.

Do they really know what they're doing.

This could be a pretty sensible system, directed at clear illegality whish has been tolerated for far too long. I'm wary of what the IWF could lead to, but it's far better than some of the idiocy over newsgroups that was seen in the UK in the early Nineties.

The trouble is, we don't really know what's happening. And, to be honest, I wonder what's left in the alt.binaries groups that's worth worrying about.

Interstate web host foils gonzo porn baron Max Hardcore

Nothing new, and it's not just porn.

Isn't this essentially a re-run of the Amateur Action BBS case of the early Nineties?

Which is slightly odd, because the case was set up to invoke Tennessee standards, and these days there are several porn sits based in that State.

And it doesn't take much for an English court to decide they have jurisdiction over a libel case. Not even a server presence necessary.

Government backs Ofcom against EU regulator plan

Not an Ofcom-as-regulator problem

There are technical limits to how hardware can cope with different frequencies. I understand the varied frequencies used in Europe for these services are quite close together, so this shouldn't be a problem. There are potential problems in border regions--France and Germany for instance--if different service providers are sharing the same chunk of spectrum, and Europe-wide frequency-management is a part of a solution.

The sea gives us a slight advantage in all this--we're less likely to dump RF crap on our neighbours--but rejecting this means that they might not be so helpful when we need their help. And All-the-EU is a huge market.

What hell hath science wrought lately?

You ought to be sheepish about that one.

And once you have sheep, the wolves are inevitable.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/zhochaka/Pictures/Wolfette.jpg

Fortunately, they can be distracted.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/zhochaka/Pictures/Wolfette2.jpg

Who needs Playmobil?

Ofcom asks ISPs nicely to stop mis-selling broadband on speed

It's the lies that matter.

I'm not bothered by the speed dropping in the evening, when everyone else is using their broadband. They don't bother to explain contention, and I don't recall an advert which mentions it.

But they were comepletely shutting down access to some protocols, such as NNTP, even to their own server. And their helpdesk system promised to find out what was happening--the rest is silence.

Why do we need Ofcom to deal with the liars?

Qinetiq ships first 'Transformer' war-droid

What they don't tell you...

Where at Walter Hopkins they prepare the autonomous control unit.

Why the Afghans don't have staircases.

How much armour you need to stop a bullet from the 14.5mm KPV machinegun.

And why the cute anime cat-girl can fire the 14.5 mm PTRS without embarrassing road-rash.

Tiscali subscribers to be sold to Vodafone tomorrow: report

Well, nobody tells the customers anything anyway.

Do these guys know who pays the bills?

For what it's worth, I've never been suckered into those implausible speed deals, and I likely pay over the odds for the speed I do get, but Tiscali works.

Just don't believe anything they tell you. I wonder what the new rules on selling are going to do to some of the advertised Broadband deals?

Overstock and Patrick Byrne sue New York over Amazon Tax

Greed.

I have, over many years, heard a variety of stories about sales taxes in the USA.

Amongst them, that of the taxmen chasing after private individuals for the tax on items they've sold, from what are apparently called "yard sales".

Compare this to the UK, where the small-scale operation, even a business, has the choice of staying outside the VAT system.

VAT isn't sales tax, but we don't chase every last penny. Though this Amazon deal is a lot of money: it's worth chasing.

But there looks to be greed built into the US tax system, and the bureaucrats chasing yard sales have the sort of attitude that may be playing fast and loose with the legality of this affair.

(We have a personal duty-free allowance for imports, but be very careful the guy you buy from correctly declares books and other goods.)

EU begins formal probe into US gambling ban

Not an easy problem.

Personally, I think the UK has made access to gambling too easy, whether it's after-midnight Roulette on TV or the online stuff.

But, as with a lot of other stuff, the internet tends to erase borders. At least you can still follow the money on this. And once an American politician sees money, say goodbye to honesty.

ISS toilet spares stowed and good to go

Fame at last?

So there's an orbiting laboratory named after Kibo?

Oh! The Humanity!

(Some commenters might like to consider the potential problems of toilets in zero gravity.)

Will your mobile squeal to the police?

I now feel horribly old.

20 years ago?

Psion Organiser?

Aargh!

Media police assault takes down legit video website

Something odd? Something criminal?

Something feels a bit off about the claim that MediaDefender was adding stuff to the Revision3 site, and then started a DOS attack when they were stopped.

Were they ever doing anything legal?

But if they were slipping stuff onto Revision3, it certainly blurs the waters on whether Revision3 are legal.

Who is next on their list? Ubuntu?

US protests to WTO over EU 'IT' tariffs

So who actually makes the stuff?

Is any of the hardware being argued about actually made in the USA or Japan?

UK to outlaw cartoons of child sexual abuse

Thankyou for the citations.

Thanks to all who have provided citations to scientic papers that so thoroughly contradict the assumptions behind these invidious proposals.

A wider perspective

As it happens, I do have some knowledge of computer-generated porn, and how it's handled in the USA.

First, US Federal law sets an 18 age limit, but it's an absolute defence to prove the model was over-18. It doesn't matter if they look younger. There's also laws requiring record keeping on the part of porn producers. And if it's a drawing, or computer generated, you're exempt from the record keeping.

Second, it's harder than you think to make a convincing CGI image that could be mistaken for a photo. OK, if you want somebody to say than an image is a "pseudo-photograph", maybe I'm the wrong guy to ask. I'll notice the flaws in shadows and lighting that the average guy might not. And body-to-body contact is hard to get right. (Go on, roll your sleeve up and press your fingertip against your forearm: see how the dimple forms: sex involves a lot of squidgy bits in contact and deforming under pressure.)

So there are websites which carry the stuff, and let users post their latest CGI fantasy. And they really don't want the hassle of anything that might be classed as child porn. They don't want to be dragged into a court case. Break that rule, and your account is dead.

It's hardly surprising that even the cat-girls have big tits.

Just don't tell them about Doug Winger.

Here we go again

I can see sensible reasons to keep under-18s out of the porn business, but using the child-porn age limit is just stupid. When you have a hammer, you treat every screw as a nail.

I'd be willing to bet that a suspected paedophile got raided, the Police saw a bunch of cartoons, and they are all worked up because they couldn't do anything. But just how many bad people is this going to catch? And how many pre-puberty victims are going to be "groomed" by images of schoolgirls with gargantuan breasts?

I really don't want to know what the sex-life of these politicians is like, but it's hard not to conclude that they're the abnormal freaks, not us.

Don't tell them about Elf Sternberg, please.

City anti-Scientology protestor avoids court summons

A pleasant surprise

The CPS has built up a reputation for taking a long ime to decide these issues. It always seemed very likely that the case would be dropped, but it is a pleasant surprise that the decision has come so quickly.

CPS apologises for DNA disc blunder

I bet the procedure wasn't defined in the IT contract.

I remember several commenters in the past taking the trouble to explain the hassles for a government IT supplier doing anything which isn't already defined in the contract.

Want to bet that there's no procedure to cover apparently mis-delivered CDs (which are a security risk--trojans, vurses, and stuff)?

MPs demand US spooks' guarantees on census data

Things are getting better.

I understand that the Information Commissioner is getting really good at locking the stable door.

I just wish they could do something before the horse scarpers.

MEP tries to ban lightbulbs with mercury amendment

@kanef

No, you're completely missing easyk's point. If you need heat, the heat produced by an incandescent bulb isn't waste.

It still might not be useful when a lightbulb is up near the ceiling, but incandescent bulbs have been used as low-power heater elements pretty well since they have been invented. Go check on small-scale chicken rearing for one example. It was off the shelf tech, and easy DIY, back in the days when all this electrickery wasn't regulated out of reach of the unqualified.

Oh, and don't put a hot soldering iron into your coat pocket.