Posts by Simpson

Black and Latina boffins regularly mistaken for janitors, study finds

This cuts both ways

In some neighborhoods, I am assumed to be a police officer.

Thief open-sources Richard Stallman's laptop, passport, visa

If they were ever to make a movie about Stallman, I can't decide if he should be played by Alvin, Theodore, Simon, Chip, or Dale.

Matt Groening reveals location of Simpsons' Springfield

Western Kentucky, said the voice over

Apple Store staff outnumber queues as new iPad goes on sale

Zohaib needs more practice on giving a thumbs-up.

JEDI alliance: Jellyfish overlords won't rule Earth after all

The JEDI are just a front for the PB&J industry

Sixth of Britain's cellphones have traces of poo on them

Everything has traces of poo on it.

Seagate ships slim, fast Pulsar XT SSD

yes price

Whaddaya mean no info on price?

iops @ $0.32, 20k x 0.32 = 6400

GB @ $16, 400 x 16 = 6400

The intel 311 kills them at $6 GB

Open source .NET mimic lands on Android

it's ok

Search: ecma c#

Japanese earthquake sparks nuclear emergency

stupid question?

I've sometimes wondered why they don't build the cooling in some fail safe way. Where the core is below the level of some plentiful local source of water. With mechanisms designed to keep the water out.

Then if there is some sort of problem, the mechanism fails and the water comes pouring in to flood the entire area.

Solution found for climate change: Nuclear war

It's in the book

I believe this one was "alternative 1".

IBM answer machine makes chumps of trivia chimps

It's the timing, and the fix was in

While it is amazing that the machine can answer questions that are phrased obscurely, I think that the win comes down to the machine's ability to press the answer button button at the correct time.

From what I understand, the key to winning is getting the oportunity to answer the question. If a player buzzes in too early, they are locked out for half a second or so.

The computer is always going to be quicker to push a button or flip a switch. I'd like to see the results if they had a person from IBM pressing the buzzer, then let the computer answer.

Let's not forget that this was just a long commercial for IBM that was edited for time, and IBM had home court advantage. I have read that Watson crashed many times during taping.

Let's see it win under normal time constraints, and while "hearing" the questions, rather than getting the exact text of the question.

Post-a-puppy woman hit with cruelty charges

Mafia warning?

Maybe it was intended as a low budget version of a horse's head.

Wikileaks Iraq War Logs vanish from Amazon US

attack?

I don't think that they would need to attack or ddos wikileaks. Plus, that would just give them more press.

Just raise their costs.

I'd think that the U.S. gov (and friends) have plenty of bandwidth available. All they need to do, is start downloading large files from WL, millions of times per day. They could start with a couple of dozen downloads, then just double it every day.

At some point you will bankrupt them, or their provider, or their provider's provider. Nobody would be willing to host them. Maybe an "evil" government would host them, but any company interested in turning a profit would not.

Anti-piracy lawyers' email database leaked after hack

Shouldn't it be named,

Operation: Playback

Sex, lies, and botnets: the saga of Perverted Justice

fatal punch

"A single punch has the ability to kill. A single punch has killed on many occassions."

Aspirin kills too.

Aspirin fixes people with headaches.

A punch often fixes people who are assholes.

What ever happened to?

Just punching someone in the face?

Clean, easy, over and done with.

It also deters others from hatching complex plots designed to humiliate you (and the jail sentence is shorter too).

Do the Webminimum

It isn't new, it's 2002

Webmin has been around forever.

Assange asks for new lawyer

requested a new lawyer?

Does everyone in Sveden get a court appointed lawyer, or is he destitute?

HP sues Hurd to keep secrets from Ellison

buying cheap politicians

I'd say that most politicians are sociopaths.

Firefox, uTorrent, and PowerPoint hit by Windows DLL bug

and remotely

And that pdf or .mov or .zip could tell the affected app to load a remote dll via webdav or smb.

It's just like the shortcut vuln. Except now you need to click the file or link, rather that just open the folder.

shortcut vuln x1000

"MS said that the flaw stems from applications that don't explicitly state the full path name of DLL files and other binaries. As a result, each application will have to be patched separately..."

It sure sounds like MS is saying "it's not a bug, it's a feature"

When hundreds or thousands of existing apps can accidently wreck the OS.. It's a problem in the OS, not the apps.

MS needs to put out a patch for the underlying problem, even if it means breaking hundreds of third party apps.

Hopefully some antivirus company will put out an update soon, that starts flagging half the apps on the computer.

Oracle forms new 'axis of evil' against open source, claims Adobe

I see...

I wonder how hard they'll be working on btrfs, now that they own zfs? I'm sure they say that they will put just as much time into it, but will they?

As they now own zfs, they could save a lot of development time, by simply changing the license on zfs. But would they?

My magic 8-ball says "ask again later".

Cleveland residents get RFID-equipped recycling

Forced labor

In most U.S. cities where housholds do not pay individually for trash service, the city has negotiated an exclusive contract with one service provider. They pay them a flat yearly rate per houshold, then put that charge on the property taxes for the home.

The largest companies usually own the landfills around major cities. So even if they don't win the contract, they still get paid.

The trash company executive that first came up with the idea of the recycle bin is a genius. He/she was able to get millions of people to provide free labor, by sorting resaleable trash for the company.

But tricking people into providing free labor is one thing. Forcing them to, is quite another. While this isn't comparable to slavery, forcing people to provide free labor certainly isn't good.

P.S.

1. Detroit will not do a recycling program. They figure that individuals would go and collect the profitable items, before the truck gets there. I've been to cleveland. it's not much different than detroit.

2. Canada is full of empty space. I'm sure they have room for more landfills. But either the regulations or taxes in ontario make it too expensive. For about the last 10 years the city of (london or toronto) ontario, has been exporting their garbage to landfills in michigan.

It's cheaper for them to truck the garbage 3-5 hours and dump it in Michigan, than it is to dump at a local landfill. Michigan politicians campaign on the issue once in a while.. But it can't be stopped, due to nafta agreements.

Craigslist 'killer' kills himself

Dear sick bastard,

There are probably 100 network executives, trying to find and hire you right now.

Schmidt: Erase your identity to escape Google shame

crazy

My google search results are all telling me that Schmidt will leave me his fortune, when I one day bump into him at a Utah gas station

Apple iPhone exec falls on sword

Are we talking airplanes

or origami?

Maybe the Reg should contact him about running the paper spaceplane project.

Futurologist defends 'malevolent dust' warning

Look at me, I'm a Commentologist

Rule 1. You are not allowed to pick your own nickname.

Rule 2. Adding "ist" or "ologist" to some random word, does not create a profession.

MS confirms Windows shortcut zero-day flaw

And it's not even 2012 yet

If they don't get a patch out very quickly, this is going to be a disaster...

So how did they target scada systems? How did they get this into the hands of the people who operate this stuff?

The only thing I can think of is: They handed out usb sticks and CDs at some scada trade show, that had usefull utilities on it.

Between the targeting and the use of a legit cert to sign the drivers, it's not your average botnet.

El Reg marks Steve Jobs for termination

It's true

X means "shoot me".

For proof, go take a look at any rural railroad crossing sign.

Secret ancient code, basis of all modern civilisation, cracked

Don't be mad, just because god hates you ShaggyDoggy

We have a physical universe, where most things behave under specific known rules. But to explain the origin of this universe, we must accept that those rules did not apply to the early moments of our universe.

For myself, I don't see much difference between "i am" and "the entire universe came from a tiny peice of matter of unknown origin, that exploded"... It's just a louder "I am".

L/S/D?

I also once discovered and forgot the meaning of life. But I was on acid at the time.

Pacific islands growing not shrinking, says old study

A new tipping point

Andrew,

How does the added weight from the growth of the island affect the buoyancy of the island? If all of the growth were on one side of the island, is the risk of capsizing greatly increased?

Sincerely, Hank Johnson

'Being fat is no worse for you than being a woman'

A better index

wii - Waist to inseam index.

If the number on the waist of your pants is bigger than the number for the inseam, you're fat.

US military chokes on stream from robots' fat pipes

camera phone smarter than a drone

"adding geographical information to existing video footage to make it more usable"

Are you telling me that the photos and videos aren't even geotagged!? They just pile up the tapes somewhere and (if viewed later) try to figure out if the desert cliffs in the footage are in yemen or afganistan, based on which pile the tape was in?

Robot cars can now do a Rockford into a parking space

It's a conspiracy!

Maybe one of you should drive to el reg and ask for Lewis Page. Then show him that your phone can in fact play the clip... That'll show him.

Don't forget to bring the printouts of his articles, where you have highlighted all of the slights he has tossed at you and your phone.

F'ing iDiots

Toshiba mulls hybrid flash and spinning drive

S is for plural

I think the quote from the source article is talking about a future ssd+hdd storage box, not a single hybrid disk. It says "compared with a storage device consisting of only HDDs", not "compared with a HDD".

Google searches divine future unemployment rate

Might be skewed

Searches for hand job, blow job, etc., might toss off the results.

F*ck you, thunders disgruntled fanboi Apple user

This is too easy

Because it's properly pronounced joomp...

and I quote

He would say:

Because "Jump" is a song recorded by the rock group Van Halen. It is the only single the group released in their career to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. It was released in 1984 as the second track on the album 1984. The song breaks the mold of earlier Van Halen songs, mainly in its rolling synth line (played on an Oberheim OB-Xa), although the song contains the standard Eddie Van Halen guitar solo, which Eddie claims as his favorite solo he never wrote. This refers to the fact that the producer spliced parts of two different takes to create the one heard in the song....

Then the other two jump off the plane.

I really want that photo

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Sent from my iPhone.

Feds seize $143m worth of bogus networking gear

are you serious

The part that catches my eye is that the US Department of Defense is buying truly "mission critical" equipment from a Saudi national.

I will be waiting for the article about the arrest of the Iraqi street vendor for selling bullets to the US military, Because the bullets were illegally stamped with the Winchester trademark

Gizmodo faces visit from cops over 'found' iPhone

Raided

Gizmodo says that the police have now seized the reporter's computers.

Also, Kim Jong-il has named Steve Jobs as his appointed successor

iPhone and Mac boost Apple by 94%

new product

I think it's an iSegway.

Rogue admin waits for verdict

I can hardly believe

That his bail is still 5 million.

That some tech company didn't pay the bail.

That he's been in jail nearly 2 years, even though nothing broke and he did give up the passwords.

That at some point, somebody at the city did not step in and find a better way to handle this.

That he stayed so quiet.

All he needed was a few publicity hound lawyers to file lawsuits, and go on talk shows to point out every wasted dollar and paint everyone at the city as incompetent bozos.

Ethernet borgs RDMA from InfiniBand

Italian Stallion?

I thought Rocky was Cher's ugly kid.

US government rescinds 'leave internet alone' policy

IIPA

“We must take rules more seriously.”

Read as: “We must tax rules more seriously.”

Look for a promise of faster internet for everyone, collection of sales tax on all inter-state sales, taxes on fiber lines and high speed connections (those cadillac internet plans). A HIPA for the internet, where only gov can sue or fine for violations. Lots paperwork and higher costs for providers and ecom sites.

Comcast, ATT, Verizon, Google, MS, Amazon, etc will welcome these changes (they will help write the rules), as it will raise the cost of entry for small companies that may rise up and put them out of business.

Doing the maths on Copenhagen

COpec

I'd like to hear the author's logic, on how you enforce a worldwide quota on an unlimited resource.

Opec will want to hear from him too. Opec is only 13 countries, with a limited and accountable (as barrels pumped) resource. Yet they can't enforce a quota.

El Reg uncovers Tiger Woods tech angle

Damn those PDFs!

Didn't bother reading the "article", but your dashes are showing.

Damn google! Damn OCR!

The redacted text makes it really funny, for 0.001% of the population.

TSA, HSBC in secret doc redaction oopsie

Heartless

"were offered a year's free credit monitoring"

Um, these people have just filed for bankruptcy...

It's like giving pedometers to people in wheelchairs.

Google expands plan to run own internet

They just want more cash

Or at least to keep more of it.

You see. Once people become super rich, they go a little Howard Hughs. The only way to prevent people from stealing from you, is to control everything.

Comcast, Road Runner, and other ISPs have landing pages, where they redirect their users who have mistyped/unresolved URLs. These landing pages contain (surprise!) paid ad's.

So google winds up writing a check to some ISPs every month. Google !hates! writing checks... In google's view, these ISP's are stealing money from them.

Then there are the people who use the address bar as their search engine. When the ISP redirects these people to the ISP's own search engine... They are stealing eyeballs/clicks/market share/more money, from google.

If google allows people to become accustomed to this, it will lead to bigger and bigger checks being sent out. The ISPs could even (gasp!) allow bing/yahoo/etc, to provide the search results.

But if google gets people to use their DNS, they preempt the ISPs cash grab.