* Posts by GettinSadda

615 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Mar 2007

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Postcard App has stamps licked

GettinSadda
Alert

Hidden cost

"Processed through PayPal, a postcard sent to the UK costs 99p, and £1.49 when sent overseas."

Plus £75 data roaming charge to upload the picture and send the message!

Apple, AT&T slapped with iPhone 4 lawsuit

GettinSadda
Boffin

Wow - you tried!

I see that you either read the linked article, or at least dipped into it to pick out something that supports your view, but you failed to quote the most important conclusion that this reviewer's in-depth analysis of the matter ended with:

"The fact of the matter is that either the most sensitive region of the antenna should have an insulative coating, or everyone should use a case."

The Reg guide to Linux, part 3

GettinSadda
Boffin

But...

"So far, everything that you've recommended could be boiled down to:..."

But then he wouldn't have got to publish a cool multi-part guide spread across several days

Leica M9 rangefinder camera

GettinSadda
WTF?

How much?

When I saw the price at the start of the review, I though you must be pulling my leg...

...then I saw the sample shots.

OK, reasonable price for the quality!

Anobit breaks MLC flash barrier

GettinSadda
Thumb Up

Fixed!

Ah, I see you fixed the article - it now says they cost the same as the MLC items with speed and endurance of SLC. I see the point now

GettinSadda
Boffin

What's the point?

"It provides a pricing example in which SLC flash costs $6.75 per GB and has an endurance of 50,000 program/erase (P/E) cycles, whereas MLC costs $1.58/GB but has only 3,000 P/E cycles. Anobit says MLC flash with MSP costs the same as the SLC flash and delivers 50,000 P/E cycles too."

So, this new flash is as fast as SLC, has the same endurance as SLC, and costs the same as SLC. Why not just buy SLC?

Ofcom refuses to bend over smut TV link-links

GettinSadda
WTF?

Hang on...

"Any references to websites or URLs made on air, which can be through an interactive element of a service (ie the yellow button), are broadcast content. Ofcom therefore has the duty and the power to regulate such references under the Communications Act 2003."

So those "bing.com" adverts will now be banned?

If you go to that site, typing one word and clicking three buttons will show you thousands of pictures of ladies inserting the very same items into the very same placed that caused OFCOM such shock at televisionx.com. No sign-up was required, just "a button on a warning page to confirm that the user was over 18"

South African Bill to block all porn

GettinSadda
Headmaster

Re: This is what sovereignty is about

OMG - you are so right!

So, if there were a country outside the UK - let's say somewhere in Europe - and they decided that the least popular members of their society were best kept out of the way of all the "nice" people, in their own little areas of town, that would be OK? It would probably be popular with all those not "rehoused".

And in that case, you should also be OK if they "relocate" these undesirables to camps outside the cities? That would also be popular with those that count. And by your arguments that must be fine and none of my business as I live in the UK.

And these camps are expensive to maintain - why not just relocate the "guests" underground?

Do you still really think that we have no right to comment on what people in other countries do?

Icon: I think this guy may be called Godwin

Statistics prof nails Blackpool hoopla scam

GettinSadda
FAIL

Let's see now...

Pros:

Up to £1200 from each customer with no risk of having to pay out.

Cons:

If you are really unlucky you might find that a statistics professor can convince a court your game is dodgy, leading to 14 weeks in an open prison (cut to 7 weeks because it always is), a few hours litter duty or cleaning graffiti, a "pocket change" costs settlement, and back to business as usual in a different town.

Where do I sign up?

Carmakers boost e-car noise standards for vision-impaired

GettinSadda
FAIL

Better idea

How about they simply pass a law that states that all electric vehicles must have a man walking in front waving a red flag - that worked so well last time.

Most browsers leave fingerprint that can ID users

GettinSadda
WTF?

Sceptical

I'm exceedingly sceptical.

With Java/JavaScript off, all you get is the user agent, HTTP ACCEPT and whether or not cookies are accepted.

The user agent is built from the OS and browser versions and the current language setting. The HTTP ACCEPT value depends almost totally on the factors that are expressed in the user agent, so I would be surprised to find cases where the HTTP ACCEPT differed with identical user agent strings.

So, we are left with OS and browser versions and language. Assuming that you have auto-updates the version numbers for these will be the same for most people. Worse still, my user agent today may be different from my user agent tomorrow, because the browser may have been updated or I may have received an OS service pack.

So, it looks like we are down to OS choice (not exact version) and browser choice (again not exact version) and language.

Or am I wrong?

Double-Take takes on Citrix and VMware

GettinSadda
FAIL

Maths!

These clowns need to learn some maths!

"DT reckons it can be used to prolong the life of PCs with broken hard drives by running them diskless hooked up to a Flex server."

Replacement hard drive (250Gb or so): ~ £25

License for Double-Take Flex (per client): £99

Debenhams wows shoppers with free delivery offer

GettinSadda
Thumb Up

Take them to court

Take them to small claims court - it really is painless and they will almost certainly simply not turn up so you just go along and collect the order for them to pay - if they don't pay, you can get a debt collection agency to just go along to a store and recover the value in goods.

(IANAL!)

Oz filmmaker to flog virgins for TV doco

GettinSadda

Virginity?

Applicant 1: Yeah, I'm a virgin... honest

Applicant 2: Oh, yeah - I'm a virgin too...

Applicant 3: I'm a virgin, and so is my wife!

Sony Bravia KDL-EX703 32in Freeview HD TV

GettinSadda
Boffin

Standby Power

Your standby power reading is not the whole story...

I have a similar Sony set (not the exact same model though) and what it does when you turn it off it it goes into a "hot standby" mode where it will turn on again in a second or so if required (takes 15W or so). After about 15 minutes it powers down into full standby, from which it takes much longer to power up. This means that if you turn it off for a short while it comes back on quickly - if you leave it off for a long time it saves power, but takes longer to come back up.

Sony pledges 'affordable' 3D TV experience

GettinSadda
Thumb Down

Pinch of salt needed

"Buy a 3D BD player and you may receive a copy of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Deep Sea in 3D."

Yeah, but I would take that claim with a huge pinch of salt - the BD player I bought from Sony claimed to give me two free BD films. There is a CD ROM in the box that you put in your PC, it then asks you for your details and the serial number of the BD player and sends these to Sony. I did that over a year ago, and still have not received my free discs!

Heathrow security man cops perv scanner eyeful

GettinSadda
WTF?

I wonder...

What would happen if copies of "scans" of children ended up online?

Would IWF blacklist them as kiddie porn?

Would anyone who downloaded them find themselves arrested?

I suspect that there is a very strong chance of those things happening. But making the images in the first place is not making porn?

GettinSadda
WTF?

Re: I have to ask the question...

Hmm, even more importantly...

When these things were first being installed, weren't we assured that the operator would be some distance away and unable to see a non-perv-o-pic of the person in question so that they would never be able to link the picture with the real person.

So, either we were lied to about how the machines are installed, or the entire story is a lie. The two just don't match up.

Iran's cyber-police hack US spy sites

GettinSadda
WTF?

Even better coverage than Microsoft!

"The network was accused of distributing 70 million copies of US-made anti-filtering software."

That's pretty much one copy for every man, woman and child in the entire country.

Wow, just wow!

'Twitter gives voice to the voiceless' - eg the US President

GettinSadda
Alert

You owe me a new sarcasm detector!

You owe me a new sarcasm detector, my current one just exploded!

Argos buries unencrypted credit card data in email receipts

GettinSadda
Thumb Down

For you or me yes...

If this were a small company then it would find itself de-autorised in an instant.

Argos is a large company that pays millions in credit card fees.

I would bet the Argos CEO's golfing-expenses budget that no action is taken against them.

BT blamed for Davina McCall spamcalls

GettinSadda
FAIL

Well, jolly good

I was planning on donating to Sports Relief this year, but thanks to this crassness I will not

Google (finally) nabs On2 video codecs

GettinSadda
Alert

They could do it...

Imagine in 6, or 12, or 18 months if YouTube would only work in browsers using this new codec, or would give a hugely better result (e.g. large high quality videos compared to small blocky ones in the Flash or h.264 version)

How quickly do you think users would move to a YouTube-compatible browser?

Even the threat of doing this would make most browser manufacturers take serious note

YouTube saves dumb children from offensive content

GettinSadda
Thumb Up

At what age...?

At what age should a child go from "too dumb or too young to be on the net" to "free and unfettered access to everything"?

My son is 4 and currently I would not dare show him anything on YouTube - even if it was child friendly - because so much of YouTube is not appropriate for his age. Now maybe I can show him videos of a dog playing the piano or such without worrying too much about what may pop up in the comments or "related videos".

Over the next few years he will probably become quite interested in some of the things that he could find in "safe mode", but later on he will gain enough knowledge to figure out how to turn it off. By that time he will probably be old enough to cope with what he sees.

And before you ask - I don't intend to leave him on his own online now or for very many years to come, but when he is happy spending an hour watching videos suitable for a 7-year old I would rather be able to sit back with a cup of coffee than spend that hour staring at the screen with my finger hovering over the power button in case a search for "dog" turns up "dogging".

Obama scraps Constellation moon mission

GettinSadda
Megaphone

Next step?

Surely now the USA has pretty much abandoned the idea of men on the moon, some other country such as China should launch some robot missions to knock over the flags placed by the Apollo missions. America claimed the moon - but have given it up again.

Vodafone revs up UK femtocell program

GettinSadda
FAIL

You forgot...

"Let me see, I pay you for a high end phone tariff with an overloaded data channel. But if I pay you extra, you'll allow me to move some of my data down an internet connection that I'm paying someone else for."

You forgot "and charge me for every byte that I carry over my own connection in my own home"

McKinnon: The longest ever game of pass the parcel

GettinSadda

Better analogy

A better analogy would be that he found an unlocked Rolls Royce parked on the street and got in and sat behind the wheel imagining what it would be like to drive it. If it helps you can imaging him making "broom-broom beep-beep" noises.

OK, he did wrong and has admitted it, but what seems to now be happening is that he is being effectively prosecuted for steeling the car and running rampage with it through a shopping mall mowing down dozens of innocent shoppers.

The car owner should have locked the car, and Gary should not have got in (and should probably be punished for that offense) but the rest seems to just be all sorts of stupid stuff tacked on to make a point.

IE zero-day used in Chinese cyber assault on 34 firms

GettinSadda

Targetted attacks

It is really difficult, almost impossible really, to prevent even a careful user becoming the victim of an intelligently targeted attack.

If your target is a senior person in a tech company things like the following may work:

* Discover that the target is a member of a group that test interoperability of code from different suppliers (such as a GMail senior tech meeting with various browser manufacturers on a regular basis)

* Get access to minutes of meetings of the group or other internal documents that are unlikely to be highly protected via easier hacking (if you are lucky you may even find the info you need in public documents)

* Craft an e-mail forged to be from a person in the group to the target - if you have found enough nice info this will be able to be a really specific e-mail that could sound so plausible that the target will not think twice.

Example message:

"Hi Dave,

Remember that rendering bug that I mentioned last November for inlined-PNGs? One of our outsourced developers has found something else similar. The easiest way to see this is action is to view the example they have set up directly on their test machine at http://123.45.67.89/gmail-test/renderbug.html

Brian"

If you think the IP address may scare them off just direct them to "internal.opera-dev.com" or some such, or even "I have a copy on my home machine at brian-smith.dyndns.org"

Lenovo demos mini laptop with slip-out screen

GettinSadda
Boffin

Not what it seems...

Watching the video I am pretty sure that this device is not what people seem to think it is!

I don't think that this is a laptop with all the "works" in the lid. I think that it is a laptop as per usual with all the main bits under the keyboard, but there is a small low-power CPU in the screen section. I would also assume that the batteries in the screen are small compared to those in the base. Notice that the UI and running applications are totally different when the screen is detached than when docked. This explains why it is so slow when detached!

Freeview HD goes live

GettinSadda

Bit rates

CEA-608 has always been digital, but is carried in line 21 of analogue transmissions. CEA-608 is widely used in the USA, as is CEA-708 which is designed for HD and includes a CEA-608 sub-stream for compatibility.

I was aware that DVDs use bitmaps for subtitles, but am disappointed to find out that this is also done for DVB. It is ridiculously inefficient!

GettinSadda
WTF?

subtitles 200Kb/s

Surely you mean 2Kb/s not 200Kb/s?

CEA-608 captions are only 960 bits per second, and they support everything I have yet seen done on Sky or Freeview, so I doubt there will be any need for a vastly higher bitrate. Even CEA-708 is only 8.6Kb/s and that provides a huge amount of extra functionality (most of which is used to make subtitles look like a 1990s website rather than anything useful for the deaf or hard-of-hearing).

I expect that you would have no great difficulty encoding on-screen signing in 200Kb/s

Muswell Hillbillies force BT to move broadband boxes

GettinSadda
FAIL

In the ground?

"How about sinking the boxes so they are half buried? A hydraulic platform can be implemented to raise the cabinet out of the ground fully when work needs to be done."

Yeah - that platform would also come in handy to be able to raise it after any rain to allow the water to drain out of the equipment!

Vetting database is mighty maths mess

GettinSadda
WTF?

Everyone will end up registered!

"at present anyone aged 16 or older who frequently or intensively does regulated activity with children or vulnerable adults must ISA-register."

So in any class of 15-year-olds (i.e. children) each child that turns 16 (i.e. adult) will then be required to register if they remain in the class with the children. Only exceptions being a) those with birthdays during the summer break and b) the last child to turn 16 in a class where none are in group a.

I do hope that we will all remind local schools that they need to have proof that all the 16-year-olds are registered before they are allowed into a room containing "children".

Chrysler dumps e-car plans

GettinSadda
FAIL

How?

"How Chrysler’s news will sit with President Obama’s plan to get 1m e-cars onto American highways by 2015 still isn’t clear."

Simple, they will all be imported European and Japanese e-cars. No red-blooded merkin would object to that.

T-Mobile coughs to data theft

GettinSadda
Megaphone

I'm on T-Mobile

I'm on T-Mobile and I while back I had a real problem with a company calling up and claiming to be T-Mobile, but it was obvious that they were not.

They said that my contract was up for renewal and so I could have a new phone (my contract was far from its renewal date).

I simply asked them to prove they were T-Mobile by telling me the model of my phone. They told me they didn't have that information. I said that they supplied the phone to me so they must know. They said that they don't keep a record of what phone I buy. "So", I said, "why do I see details about my phone when I log into the T-Mobile website?". Their answer: "Do you want a new phone or what?"

After about 10 calls in the same week from the same bunch I simply started yelling "F**k off!" and putting the phone down. They soon stopped.

MS store staff in spontaneous electric boogie

GettinSadda
FAIL

elReg FAIL

Will elReg publish just any faked-up PR rubbish these days? It looks like it.

If that was spontaneous then I am the Queen of Sheba and you may bow down and worship me!

Also, why didn't you consider who this was that just happened to have his video camera out and recording when this all kicked off... that's right: Brad Slavin, Chief Conversion Officer of an Internet based marketing company!

So we are supposed to believe that all that perfectly choreographed and synchronized rubbish just happened out of nothing more than the pure joy of working for Microsoft, and by absolute chance got accidentally videoed by someone whose job it is to use the Internet to make tech products look good.

Must rush, have to nip out and video those pigs flying past.

Mancunians finally get to open bank accounts, go to Europe

GettinSadda
WTF?

8000 Establishments

And how many of those 8000 establishments have the biometric reading devices that would be necessary to make this card any different from any other form of photo card?

Any chance of a biometric ID card being at all useful is lost if those that are using it to verify someones ID don't have the ability to verify that the biometric on the card match those of the person presenting it, and that the card matches the details registered in the database.

Maybe we need a chocolate fireguard icon?

Designers detail the cars of 2030

GettinSadda
FAIL

Not again!

What is it about these "let's look into the future" gigs that brings all the weirdos out of the woodwork?

2030 is only 20 years away, yet these "cars" are all ridiculously futuristic.

The difference between cars today and 20 years in the future should not be that much different than what we find when we compare what we had 20 years in the past with today.

Take a look at: http://preview.tinyurl.com/cars-1990

They don't look all that different to what we all drive today do they?

Nokia 6303 Classic

GettinSadda

@Andus McCoatover

"Makes the phone obsolete soon. OK, when I worked at Nokia, we were told* (in maybe 2004) that 2G would be dead in 2009. Now it's pushed to 2011, but the standard has been ageing for donkeys."

So Scotland will soon be without mobile phone coverage then?

The maps at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/08/3g_coverage_maps/ show how poor the coverage is for the majority of Scotland, and none of the companies seem particularly interested in improving it.

Forum king vBulletin muzzles paid-up protesters

GettinSadda
Thumb Up

Thanks

This has really helped me.

A number of times recently I have seriously considered upgrading some of the sites I run to vBulletin.

Now I see what they have become I have decided never to use their product!

Anti-filesharing laws revive crypto fears for spooks

GettinSadda
FAIL

Does not compute!

Hang on...

No encryption can encrypt the whole packet - the IP Header is left intact.

By a startling co-incidence, the only part of communications that IMP will allow to be snooped without a warrant is... the IP Header.

So either this story is seriously broken, or it is an admission that GCHQ intend to snoop without a warrant.

Historian slams 'absolutely crazy' UK time zone

GettinSadda
Megaphone

Why does no one understand time these days!

Noon = the time when the sun is as high as it's going to get today (= mid-day!)

All other times in the day are derived from that.

As it's best for everyone in the same country to share the same "time" (within reason) small countries should pick one place and use that to define "noon" for the whole country. It makes sense for this to be a place full of people that can measure such things and judge the right way to keep it sane - such as the country's main centre for astronomy (in the UK that was traditionally Greenwich).

Where countries are too big East-West they really need to divide themselves up into sections and each section sets its own noon. It really helps if it is easy to convert from one to the other, so the whole world needs to agree that one is the "master" version of "noon" and all others are a fixed number of hours away. Why not choose the one set by the boffins at Greenwich, especially as they have now worked out some clever ways to average out differences in the measured "highest-point of the sun".

So, now although in theory everyone has "noon" defined as the time when the sun is at it's highest in their area, it is actually derived from the Mean-Time an measured in Greenwich. But it is close enough that it works very well.

However, if I do business regularly with someone that is several countries away, and their local time is, say 3 hours ahead of mine (so the sun is at it's highest for them when my clock says that it is 9am) we have a problem because our working hours don't overlap.

So, should I change the "clock" - that is essentially telling me the position of the sun relative to my location, or my working hours?

The same thing applies for large countries. Should a huge country (or a huge group of semi-independent countries) set all clocks to indicate the same time (i.e. have one single time-zone) so that people in different parts of the country go to work at the same time, or should people in the far west just go to work at an earlier "clock-time" if they want to be at work at the same time as others in the far east?

If a country in Europe does most of its business with Japan, should that whole country adopt Japanese time?

Man dissects Apple's Magic Mouse

GettinSadda
FAIL

Prices?

elReg: "Magic Mouse – which can be ordered online now for £55 ($90/€60) - is powered by two ordinary AA batteries."

iFixit: "Step 4: Alakazam! Wow, at $69, the Magic Mouse isn't cheap. You would think for $69 the Magic Mouse would actually be capable of performing magical acts."

Um, what is up with these prices?

China plans space station for the 2020s, eyes Moon trip

GettinSadda

@ISS

"Why not just add their 3 person capability to the INTERNATIONAL space station."

Because then all the other nations on the ISS would be able to spy on the military research they are doing!

Also, one of the major reasons to do something like this is to prove your superiority. It's rather difficult to prove yourself superior by becoming a junior partner in someone else's project.

WikiReader feeds you factiness on the go

GettinSadda
Alert

Important Question!

Does it have "Don't Panic" inscribed in large, friendly letters on the cover?

Olympic builders hit with biometrics - local residents next?

GettinSadda
FAIL

How exactly is this supposed to work?

Hang on a mo...

All any of this does is proves that each worker turning up is the same person that turns up to the "screening interview".

So unless all 9000 of the screening interviews on the workers are detailed enough (and full of enough magic pixie dust presumably) to predict if they will ever have any intention of aiding a terrorist... then it's all just security theatre and gravy for some consultancy firm run by that nice guy from the golf club.

What will the criteria for failure be?

* Has e-mailed a guy in North Africa?

* Has e-mailed a guy in France/Switzerland who knows a guy in North Africa?

* Has recently visited Pakistan?

* Has ever visited Pakistan?

* Is a Muslim?

* Is the wrong colour?

* May be a closet homosexual?

* Seems to be getting annoyed by the authority figure asking all the personal questions?

Google: Servers are DIMM witted

GettinSadda

Odd

Th@t's od^, I'vE* never had a mEmoy corrup&^)*(&^&(*

Soviet military-surplus manned spacecraft to fly again

GettinSadda
Headmaster

@A J Stiles

According to my dictionary:

Man: noun, a member of the species Homo sapiens or all the members of this species collectively, without regard to sex

Shop risks legal action for posting 'shoplifter' CCTV online

GettinSadda

Not exactly new

http://www.bbc.co.uk/crimewatch

Clever attack exploits fully-patched Linux kernel

GettinSadda
Boffin

Major flaw?

> "Setuid is well-known as a chronic security hole," Rob Graham, CEO of

> Errata Security wrote in an email. "Torvalds is right, it's not a kernel issue,

> but it is a design 'flaw' that is inherited from Unix. There is no easy

> solution to the problem, though, so it's going to be with us for many

> years to come."

Um, so doesn't his translate as "Linux is known to have a major security hole that is unlikely to be fixed in the near future"?

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