Posts by Daniel B.

Methane

It doesn't detect methane, or at least it doesn't seem to be on that list.

I'd say that would be a very important thing to detect, if you're concerned with air quality. Bring on the Fart-Alert!

Flames, 'coz methane's flammable.

Fremen Tech

Hm... it seems like NASA has made the first step towards the Fremen Stillsuit. I recall that one recycled water from both #1 and #2's.

Arrakis is waiting!

Stupid

I am amazed that Psystar couldn't find a good argument against this. The "Windows only on Dells" example given in one of the previous comments pretty much sums it up.

Back in the 680x0 and PPC days, there was a compatibility gap which made it technically impossible to directly install MacOS on non-Mac hardware, partly because part of the OS was actually part of the Mac's firmware. This is why most of the early MacOS versions (5 thru 7) were able to fit on a 3.5" disk.

However, they switched over to Intel, and the "Classic" firmware isn't even there anymore. So basically, the MacOS is now just another x86 OS, which can run in any x86 hardware; however Apple resort to stupidly locking down their OS! The measures are very similar to MS making Windows impossible to run on non-MS-DOS systems (like DR-DOS); and legally that was proven wrong in court.

Oh, and the "they're not overpriced" story doesn't hold; Macs still have the same price-gap with PCs they had when they were actually using high-quality hardware (PPC arch, SCSI HDDs) even though the x86 hardware sells for peanuts; just check the price difference for SCSI HDDs!

In fact, I think this trial was already done with IBM some time ago ... all that stuff about being unable to bundle hardware and software.

Good luck, Psystar!

Bring back the U-boats!

I'd go for undercover subs "escorting" the merchant ships. When the merchants identify an approaching ship as a pirate, they just signal the sub, and let the torpedoes do their job. ;)

Anyway ... does this mean global warming will stop? With this surge in pirate activity, I'd think so; all hail the FSM!

Arrrr, mateys!

My dog ate my homework

Ah, the technology. Back in 1997, I had to deliver my homework, and had not finished. I proceeded to split a .wav file into 300 Kb's and just renamed it "homework.doc" and delivered that to the teacher. The real assignment was then done that day, and I had a legitimate reason to deliver late. However, the excuse came from a *real* incident, where one of my friends lost his homework to one of the first Word virus out there.

Then there was the LearningSpace system (based on Notes). That one was fun, we discovered that you could do the "set date back 1 day" trick for submitting assignments locally; and if you had a replicated copy that had not been synched after the "time travel date", you could just run the replication process and blame Notes. The "created/modified" timestamp would prove you right ;)

Finally, the best excuse I remember was "my laptop blew up". Sadly, this one was also true: his laptop started smoking, the owner left it on the floor while he went to the bathroom (some acid had leaked to his hands) and the damn thing exploded in front of about 50 onlookers. BTW, that was an HP laptop, in 2004; it predates the Dell / MacBook explosions. Hmm, maybe the same batteries were used?

BAE in the US

Surely, they wouldn't be able to keep the company's name, would they? The B in BAE stands for "British", no use in that if they're in the US!

Re: Fake basestation - real user

I'd bet the basestation is actually hooked up to the telco network, as Terry Wrist would be suspicious if he found out that his cellphone isn't going through, even with 5-bar signals.

But then, the base station wouldn't register the calls to the original carrier, so it might just be that calls made from this thingy would be *free*. Well, free in the $$$; as the FBI would be listening everything. Oh well...

Oh my!

That would explain why my BlackBerry suddenly went silent during the weekend. It usually gets 3 spams a day, usually from the hotmail account, sometimes Yahoo.

Tron 2.0, surely? @Richard

I only complain about the title. And while I agree that Flight of the Navigator need not to be touched, I do remember that Explorers was never really finished!

Then again, most remakes have been epic fails... though not all of them. Ocean's Eleven (the new one) 0wns the original with its ending.

Tracer R. Spence?

Why do I believe that name isn't real. "Tracer" seems like a weird name for a kid.

I laughed at the "100% untraceable" ... yeah, 100% untraceable until you run an updated AV, or one of those keylogger detectors. Yeah, right.

Laptots vs. Laptops

I remember a time when laptops were heavy as hell, because hardware couldn't be miniaturized as much as it can be done these days. (Remember the "portable" Commodore?) Then they began to get smaller, down to the point that it was practical enough to actually use one of these on the move. The first one that I remember being practical enough was the Powerbook 180.

Years later, after the Big Switch to PC's, I got a Fujitsu Lifebook 280Dx (1998) which not only fit perfectly in my backpack, but also had an interesting "modular" concept where I could exchange batteries, CD drive, zip cartridge drive and an "extra" HDD. It had 2 module bays (1 large, 1 small), and I could do nice combinations like setting it up with *TWO* batteries, so I could get 2x battery lifetime! Ah, the days.

My next lap (ca. 2001) was a 15" monitor, "nice", I thought, "but it's heavier now, and it doesn't fit well on my backpack anymore." Since then, laptops have gotten bigger, heavier, and hotter; so much that in fact the term "laptop" has been kind of a running joke for some time now. Some laptops these days have w-i-d-e-s-c-r-e-e-n monitors that are about the size of my *desktop* monitor! I do *not* need big-ass monitors on a laptop, it only adds up to bulk. Basically, it looks like the laptops seem to be looking more and more like SUV's.

Netbooks, on the other hand, are small and portable; more like the things I expected to see these days, not the SUV laptops we have now. I'd give them a try, if I had disposable income... which I don't have. (Thanks credit crunch!) I do have a smartphone (BB Curve), but even I know that it isn't practical to use as a full-fledged computer, even with its qwerty keyboard.

PGP's good.

I don't understand all these dudes dissing on PGP/GPG. The damn standard has been around for so long it is pretty much used in most sensible secure apps. If you wanted, you could also get your PGP public key signed by a CA and get your own X.509 cert. Hell, I think the OpenPGP standard even predates all those other implementations!

Hushmail uses the OpenPGP standard. If I want to do secure e-mail with Hushmail users, I need to use that.

And PGP Desktop isn't that hard to use for the Windows sheeple. Just buy, download, install; the Outlook plugin is included. It is really more about how much users care about privacy; those who don't care, well, they deserve getting their e-mail read.

Facebook? Meh.

Windows Live Messenger on a mobile, however, is a useful tool. However, my Blackberry already does both of these things; of course, I don't do Facebook, so that app isn't installed.

And unless the handset's coupled with a juicy unlimited data rate plan (like my BB), it isn't much use to have these apps, as I wouldn't like to pump up my mobile bill on pointless stuff like Facebook.

You tricked me!

And I was wondering how Artificial Intelligence could be related with bull sperm...

Yipes!

Ok, at least he didn't point the gun to anybody else; in fact that's one of the first rules when handling guns: "Don't point it at anything you don't want destroyed."

And remember, same rule applies for Tasers, except it reads something like "Don't point it AT YOURSELF unless you want to feel like a BOFH victim!"

Fun to drive

I'd like to see how this system would fare on our average Mexican highway. Some roads have:

- Duplicate lane markers, which make the road look like I was cross-eyed

- Alternate routes marked ... but the original lane markers haven't been erased

- *NO* lane markers. This one is really fun, especially when done in a 5-lane expressway!

Size, not speed

As I understand this tech, it isn't really about sp33ding up your DB's, but reducing occupied space on the DB, while keeping all data accessible; any "idle" records are transferred to the slower, compressed partition (tablespace?) while those who are frequently used/modified are kept on the main, uncompressed one.

Of course, the compressed data will be slower to retrieve, as it requires decompression. So this solution doesn't give any speed gains, but it will save on storage requirements, especially on those who are required to keep stale data online for a large amount of time, like SOX-bound organizations.

No Java Involved

That comment made me laugh. I haven't seen Java anywhere on the Hotmail service. The only thing I do see is that annoying JavaSCRIPT.

Anyway, I do find annoying that they make their stuff break on anything not Windows/IE.

PreparedStatements

Of course, data acquired from HTTP GET or HTTP POST must be validated ... but most of the ugly stuff (like O'Malley, or '; DELETE FROM users; --) is usually covered by PreparedStatements, which are supported by any RDBMS worth its salt. Any programmer *not* using these is opening a big SQL Injection vector into his app.

I wish every single developer knew about this, but I've seen companies using queries that don't do any kind of sanity check on these things; and generating documents with things like:

http://foobar.com/servlet/VeryImportantContractGenerator?name=Jason%20Bourne&account_no=1234432198&initial_balance=300

which, of course, doesn't validate the input at all. These kind of things make me cringe...

Old data... real problem.

I wonder how many people know about the risks of long-term data storage. During my lifetime, I've seen lots of media turn antique:

- My dad's programs are stuck in a backup tape reel that can't be read

- I lost most of my Mac files on both my Jasmine Removable 45 and MDS88 drives

- My dad's Iomega Jaz cartridges are dead

- And well, not only am I deprived of a 5.25" floppy disk reader, but even if I had one, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to read my old C64 programs.

Even in non-computer media, VHS recorder/players are hard to find already; I haven't seen Compact Cassette Walkmans for some time now, and my sister didn't even know how to operate a record player until recently.

I've already lost most of my old data, and it is very difficult to find any data from before 1997 already. And that's without counting the "dead tech" stuff, like my C64 proggies. :(

Greenie or greedy?

"[I] believe history will show that it was Chinese capitalism which put the last nail into the coffin of the postwar European welfare state."

Funny, I thought the EU was actually more interested in the green tech than the "non-welfare states" ... like the US. High petrol prices in the EU have meant that Europeans don't favor gas-guzzling SUV's, and having a high-speed *electric* rail network also cuts down on both driving and flying.

How many "green" transportation methods do the Chinese have? The only fast train they had was the Transrapid (that's German) for the Shanghai airport ... and then they stole the tech for their "own" maglev.

I can see it now...

Receiving an SMS from the NOC saying something along the lines of

"CRITICAL ALERT: REBOOT SERVER"

... and sending your G1 into an infinite loop!

Hotmail

Well, I've been using their revamped "interface" since they first released it as a "beta". BTW, it does have "mark as read", but that's done with the right-button context menu (yes, they're trying to do some kind of Web Outlook interface.) It isn't that bad, but I do hate its IE-centric insistence.

The funny thing is why I opted in for this in the first place: it was to jump from 250Mb to 2Gb inbox space. Hotmail is the only service I know of that strayed behind a lot on Inbox quotas.

Yahoo offered 25Mb, Hotmail 2Mb.

Yahoo ups to 100Mb, Hotmail 2Mb.

Gmail comes up, offers 1Gb; Yahoo ups to 250Mb .... Hotmail's *still* stuck at 2Mb.

Hell, when Hotmail decided to up themselves to 250Mb, they did it *by region*; meaning all non-US users were still stuck with 2Mb. Fortunately, a temporary change I had made in 1998 left my Hotmail addy with a US RL address, so I got the upgrade. The only thing MS got, was that most of their non-US users suddenly "moved" to Beverly Hills; Hotmail asks for a Zip Code, and well, there's that early 90's show with a zip code for its title!!

So basically, Hotmail ceased to be the main option for most because Gmail, and even Yahoo! were giving giant inboxes, while Hotmail stuck to 2Mb's for way too long (2004?), which given Hotmail's spam volume meant that your inbox was filling up in a matter of hours. Those of us who still have Hotmail addys, have them only because of MSN Messenger. Otherwise, I'd hint Hotmail would be dead for quite a while by now...

@Giles Jones

Comparing the iPhone lock-in to the PSP, PS3, Wii, XBOX lock-in is like comparing apples (no pun intended) with oranges.

The reason those devices have these protection measures is simple: PIRACY. Most of the jailbreak cracks for game consoles are not motivated by being able to run homebrew apps on your game console; it is because once you jailbreak the device, you can play pirated games. So there is a legitimate interest on Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft for locking down game consoles; and even then, Sony lets you put Linux on your PS2's and PS3's.

Apple's motivation for locking down the iPhone seems to be solely to keep the stranglehold on what can/can't run on the thing, and the app distribution channel. It would be akin to Microsoft forcing you to do all app installs from the "Microsoft App Store", and disabling all other install methods. If MS did this, it would be flamed to infinity, but when Apple does this with the iPhone, it's a "feature". Sheesh.

@Jake

You *did* read that this came from *McCain's* campaign aides? No "eeevil liberal socialists" are attacking her. It's friendly fire!

Now, I'm tempted on mocking Webster Phreaky (he earned it ever since he stated that Mexicans aren't Latin Americans anyway) but I'll heed the Moderatrix's advice. :)

Re: Twitfelch

I think either someone thought about "For ELection CHannel" (or some weird spin on "election") and failed to see what that word means.

Or someone pulled a pretty good prank!

So...

are their pizzas Itchy and Tasty?

Mine's the one with the S.T.A.R.S. badge...

Re: Palin a MILF?

It may have to do that by politician's standards, she looks better; or that "hockey mom" image she tried to convey. I'd bet my money on that photoshopped pic that roamed the internet not long ago, though; the body from the original model was pretty nice!

Anyway, how can anyone forget Bush's VP? There were a lot of jokes about the US being run by "Bush & Dick"... hm... no wonder the US is screwed right now.

Drop down the (Sprint) Donkey

If you're a Sprint customer: Vote with your feet.

This has got to be the stupidest decision made by a telco provider. I hope it comes to bite 'em in the ass when droves of subscribers jump the bandwagon because they're no longer able to access their corporate servers, VPN's and such.

I only feel bad for them because they'll bring Nextel down as well.

Clamshell phones

I really miss the clamshell phones, the last one I had was a SonyEriccson W300. But if I remember well, one of the first ones was the StarTAC, which I loved: big when open, but small when closed; being able to carry it without having all the buttons pressed.

Motorola has mostly kept with the clamshell devices (at least the last time I looked 'em) while others have ditched them. One of the reasons I didn't buy a SonyEricsson handset when I changed handsets was that SE didn't release any other W-series clamshells after the W300. Instead, I went for a BlackBerry Curve; if I'm going to have a huge-ass mobile, it should have a proper QWERTY keyboard to justify the size.

It's kind of sad that Motorola's cellphone business seems to be on the fritz, it used to have the best mobiles around; my StarTAC even survived a street fight without failing (they did make 'em tough!) and my friend's 120t survived a world of abuse, due to its owner using the phone for things it wasn't intended to... like opening beer bottles, or as a hammer.

Funny how current trends seem to go down the 'shiny but fragile' road; just look at the iPhone. I'd like to see how well it would fare after rolling one floor down the stairs (like my W300), falling into a puddle under heavy rain (again, my W300) or flying 20m from my hand and falling hard to the ground (my BB 8300). I even doubt an iPhone (or any iPhone look-alike) would survive the sheer pressure of squeezed-together people you normally see in the subway's peak hours!

UAC

Would someone explain to me why his company *isn't* called Union Aerospace Corporation???

Then again, those Phobos and Deimos bases might not get funding if they were going with that name. Anyway, they won't get into any trouble ... as long as they stay away from mysterious teleporters.

Mine's the one with the BFG 9000

So that's how the X-Men came to be

This would definitely explain how Magneto got his powers!!!

Meh.

Heh. Dissing on the iPhone's experience based on the device using ARM processors is, well, stupid. In fact, I'd say its good *because* it isn't using Intel's crap!

Maybe they're mad that Apple didn't buy into them as they did with their stupid move with the Macs going from PPC to x86.

That said, most competent smartphones are using ARM, including my BlackBerry. I'll never let an Intel processor run my mobile!

Tokens?

First, I wondered where was the high-tech hologram security when I first heard about "3DSecure". Because that's what it sounds like to the common punter, doesn't it?

Secondly, my own country (Mexico) has mandated those OTP tokens for e-banking since March 2007. However, MasterCard SecureCode and VbV don't use this, and it seems it can't, even if I already have my OTP token in that bank!

So basically, it is *less* secure for me to use VbV/MC SecureCode than to do stuff on my online banking site because of this. And I had to sign up for these schemes anyway, as my telco's gone "mandatory" on these schemes. Oh, and the card from the one bank that hasn't deployed SecureCode is being declined on 3DSec-enabled sites as well.

Tasteless hackers?

Come on, Hannah Montana? What was this "hacker", a 14 y/o teenager???

Then again, he did brag about his "hack", so meh.

Though I'd also wonder why do people think their free e-mail is secure...

Hey! You forgot Flickr!

They bought up Flickr, and killed their own Yahoo! Photos service.

They bought up Konfabulator, and changed its name to the lame Yahoo! Widgets.

Geeze, they bought up so much trash I'm surprised they have any money left. Looks like Web 2.0 is turning into Dotcom 2.0: Taking down those who didn't go down with Dotcom 1.0!!!

Oh great!

"Sun claimed Java SE 6u10 has a 4.5Mb kernel compared to the previous 14.5Mb, with the environment retaining the VM, and core Abstract Widget Toolkit and Swing at the expense of less commonly used APIs like Corba, Remote Method Invocation, and a second garbage collector."

So ... all my apps will cease to run in 6u10, 'coz they use the "less commonly used" RMI stuff. How am I going to do client/server software, isn't that what all these "Internet apps" are all about?? Though I hope this isn't true, as one of the above posters noted with Corba.

Re: Curious

"People are swallowing the line 'Windows 7 will be better' before anyone has actually seen it."

But they *did* see Windows ME. You know, that thing MS released between win98 and XP, which was supposed to be the "home user" upgrade as win2000 was "business only". Except ME sucked hard, people preferred win2k so much that MS finally gave w2k DirectX support (they stated at the beginning that they would *never* do that) and hurried up XP's release.

Given how many Vista failings seem to be similar to the ME failures, it might be that everyone's betting on something like this happening all over again. Even MS now admits that WinME was a "stop-gap" project between Win98 and XP.