Posts by Daniel B.

Re: Errrrr.... different...

"While opposition to such things is fair enough, surely this passes WAY beyond what anyone might think a "reasonable protest"?"

You mean like Greenpeace "protests"? It is either some radical anti-nuke group, some really bad taste prank, or some kind of "social experiment" to see how the masses react to such a thing.

Last weekend a chain-mail went around the 'net where the drugdealer cartels supposedly imposed a "curfew" in Juarez City, Mexico; stating that anyone on the streets would be killed, and it would be the bloodiest weekend in history. Guess what: nothing happened. But it does sound more like "terrorism" in its original meaning: get people to live in terror. Such a prank stating "NUCULAR MELTDOWN, D00D!" sounds like that, especially in a country that's near the site of the worst nuclear accident in human history.

The vulture died of iodine overdose.

Mid-range

Hm... even if I am now a Blackberry owner, I used to go for the mid-range ones. The SonyEriccson W300 is good enough for what I wanted: mp3, radio, bluetooth, camera, and it uses m2 memory sticks (so I can up the storage capacity if I want). When I was originally searching for a replacement, it seemed like SonyEriccson decided to go all "high-end" and none of the snazzy new models convinced me. There was nothing like my ole W300 out there, and I wasn't about to sign an 18-month contract just to get... another W300.

So I went for the Blackberry 8300, as it had at least an unlimited data plan. SonyEriccson lost because it thought I wanted a non-clamshell phone with dozens of stuff I don't want, and a handset that looks shiny enough to get mugged for.* And given the entire mobile range, it seems like people are shifting back to the "simple, but works" handsets. Luddites would do well with the Motorola F3... but using it for SMS is really, really ugly. If that thing had a good display for SMS reading, that would be the phone of choice for a lot of people, I'm sure.

* There's been a rise in muggings with the sole purpose of stealing mobiles over here. So "shiny handsets" rate low on my scale, as I don't want to pay more to *increase* the probability of me being mugged over a stupid phone.

Manga?

I think by "Manga" they're actually referring to "Hentai", aren't they?

Plus, if anything, "cartoon underage sex" might even ban V for Vendetta as well: Evey's offering her "services" at the beginning of the graphic novel, and she's 16!

Its just as stupid as the "Extreme Porn" law, and as someone else already mentioned, some manga/hentai publications have already dodged the bullet. Example: one of the Bleach characters is a 400-year-old "death god", who happens to roam the "mortal world" as a 16-ish schoolgirl. Any "hentai" version would simply claim its a 400 y/o character, not 16 y/o. Bleh.

Re: Why don't I feel sorry?

Ah, true, they're stealing the rich.

But then, wouldn't those statistics be wrong? Everyone knows its Nottingham where the rich people are robbed ;)

Re: Internet bullying...

Actually, some of this "cyber-bullying" can be truly damaging, even more than actual bullying. One highschool girl got "cyberbullied" or whatever in her last semester; her ex-boyfriend sent a spoofed e-mail posing as her, saying "my phone is X, I like to f**k on the first date" and adding her *actual* nude photos. To the entire school. Of course, he could've easily spread the photos on the whole school by himself (which wouldn't require the Internet) but it was easier, and more far-reaching to do it through the internet.

At least with old-school bullying, you can solve it the old-fashioned way: fight back and beat the **** out of the bully 'till he learns not to mess with you again.

As for voice-only phones ... given the 5-to-1 value of SMS-voice costs, I tend to disagree with that. Much cheaper to text than to actually call and spend 10x to convey something as simple as "Going out, meet you in Tacubaya Sta. 8 o'clock sharp. Kisses!" or mere informative stuff like "I've just sent you the package" or whatever.

Mobiles for kids - As soon as your kid starts wandering solo, that's the right time to give him a mobile. That would be sometime around age 12, right after entering secondary school. I got my first mobile at age 15, but that was because *no one in the family had one before* except my dad. My sister got hers when she was 13.

LAN Access Profile

Hm... the LAN Access service is basically the only way I'm able to transparently use my W300 handset as a GPRS modem without resorting to arcane setups and *99# numbers that just don't seem to work with my carrier. Just fire up the LAN access service, and there you go! Instant mobile access ;) however, my Blackberry has no such support.

I would've liked to see something akin to "Bluetooth SMS" by default on all Bluetooth-enabled phones, as it would be an interesting feature, given how many people have their bluetooth turned on. Oh well...

I haven't done the "earphone Bluetooth" yet, and might not do it for fear of the "bluejacking". Then again, my Blackberry does have a "disable phone calls from BT devices" option.

@John Latham

"If the sunshade was constructed as a giant solar collector and beamed the energy back to earth using frikkin laser beams, we'd solve both global warming and energy supply at once. The "sunshade deathstar" could double as a great "defensive" tool against the rebel alliance (sorry, Axis of Evil)."

Oh no, we need the full Dyson sphere around the sun to get a sunny deathstar ray!

Mine's the one with the XKCD strip.

The Great Leap Backwards?

Oh yeah, pay to receive. Great idea ... NOT.

We used to have the same system as the US over here, but COFETEL (kind of like the Mexican Ofcom) implemented the termination fee system, known as "caller-pays" since 1998. It was only local until 2006, when they switched it to nationwide. So, while we do still have the same area codes as the geographical city the phone's based in, we do have to dial 044 prefix for local mobiles, 045 for long-distance mobiles.

There you have it. Now the only way you pay to receive is when you're outside your home city. Funny how a "developing country" seems to be more up to date on mobile rates than the US. Oh well, maybe its a telecom thing: we use E1/E3's instead of T1/T3's, so it might be natural we stick to the European standard for termination fees.

@Marvin the Martian

True. Just like in Mexico, we have three main parties, and a zillion "small parties", of which some of them insist they are the TRUE LEFT, yeah right. If you add up all the votes those parties got in the 2006 "elections", it is large enough to have actually tipped the balance in those elections. Voting for them for president/governor is just a waste of time, though voting them for "diputado" or senator does help a bit.

And that's here, where we don't have that funky "electoral college" system. In the US, it is simply stupid to vote anything other than Democrat, as even if the independent dudes do manage to have a considerable support on one state, it is basically stolen by whoever "wins" the EC votes. Oh, I know I should've said Democrat *or Republican*, but given Bush II's record, you'd have to be infinitely stupid to still vote Republican.

The UK seems to have a similar problem, except there is no election-ruining EC system in place. :)

Helicockter

Now someone seems to have been playing too much Second Life, and decided to do it in real-life! Or were they just trying to be a d*ck?

Black helicopter, because it would've made a larger err.... "model".

Now I get it!!

amanfromMars is actually warping the AdSense machine!!! With his postings, the adsense system picks up so much words it starts to screw up the ads it serves!!!

I remember reading many years ago about "intelligent fridges" that would tell you "Hey dude! You're low on milk! BUY MORE! BUY MORE!" Even better was that coupling this with RFID would give stuff like "Duuuude!!! Yoour milk's rotten! Expiration date was last week!!!".

Mix in these old (ca. 2000?) ideas with Web 2.0 and Phorm, and you'll end up getting "You're low on milk, do you want me to order Borden 100% Top-Quality Milk?"

Or one I'd find hilarious: "You're almost out of Pepsi. Do you want to restock?" *click yes* "Thank you. Ordering 4 liters of Coca-Cola Zero. Coca-Cola, official sponsor for the IntelliFridge 2.0"

Re: Who Shot First

Greedo!

Oh wait, wrong version, this is the *enhanced* Geroge Lucas version. Oops!

Oliphant?

I suppose that his company was a 'White Oliphant' then...

Mine's the one with the LoTR reference.

Yeeipes!

Ok dudes, stop messing with timelines... two people have messed with space-time and now both IE3 and Outlook Express have born in 2007 instead of 1996/97???

Mine's the one with the DeLorean's keys...

Oh, I think I get it...

In Soviet Russia, Macintosh hacks YOU!!!

It is the first time I see a Mac hacking systems. Was this a PowerPC Mac, or one of the evil Intel ones? ;)

Mini-TV

... so I am to watch microTV? No thanks. However, "mobile TV" does make sense if you got a PSP, and are stuck in a long commute in public transportation systems.

But on a standard cellphone display? I doubt it.

Screaming Fist

So now I know where those flying cyberwarriors got their gear from...

Just remind Rossy to make these wings EMP-resistant. ;)

Re: RE: better known as Crap Pack

"Where would HP be without the Proliant line of servers? HPs X86 gear sucked compared to Compaq's business line."

Maybe actually cranking out more PA-RISC servers that actually perform better, like the HP 9000 series.

Ask before you download

You mean, this browser downloads anything without asking? Even Firefox, that has its annoying "download all to Desktop" 'feature' by default, will ask you if you want to download. Basic rule since the advent of the web browser.

Having first-time-run checks may be nice, but I could easily see this as a potential DoS attack: a malicious page could do an infinite loop that makes Safari download craploads of files 'till the harddisk fills up. Thanks to JavaScript, this might even happen background, and the user wouldn't realize it until its too late...

In Mexico...

I am surprised Mexico isn't one of the "top countries with pirated software". Pirated stuff is so common, it kind of has blended with the culture, as you can see with tons of "Aypo" players (if you read that out loud in Spanish, it sounds like "iPo"), businessmen carrying "Monlblanc" pens and the massive pirate music CD market that put P2P "illegal downloads" statistics to shame... taking in mind that this CD market actually *profits* from it. (I remember distinctly that "piracy" was *selling* duplicated CDs for a profit. P2P doesn't fit there, does it?)

Thing is, most tech stuff is actually more expensive than in the US, sometimes being even 200% higher; and this effect is also seen in software. Mix that and piracy culture, surprise! Most people I know have either a pirated Windows XP copy, or pirated MS Office. With $300 price tags on software, and basically $500/month average income for *entire families* nationwide, you aren't going to spend those amounts on what basically has become a commodity.

Actually, people who buy *original* software (non-pirate) for personal/home use are usually called some equivalent of "paytards", as the mindset is "Why pay $300 for something you can get for $1?".

I'm all for stricter piracy controls ... 'coz that means we'll be switching pretty fast to non-Windows platforms! ;)

The sleeper has awakened!

I must drink beer.

Beer is the mind-killer.

Beer is the little death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my beer.

I wil permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it is has gone past I wil turn the inner eye to see it's path.

When the beer has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

As your new Kwisatz Haderach, I will cease melange shipments to the Co$. ;)

Entity Beans

"Rod Johnson in March cited the creation of Entity Beans - a type of Enterprise Java Bean (EJB) that was part of the JCP's Java Enterprise Edition spec - as setting back the cause of object-relational mapping by six years and for causing billions in wasted investment."

How about 4 years of knowledge gone into the toilet because the EJB 3.0 spec trashed the entire Entity Bean spec?? I found the EntityBean encapsulation a nice feature, and seamlessly working with the entire Session Bean transaction manager. This weird "Entity Class" and "Java Persistence Manager" stuff borked all this, and now I can't even use .setRollbackOnly() on the TransactionManager!!! Aaaagh!!!

Now I have to re-learn *everything*, and don't have the time to do it. Fortunately, my current job's on WebLogic 8.1, so we're still in good old J2EE 1.4, EJB 2.1 specs.

Money over enterprise health

As the AC pointed out, Icahn is a destroyer of companies. Thanks to his wankfest, BEA got 0wned by Oracle. I think my beloved WebLogic's going down...

AC got it spot on, basically "shareholder value" matters more than the actual companies' health these days. "Shareholder value" killed Computer City under CompUSA's hands, I wonder if those shareholders even care about all those people losing their jobs because of "shareholder value". Nice projects get axed because of takeovers/mergers, companies die, but all is well and fine as long as shareholders get their money. If the company tries to actually stand up and look for whats best for the COMPANY ... they get sued by stupid shareholders, like Yahoo! or BEA last year.

The entire "public company" system seems to be like that old Dilbert strip I once read: "The company would steal our organs during our sleep and sell them in the black market if it was profitable enough!". Pretty much sums up how it works.

Recycling!

Well, while paper *initial* production is taxing to the environment, recycling paper isn't that much of a polluting industry. My dad used to be a consultor at a newspaper recycling plant about 15 years ago, and the only reason the process was complicated was because of oil-based ink being hard to remove. Someone had an idea about vegetable-based ink, and when they ran the tests on the plant, the paper came fully clean after only the hydrapulper phase. Talk about savings!!!

Plastic recycling does make sense, as it would help us on the other kind of oil dependency: polymer production. Especially taking in mind this techno-frenzy world we live in, where most gadgets go to the trashcan in 3 years, tops.

Wahoo!!!

Ok, I really don't care about touchscreen ... but this one means the BB can fight on even ground with the iPhone! w00t!!!

Even if I dislike the Jobsphere and the current state of Apple, I do agree that the iPhone seems to have sent handset manufacturers into an innovation spree. I just hope that the 9000's will be available when my contract finishes.... which will be 'till July 2009. Plenty of time! :)

10k servers?!?!

Ok, I remember seeing a fairly large site for a financial institution attending something like 10 million users. How many servers, you might say? about 40. Ok, add in the mainframe boxen, but still, 40 servers for 10 million users.

According to that measure, Facebook should have 2,500 MILLION users (or 2.5 US Billions), which would make like half the Earth's population. Mind you, I don't think there are that many people hooked up to the Internet, even less likely to be logged on Facebook.

Then again, these "10 thousand servers" might just be 10,000 486 DX2's strapped together! ;)

@AC

Oh. You just reminded me of the olden days of everyone copying Prince of Persia from floppy to floppy back in school. Some unfortunate kid got his floppy infected with NATAS, and because of the floppy-copy stuff, it quickly spread to almost everyone's PC, including mine.

The NATAS+Prince of Persia case was so common nationwide (Mexico) that it was sometimes referred as "the Prince [of Persia] curse".

Change "floppy" to "DVD" and "Prince of Persia" to "porn" and I think you have your case. :)

Turn down the O2

Why didn't they think of this first? Obviously the old guy would've passed out, so they would remove the knife from the guy. Easier, and you avoid a potential heart attack, dude!

That said, somebody with a knife IS a threat, especially if he's delusional. If you think old people don't have the strength, I refer you to that voicemail recording of a dude narrating the events concerning a car crash, one idiot guy, and 4 old women...

The vulture got tasered by the plod.

LogMeInGoingToMyPC

I just have to wonder why are there people stupid enough to buy stuff that does things that your OS *already does*. If you've got Windows XP or any win200X Server version, you've already got Remote Desktop / RDP. No need for Log Me In or Go To My WC. If you don't want to do the OS way, VNC has been doing this, *for free*. Really, what is the "big advantage" on these programs?

That said, looks like these thieves were very stupid. Anyone intelligent enough would assume the laptop's got a tracker on it, just waiting for you to go online. Software doing this goes back to 1998, maybe even before that.

Re: Combating the iPhone

Well, I for one would really appreciate being able to do things like custom playlists, as my current BB 8300 is uncapable of doing this. Business men sometimes also listen music, you know ;)

If anything, adding up snazzy features might actually reclaim possible iPhone buyers from the management area, who might judge the products more by form than function.

All RIM needs to do is add a little more spin, with the catchphrase: "we do everything the iPhone does, AND we do run Java!" ;)

Re: Tetragrammaton Council

All your porn has been rated EC-10! CONDEMNED!

Surely basing some "extreme porn" system on the Catholic Church Prohibition Index sounds a lot like it, doesn't it?

Report all sense-offenders! Take your Prozium!

Doom4!!

Ooooh yes, now THIS is what I've been waiting for! In fact, my current box and geForce 7600GT card were bought with Doom3 in mind. 'Twas DOOM the one that made me spend hours on my good ole 486 (and then my first Pentium) on hours at end. Began with the shareware version (the one that still had the swastika layout in e1m4), then bought Doom2, and finally that Doom Ultimate pack (Doom1 + 4th episode). I acknowledge Phobos Lab (e1m5) as the first level that truly inspired fear... everything so dark...

By the way, I recognize that screenshot, that would be Deimos Anomaly (e2m1).

Mine's the one with the BFG9000

Like the consoles?

Reminded me somewhat of the dudes who bashed a PS3 with a sledgehammer outside a game store, then did the same with the Wii... which was even MORE fun, as they did it while wearing Mario & Luigi costumes. It made that look like Smash Bros. for real!

Anyway, I doubt this one beats the Blendtec iPhone vid!!

Retarded Shareholders

This is exactly the case that shows why there is something wrong with "Capitalism". I don't see many people killing themselves because they'll earn more money by dying, but it seems like companies are legally obliged to do exactly this if it increases the share value.

I assure you that the reason these shareholders were happy about a Microsopht takeover was because they'd short sell the entire Yahoo! stock as soon as it went up. Then they'd sail off with their boatload of plundered earnings while Yahoo is ripped apart by MS.

As some have pointed out, the shares are already above the pre-Microhoo offer, so if they are so whiny they should sell stock and stop whining. See, investing in the stock market is kind of gambling; the board of directors should be able to decide what's best for THE COMPANY, not for some dudes shouting "Show me the money!". Oh well...