* Posts by P. Lee

5267 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Dec 2007

Dutch courts: Wi-Fi 'hacking' is not a crime

P. Lee

being daft about definitions

I suspect even a dvd player "copies, stores and processes" dvd data.

Correct decision, possibly wrong reasoning. WiFi breaking should not be a criminal offence. Civil perhaps, but not criminal.

Amazon is best hope of a viable alternative to iPad

P. Lee

Motorola not controlling the platform?

"But bugs in the Motorola tablet highlight the downside of not having full control of one's platform, since most of them appear to come from crashes and other faults in the new tablet release of Android, Honeycomb – not from the hardware. "

I think this has missed the point. Motorola can control the platform, they just haven't put in the developer time. They could fork the code, they could contribute xoom-specific bugfixes - as long as they comply with the license they could do this. Apple obviously does all their own bug-hunting with their OS. Motorola just hasn't done it properly - and that attitude is likely to lead to failure.

To succeed they need to at least: have decent hardware, decent software and have an app store where the code is verified as non-nasty.

Prof debuts miniature laser diode for fast networking

P. Lee
Boffin

wtb

Lightpeak. Proper Lightpeak.

Texas bank robber asked for ID

P. Lee

re: good that he's in prison

Its Texas, he's lucky a possie didn't string him up from the nearest tree

EA dubs Nintendo Wii a 'legacy platform'

P. Lee
Badgers

hehe

Wii not fast enough to play EA cut-scenes which leaves nothing left of their games.

Wii was never about realistic graphics, it was always marketed for family-oriented communal gameplay. For that market, it's fine. HD would be nice, but upscaling probably works well for the cartoon graphics.

Does anyone else smell a bit of self-interest from a company denigrating a system which doesn't play it's latest games well? Hmm, no really, Swap your wii for a ps3 which can play blackops really well...

That said, it's a console so the games are overpriced. I'd rather see the wii controllers used for pc versions games with a pc/mac under the telly. Steam under the TV is what we're after.

European parliament loves the Tobin tax

P. Lee
Grenade

What's the problem?

1. Democracy doesn't scale.

Democracy is about self-determination. When a democracy gets too large, smaller groups are outvoted by larger groups and self-determination disappears. The UK has it's own functioning democracy, there is really no reason to include the Germans, French and Italians. If you start imposing tax at an EU level, you take the purse-strings from the individual countries, which I'm sure the EU (the EU institutions and possibly the more populous countries) is in favour of, but it isn't good for self-determination, which is the aim of democracy.

Hence, the EU should not be used to push legislation. It should be there as a facilitator to coordinate between sovereign states, who agree on things, not to override existing democracies.

2. Insurance.

I suggest that those companies who buy risk (sell insurance) shouldn't be allowed to resell it. That way they have an incentive to not insure things which shouldn't be insured, like risky mortgages. Companies should be made to stand behind their insurance products. It helps limit any damage of bad management to a single company, and focuses management's mind as they can't ditch the responsibility for their errors onto someone else. The problem is the lack of a link between risk and responsibility.

Feeling heat from Macs, Microsoft sells PCs sans crapware

P. Lee
Linux

saw the title

Wanted a bundled iscsi server, even if it doesn't have many features...

London man gets 5 years for YouTube terror videos

P. Lee

re: Thank God for the US Constitution

Actually, I suspect most of those involved with the formation of the constitution would disagree. It was their explicit Christian values and language which permeate the constitution. Excluding God from affairs is a relatively recent phenomena, so you can thank God for much of the US constitution.

Those who wrote it would be horrified at what has happened under the banner of "separation of Church and state." What they did not want was the state to enforce religious belief. They certainly did not want the Church to be above the law as it was in various European countries. They did not want the state to enforce religious belief as the Inquisition did, but I think they would have been astounded that this could have been interpreted as "you may not speak about your religion" as it affects many people.

Since the absence of a God is impossible to prove, atheism is logically belief system. How ironic that we can probably thank the liberals for taking us from a situation where people used to be able to discuss the merits of various religious beliefs and how they affect policy, to a state-sanctioned and (in many areas) state-enforced religion of atheism with silence being the only alternative.

Perhaps if we allowed more public discussion and serious comparison of theological systems, we might avoid pushing those with wacky ideas out of the mainstream, losing our ability to influence them.

Fairness FAIL: When small print contradicts the big print

P. Lee
Grenade

My favourite is Apple T&C's as seen on ipod touch.

57 pages and changed with every update.

Seriously, are their legal team so bad they keep forgetting things?

Seriously, how hard is it to say "don't copy our stuff and don't copy stuff you download from us."

Intel: 'PC makers took the light out of Light Peak'

P. Lee
Megaphone

Want optical!

Cost is a non-issue as a long video cable means I don't need a pc under the telly.

Scientists tremble before 'thunder-thighs' sauropod

P. Lee
Troll

Yay for extrapolation!

At first I thought the white areas were missing parts of the fossil. Then I read the notes.

I'm sure there are good reasons for their assumptions and I'm as excited as anyone else about finding a stonking new beast that walked the earth, but the actual physical evidence seems rather thin.

That isn't to say they are wrong, but the full skeletal drawings and artists impressions are educated guesswork and extrapolation. There's nothing wrong with that in itself, but it hides the fact that we actually have very little actual evidence available to us. I'd hate to see science brought into disrepute because it is portrayed as being able to answer questions it doesn't.

Google opens curtain on 'manual' search penalties

P. Lee

easy to fix

add a +searchengine flag to include results returned by other search engines. If I go to google, I probably don't want results from bing, or foundem or somewhere else.

European child abuse image law a step closer

P. Lee
Flame

Thin end of the wedge, part deux.

Not just the thin end of the wedge for censorship, but for EU power extension.

Remind me again why this needs to come from the EU?

What is the pressing need to have the EU legislate on this rather than providing sample legislation for member countries to take or leave as desired?

I see a power grab by the EU, disguised with a laudable goal.

I'm all for squashing KP, but that's a small problem. I don't want the EU taking powers from my country's government and that's a massive clear and present danger.

Hell, road to, good intentions paved with.

Microsoft hits autistic Xboxer with cheat evidence

P. Lee
Troll

MS PR dept more adept than usual?

Just think, none of this publicity would have happened if they provided all the evidence up front...

Australia’s eBay shopping grows strongly

P. Lee

Grrrrr

> the appreciation of the Australian dollar has, at least in markets in which prices are allowed to move with the currency, made imports cheaper.

/me looks around for evidence of such a market...

Costco are doing this. HDDs and some low-end motherboards are also beginning to come down on msy.com.au. There are lots of tiny webshops, but the lack of selection means that shipping bumps the prices up more that any savings.

Australian ecommerce retailers' websites are generally very poor - nothing like Scan or Dabs. Shipping from HK, the US or even the UK is generally cheaper for light goods, as long as you can stomach the shipping costs back if it doesn't work.

I wish Scan would come down here!

Intel soups up Wireless Display tech

P. Lee

lightpeak?

I'd like to see an optical link with magsafe type connectors.

Wireless display is nice unless you turn on the microwave or want to do some other wireless networking.

Government joins European fingerprint database

P. Lee
Flame

Fingerprint database fields

Currently Used:

FAS - failed asylum seeker

CFN - Convicted Felon

Reserved for future use:

NYC - Not Yet Convicted

NYA - Not Yet Accused

NPP - Not Popular with Politicians

BFB - Bad For Business

NNJ - Not Non-Jewish

"But it seemed like a good idea at the time!"

When one oligopoly screws another

P. Lee
Grenade

Some truth, some not.

I asked an Oz Apple reseller why the mac mini is $900 - $200 more than in the US and he said (with a straight face) "GST".

I can see why Amazon may not be here. but this isn't really about economies of scale. Does ebuyer really have a larger customer base than Australia could support?

Harvey Norman was selling a mouse (Logitech G5) for $75 which I got online in Oz for $45 from a tiny owner-manager store. This is not about economies of scale. A motherboard I got for £78 ($121) in the UK two years ago is selling for $241 now. You can buy this stuff retail in the UK, air freight it to Oz and still come out well ahead. This is about charging whatever you think you can get away with. Historically this was easy as transport and communications are difficult all the way to Oz.

It isn't just in IT kit. Molasses sugar (89p in Sainsburys) is sold for $5.25. Bendicks chocolate box (3.99 in the UK) going cheap at $42. Gruyere cheese - £10 ($16) in Sainsburys - $50 in Australia. Even allowing for shorter shelf-life and more expensive shipping, this seems excessive. Belgian waffles from Belgium are sold at the same price as the same thing made down the road in Melbourne. I got BlackOps in the UK for £30 - you're still looking at £56 over here.

Showing it can be done is Costco which recently came to Melbourne. If anyone needs to be able to stack 'em high and sell lots it's Costco. They've already got plans for a second store, less than 50km from the first. Economies of scale are not the limiting factor.

So yes, it is a case of one oligopoly against another. However, there is a distinct failure in the willingness to compete which may be cultural. As internet shopping ramps up, Harvey Norman is going to wish for the good old days. 10% is nothing.

Oz net filter jams up with smut, may be pulled out altogether

P. Lee

R18+

I suspect that the lack of R18+ mostly helps retailers in Australia.

COD:BlOps - 89 AUD (57 GBP), as opposed to the 30-40 GBP it was going for in UK supermarkets when it first came out. MW2 is still at 79 AUD (50 GBP) in the shops.

The online download market (Steam/Gamersgate) use ip geolocation, so you can't buy 18+ games from these sources in Australia, you have to find someone to purchase and gift it to you.

And play.com doesn't ship to Oz :(

Australia is victim to lots of local-monopoly activity. Perhaps, however, with growing internet usage, it is possible that they are now finding sales dropping as people buy the "full" game from abroad.

Console games 'hack' reseller gets community service order

P. Lee

lol

Computer games person not allowed to leave his house.

I'm sure he's weeping - or at least, a rival BlOps clan is!

If the anti-piracy measures meant that protected systems had cheaper games (because no money is lost to piracy) then I'd have some sympathy for the manufacturers.

However, since pc games without such protection are cheaper than their console equivalents, I suspect that piracy is not the issue. I would guess it's more about Sony/Nintendo et al controlling the platform than end-user piracy. I suspect that selling extra controllers, licensing game publishers and online fees is what it's really all about.

Microsoft 'sorry' as Hotmail bug hits 17,000

P. Lee
Welcome

Cue Google...

"Yoohoo! Our stuff works."

"We can pick up your mail from hotmail allowing you to keep your hotmail address too."

Amazon slips out Microsoft's Windows 7 Family Pack kill date

P. Lee
Flame

re: I'm not liking Microsoft's exchange rate

Hehe, check out Apple's exchange rate:

Mac mini:

USD 699

AUD: 899 = 916 USD

GBP: 599 = 929 USD

Those 240v power supplies cost an extra 260 USD to make!

Ubuntu Wayland: Shuttleworth's post-Mac makeover

P. Lee
Megaphone

re: It is your father's linux

> X was a horrible project based on a principle no one cares for anymore.

Not true. Perhaps no-one is brave enough to do much development of it, but love being able to ssh from my mac to my headless linux box and still run any X app. Sure I could use the CLI or the curses interface, but for some things a proper gui is best.

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

P. Lee
Troll

Lineage 2 ftw!

What's this levelling out within two weeks?! Pah! What's all this about a block on killing anyone?

Try L2 - teamwork is required and a good team will normally beat a larger higher-level but uncoordinated team.

I laugh at your cartoon figures and attempts at stunning scenery.

Just don't even start if you have a life or any obligations at all...

Troll, obviously.

'Porn lock' heralds death of WikiLeaks, internet, democracy, universe

P. Lee
Megaphone

ISP level filtering

Whether it's voluntary or not, it's a bad idea.

Never ever put infrastructure in place that could be used against you.

Fortunately, in this case, I doubt the ISPs would even attempt it. It's too much of a headache to manage. Port filtering smtp is one thing, maintaining and answering queries on a naughty-or-nice list is very different.

MEGA DINO-WHALE from 'Valley of the Whales' exhibited

P. Lee
Troll

Intelligent design?

People don't see what they don't want to see, they will see what they want to be there.

Bummed-out users give anti-virus bloatware the boot

P. Lee
Coat

On a big six-wheeler, scarlet-painted, London transport, diesel-engined, 97-horsepower omnibus...

Hold very tight please! ting! ting!

Ofcom proposes UK phone numbers prefix re-org

P. Lee
Grenade

You should try Telstra pre-paid...

G'day mate, thanks for putting money on your account. It isn't actually your money since you gave it to us. I know, we tell you it's money when you check your balance, but it's now our money, and you haven't spent it fast enough, so you don't deserve to benefit from it. We're taking it off you.

Oh yes, since you don't have any money left in your account after we took it all, you can't make any calls, so you don't need a phone, do you? So we've cut you off.

Amazon randomly censoring incest books

P. Lee
Troll

re: The goddamn bible

(leaving aside the confusion of asking a deity to destroy his own book...)

Of course Amazon's policy appears confused, but it isn't really. Amazon operates on a materialistic basis. Their policy is to make money. Mouthy people hurt profits (pro or anti-incest), not selling stuff hurts profits, so they will try to avoid both, which leads to policy implementation alterations depending on who is shouting loudly at the time.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Based on the assumption that there is no God, then Amazon's actions are just part of the randomness of the universe. There is no right or wrong except what we make for ourselves and Amazon has simply done that. You can also chalk up any complaints about Amazon to more randomness, which the high-priests of Science will one day be able to trace the way back to the big bang.

Yay for Materialism!

(and I'm still not sure of most people here are in favour of having sex with close relatives...)

The year's best... TV media players

P. Lee
Coat

I love my mythtv

Opensuse also does iscsi for freebie time-machine provision.

Yes it's an expensive solution to buy new, which is why it's running on an old athlon 1500+ that I got for £20.

I know, out of scope for this review.

Apple Mac App Store to go live January

P. Lee

Not sure about a Valve lawsuit...

but they are caught a bit. They rely on having an internet connection and a desire to connected to steam services online to limit the effects of piracy. I'm not sure if this model works for general apps, especially when firewalls come into play. Steam is notorious for not playing nicely with proxies etc which you would expect at an office.

My feeling is that Steam should have been redesigned to play nice with proxies and corporate systems (to allow my to dl games at work if nothing else!) and they should have diversified into non-games, perhaps under a different branding.

It's a shame, because if the Mac store hurts Steam it hurts a system which is cross-platform and therefore a threat to MS and consoles as well. Competition is healthy! I can't see Apple hosting l4d2 and offering both OSX and Windows versions. Gaming is the only reason for me keeping a copy of windows around. On the other hand, perhaps an Apple branded store can promote gaming on the mac at the low end which might create a halo effect bringing in the higher end games.

Also, if the mini is currently used under the telly as a media centre, it needs to acquire the ability to match the games consoles to play games. Perhaps I could pair my wii controller with it...

Sony PlayStation Network vs MS Xbox Live

P. Lee
Troll

re: add the two up & horses for courses

Yeah, I looked at a ps3 and at the price of a big screen telly and went for a pc (and an ancient pc as a server with tv tuner) ;)

Icon: luddite

Windows 7 really was some girl's idea, rules ASA

P. Lee
Troll

re: megalolz at the bitter Mac-tards and their niche, minority OS.

I think you'll find mactards smug rather than bitter.

I suspect that the overall issue is that the "get a mac" campaign was generally thought to be clever, funny and entertaining whereas the "I'm a pc" campaign is annoying.

Irony, thy name is Microsoft.

World of Warcraft bot ban ticks off world of critics

P. Lee
FAIL

re: Way to support cheating El Reg.

No - not that simple.

I loathe the bots and cheating, but in your gym analogy, all the gym can do to punish you for breaking terms and conditions is throw you out. If you hire someone to exercise for you they can block them from entry to the gym, but they can't stop someone from offering to exercise on your behalf.

Blizzard should certainly have the right to ban users caught cheating from connecting to their servers, but they shouldn't have the right to stop the sale of a third-party product. That's far too dangerous a principle to establish, regardless of our distaste for cheaters.

A good outcome for gamers is a bad outcome for freedom and a good outcome for freedom is a setback for gamers. Which is more important?

Prisoners plot strike action over mobile phones

P. Lee
Coffee/keyboard

Dell prices set to rise

ESC, obviously

Grey marketing is great - if you're the importer...

P. Lee
Megaphone

bzzzzt

I could segment further, selling boiled sweets to Fred for 50p/lb and to Tristan for £2.50/lb.

It might be legal but Tristan finds out, he's going to be (rightly) upset and when he comes to see me with a baseball bat, "I thought you'd be happy to pay more" probably isn't going to fly.

Neither would my attempts to stop Fred from selling to Tristan for £1.75/lb.

If Tristan wanted his sweets boxed and wrapped with a ribbon then fine, charge him more, though charging for sugar in a cafe would probably annoy me enough to never come back and to tell everyone I meet to do the same.

The problem with segmentation based on geography, not the goods/services themselves, is that people simply don't agree with it. Laws passed in democracies which most people don't agree with? That sounds like the corporate corruption of democracy. It isn't good for democracy for its laws to be despised. Everyone hates tax, but pretty much everyone can see that it is required. Legal support for segmentation is not required. As far as trademarks go, if something is a playstation and sold as such by the manufacturer, I should be able to describe it as such if I sell it on.

Google morphs Gmail into Microsoft backup service

P. Lee
Troll

who cares if anyone uses it?

Methinks it exists to imply that MS' stuff isn't as robust as Google's.

And who cares about ads? it's supposed to be a continuity solution, not your day-to-day system. You'll probably never log in via the web (outlook+imap anyone), and if you did, the interface is probably less awful than outlook's.

Obviously, as with any outsourcing, it's only for use by those with no secrets - which probably excludes everyone with enough money to stump up for using exchange.

Or it could be an excuse for those who want to use gmail, but who are stuck with exchange to put forward a business case which just happens to allow gmail access to corporate mail.

Lock and load: Birmingham launches gunfire location IT

P. Lee
Troll

Sound recognition

How long before they decide to feed in a voice print and try to match "known criminals".... and then monitor "potential terrorists"... and then say "these are required for the detection of serious and organised crime"... and then, "we heard you say you wanted to blow up the airport if they didn't stay open during the snow-storm!"

EU telecoms to Apple, Google: 'Pay up!"

P. Lee
FAIL

Nope, never, do not want

Customers pull the content, customers should pay.

This would be the end of the neutral net.

ISPs should provide tiered bandwidth plans to customers and charge what it actually costs to provide a decent service.

No backroom deals with major corps to decide who gets what bandwidth.

This year's comedy Xmas No. 1 contender: Silent song 4'33"

P. Lee
Badgers

re: How is this going to hurt Simon Cowell?

By graphically demonstrating how small and insignificant his work (and indeed the industry) is.

The music industry projects itself as being a big deal. Most of the stuff pumped out isn't popular. As more and more people become disillusioned with it, you see them targeting younger and younger children whose critical faculties are less well developed. They end up promoting sex to pre-teens, which is quite revolting.

BURNING LUST for SEXY BUSTY BLONDES - Science explains

P. Lee
Paris Hilton

Barbie's appeal is in her long legs

which you can hold while wacking your elder sister with the upper torso and head.

Research sample consists of two daughters.

Now Oz to ban online cigarette ads

P. Lee
Coffee/keyboard

Bring back rule by the monarchy!

QEII would never bother with such claptrap.

If One can't understand it, then it shouldn't be law.

ZT Systems boots eight-node Ubuntu ARM server

P. Lee

re: power is the issue

and don't forget the fans themselves need power.

Personally, I reckon that there is definitely a market in home servers for ARM. Quiet, cool and "powerful enough." Something with ADSL/cable interface options and lots of disk connections.

Something like the plug computers but with more connectivity. Something with a sophisticated firewall, not the complicated counter-intuitive rubbish on most ADSL routers. But I also want to be able to do all this without needing a 750w power supply and earplugs.

Putting the internet into neutral, or neutering the net?

P. Lee

Data caps

Isn't the point of having data caps that you are then not over subscribed and you don't need to "manage" the traffic?

If I pull down massive data volumes in the first couple of days I then end up shaped for the rest of the month, or paying for more data.

How I invented Desktop Publishing

P. Lee
Badgers

Hehe "The Newsroom" and Beagle Bros.

I had forgotten them!

Apple ][ - from the days when computers were fun.

... and to all the haters, I think "I invented DTP" is just a hook line for a history article, rather than a serious attempt to claim to be the originator of the concept.

Acer takes on iPad with Android, Flash, own UI

P. Lee

Please don't mess it up

By not bothering to write some really good basic apps.

Your browser, email and video apps need to be top notch, not just something you found on the net.

Tablet vendors 'quake in fear' over iPad 2

P. Lee

why apple succeeds

No-one else does any work. In a tablet, battery life wins over most things. Everyone else is just doing what they don't have to invest in - standard componants and off-the-shelf software.

I'll bet lots of people are holding off for the camera and faster cpu, so sales will go up, if apple can keep the battery life high.

Twitter joke martyr loses appeal

P. Lee
FAIL

Terrorists prove disappointingly useless at terror

So you'll have to be afraid of the government instead.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Of anything - we don't care what.

Twitter should not be taken seriously for ANYTHING, even if it *is* directed @doncasterairport

Why would you want to encourage real terrorists to use twitter? Its just one more thing you'd have to monitor. Since when did the current breed of terrorist give any warnings? That's just an old IRA thing. If you want to claim "anti-terror" at least get with the programme. The official is just an example of small people with too much power.

Tory councillor arrested over 'stoning to death' tweet

P. Lee
FAIL

re: Of course, the Bible will have been in place in the court

What has this to do with the Bible or Quran? Anyone can extract quotes from context, as appears to be the case here.

This is not about religion, this is about the repercussions of ill-conceived legislation. Had the original comment been suggesting that we shouldn't comment on stonings by atheists, it wouldn't have made any difference.

Any attempt to stifle debate should be resisted. Let the journalist say what she thinks and let listeners (and politicians) form their own judgements and respond accordingly. Social engineering via legislating what speech is allowed is oppressive. We put up with the bad because that ensures that the good also survives. We have to accept a certain level of crime will exist if we don't lock everyone up.

Trying to build utopia is a fools errand and many people will get hurt in the process. Toughen up and accept that you will be offended. It is not your right to prevent anyone offending you.

Lincs authority lets schools decide on Pagan lessons

P. Lee
Headmaster

Bring on the hate *yawn*

"Religion has no place in schools"

"Let's take religion out of politics"

Er, no, let's not. Seriously. Atheism is a belief system held by only a very few people in the world. There are lots of agnostics, lots of people who disregard religion because they want to do things many religions disapprove of (usually, sex is the issue), but that is not the same as saying there is no God. Even Dawkins can only come up with "there is no God... probably."

To remove religion (which by definition forms the basis someone's actions) from public life by decree and banning topics for discussion in an educational context is insulting to almost everyone. It makes the secularists guilty of hypocritical authoritarianism. At least traditional religions in the UK do not have the power to *impose* their will over the populace. Such a desire is illiberal and anti-democratic and should be strenuously resisted.

What we need is a serious comparative study of belief systems, looking at their origins, development and following their theology, logic and philosophy to see where it leads and what the implications are for how followers might behave. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism/Paganism/ancestor worship and Atheism seem like reasonable basis for discussion.

I'm not suggesting that any belief system is taught as the "one-true way", merely that we educate our children as to the facts and implications of the belief systems of most of the people in the world. Saying "let them decide for themselves" and then banning discussion is ridiculous. Banning topics for discussion in schools and calling it "freedom" or "diversity" is crass hypocrisy. It's merely the march of authoritarian conformism.

One would hope that education has not degenerated into making children memorise a list of all the things which are true and all the things that are false, even if the adults know the answer beforehand. It is about providing children with tools to evaluate truth and falsehood and providing an arena for them to practise and develop these skills. It is about taking evidence and evaluating it for yourself.

Stop this "I know I'm right therefore no further discussion is needed," attitude. Blind faith is an attitude we want to instil in our children.