* Posts by yeah, right.

639 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Apr 2007

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Remembering the CDC 6600

yeah, right.

Adjusted price?

What would that price be equivalent to today?

(quick search later) According to http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi it would be $38 million to $64 million in 2006 dollars.

Ouch!

Quebec fights Mohawk Nation over online gambling jurisdiction

yeah, right.

Sovereign.

The treaties with these people state that within their (European invader specified) reserves, they are pretty much a sovereign nation. This works for the non-Natives when the First Nations are kept poor and needy. Unfortunately, the non-Native governments seems to have a problem with First Nations making the best of their situation, and have over the years repeatedly stepped in to take away whatever it was the Natives found, be it oil, other natural resources or, in this case, gambling.

Rove investigator erases his PCs - to kill computer virus

yeah, right.

Coverup.

Quacks like a duck. Waddles like a duck. Shits like a duck. Must be a duck.

And the duck is called "Coverup".

Coverup, pure and simple. And, yet again, the Republicans are going to get away with it, because they ARE the investigators. The US government seems to currently be one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet. They're just better at hiding their traces, and they've got much better propaganda. I guess it took them a while to learn the lessons from Nixon, and hide their dirty tricks better.

Trade Commission probes HP-Acer patent spat again

yeah, right.

Threshold?

So what was the alcohol (or drug of choice) threshold before these piece of wit made it from brain to pen?

Yahoo! and! Adobe! sign! ad-packed! PDF! pact!

yeah, right.

Adobe Reader?

People still use Adobe Reader? I've found that it became pure unusable bloatware several versions ago, and have gone to several other PDF readers long since (which one depends on which O/S and what context).

Since PDF document reader programs are barred from network access on my system, should prove interesting to see if they try to download anything, or if the advert is embedded into the PDF itself when it is created.

Yet another argument for FOSS in my eyes, then such advert placement can be stripped out easily enough.

Reported malfunction in PayPal Security Key

yeah, right.

False sense of security???

Since when did anyone using Paypal have any sense of security, other than one based on misplaced trust? I wouldn't trust Paypal "security" to secure a piece of cheese, let alone any money.

If I have to (as in it's the only option available) I'll provide them with a credit card number - but only the one with a very small limit and good refund policy for internet fraud. I certainly wouldn't give them the keys to any account with money in it. Fob or no fob.

Paypal security? Yeah, right.

Turkey probes The God Delusion for 'insulting religion'

yeah, right.

Not in Europe

I have to agree, unfortunately. Turkey is most certainly not ready to be part of the E.U. Not with asinine religious laws like that still on the books.

Novell vs SCO will go to court after all

yeah, right.

Better

Couldn't have happened to a nicer company. Now to get the SCO v. IBM stay lifted to complete the castrating of this little troll. Wouldn't be nice if, as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, SCO had to reveal who was behind their shenanigans?

I'm certainly really curious as to why a CEO, with the full support of the board of directors, was allowed to drive a company into the ground on such a tenuous proposition, and why that CEO and the board of directors were never sued by the majority shareholders for their utter failure in their fiduciary duties.

If I was a shareholder, I'd certainly be trying very very hard to strip the corporate veil to get at the assets of those truly responsible for this continuing fiasco.

Nigerian keyboard firm sues One Laptop per Child

yeah, right.

first glance

At first glance, the two are slightly similar, but it's hardly a copy. Be interesting to see what sort of legal chicanery they're trying on for size.

Cue jokes about OLPC getting your typical Nigerian 419 letter...

Apple Macs

yeah, right.

Not useful.

As someone who prefers Macs (to some extent), the article was not at all useful. It gives the same details (less, even) as can be found at the Apple Store website.

As someone who has just spent the last few hours having to deal with yet another fucked up Windows machine, the article still does not give any details on why someone might want or not want to purchase one of these. I know why I did, but the article is more a press release than the type of tear it apart article the Reg might do.

As for the one who got his cheapo PC for 450 quid, do try to compare a system with similar components. So the CPU is faster - there's dozens more areas where that cheapo PC probably cut costs. Apple is a rip-off for their memory upgrades, but I've found the rest to be quite competitive.

As for the Anonymous Coward: yes, Macs do crash less. My current count for several dozen desktop machines running more-or-less similar applications (typical office applications and CAD mainly) is MS Windows crashing 3 to 4 times more than the Macs. They also take up about 50% more admin time per machine. The server room is not counted in that - it's 95% unix/linux and it's going to stay that way or there will be pain and bloodshed - not mine. The 5% (ish) is one Microshite server running a Windows-only "server" application for one group. I've just given them notice that they either provide their own admin for the box, or it gets turfed. It alone has accounted for 80% of my server room admin time.

No, I'm not a fan of Microsoft. I rather despise both the company and many of their products actually. Not a huge fan of Apple either, but I have to admit that on the desktop it's still far-and-away better than anything Microsoft has done.

US judge debenched for jailing entire courtroom

yeah, right.

Damn good ruling

I'd say it was a damn good ruling. Mobile phones are a curse, and should be treated as the evil they are. They are the front line in psychological warfare for the ROTM. Drive the humans crazy, and the machines will have an easier time taking over.

The article does not say if the phone in question was ever found.

Dinosaurs derail desalination drive Down under

yeah, right.

concentration

Desalination has the problem that once the water is extracted, the remains need to be washed back out to sea. So you get higher and higher concentrations of toxins, minerals and salts around the plant and down-current.

Still, probably necessary, but I certainly wouldn't want to live anywhere near one of these things.

Top government boffin urges rethink on GM crop ban

yeah, right.
Stop

@ going on for centuries.

"Genetic Modification" has very little in common, if anything, with "Selective Breeding". Last time I checked, the ancient Mayans had not incorporated spider DNA into their latest corn crops, and the Amazon tribes didn't manage to cross-breed piranha with manioc.

GM might have its uses. Unfortunately, what's so wrong about it is the politics that surround it. The companies doing it aren't interested in feeding the world. They want the world to pay them money each time it takes a bite to eat. Those claiming "there is nothing wrong with profit" should also look at the fact that the GM companies are doing their best to wipe out "natural" crops. Look at the damage they did in Canada, where the farmer, after using seeds from his own farm, was successfully sued for illegally using Monsanto's product - a product he never purchased, but that had instead contaminated his propoerty without his knowledge. Look at the damage they are causing in India, where after having lied to the Indian farmers about yields, these farmers not only can't live off the proceeds of their crop, they can't save the seeds to grow another one, so they're going deeper in debt buying their own seeds back from the company that now "owns" them.

Hell, even if a farmer wanted to stop buying the seeds, there is always contamination - and any contamination, even involuntary, thanks to the patent system automatically considered to be illegal.

That's the real problem with GM. It's not being built to help, it's being built to lock farmers into one particular seed provider. Now, as people in tech, surely we understand that illegally locking people into a single tech is not the way to go? How about we stop Microsanto before it gets started? There's enough problems with just one of them.

That means King needs to attempt aerial fornication with a translating toroid.

Al Gore climate change site hacked

yeah, right.

Sigh.

Actually, it doesn't matter whether people believe (or not) that humans contribute to global warming. The science tends to say it does, but heck, why let science get in the way of a good opinion?

Question is: does it really matter at this point who or what is at fault? Only the most delusional (yet surprisingly vocal) would disagree that we are seeing a period of rapid global climactic change. So what matters is finding solutions to the very real threat these changes pose. Of course, the poorer countries are going to get hit the hardest - as usual. Which means the richer countries probably won't give a flying rats arse, as they'll just be able to plunder the other nations more easily.

Ah, screw it. Everyone for themselves, let the rest drown or starve or get buried in sand. That seems to be the general gestalt of what I'm hearing in this and other comment areas. Seems http://www.vhemt.org/ (or even the involuntary movement) is picking up steam - like it or not.

IBM to shove ads onto DVDs

yeah, right.

bastards

I'm sick and tired of companies thinking that I'm just a walking wallet to be marketed to. If I purchase a DVD, it's because I don't want to watch the telly with its endless boring, poorly done commercials. If they put adverts into DVDs, I'll be one of the first in line for any mechanism to rip the advertising out.

I stopped going to cinemas regularly after they started subjecting me to endless advertising at a movie that I've paid to attend. There is no way in any type of hell that I'm going to put up with the same shit-for-brains idea from a DVD.

Second jellyfish pack moves on UK

yeah, right.

kill?

So we killed off their predators, so we get more jellyfish.

Then people propose to kill off the jellyfish.

One wonders what jellyfish keep under control that will then grow unchecked.

Shades of the Heorot books by Niven, Pournelle and Barnes.

Inventor of revoked payment patent says UK system is a joke

yeah, right.

wrong conclusion.

The "inventor" concludes that because the patent was found valid in the USA but invalid in the UK then this means the UK system is broken.

The actual conclusion is that it's the US system that is completely dysfunctional, and the UK system seems to trying for some semblance of keeping patents for what they were intended.

Good for the UK Patent office. Now if they can just continue resisting the pressure from certain corporations to allow the abortion known as software patents, things might be looking up.

Nintendo Wii: the world's greatest console?

yeah, right.

not hardcore.

I'm far from a hardcore gamer. I've never liked the "console" games that require me to memorize and spaz out complex key sequences to get my character to do simple tasks. I've tried them for a while, and it just doesn't work for me. Making me fight the user interface rather than enjoying the game just isn't good design.

Then I got the Wii. The interface is pleasant to use and extraordinarily well designed. I can just play the damn game, and not worry about how to use the controller, or what key sequence allows me to do whatever action I want. It's actually intuitive - a much overused term, but one that fits in this case. That's why I still regularly play the games I've got (when I've got time) and will continue to play more as time allows.

So for me, and probably other gamers like me, the Wii is definitely the console of choice. It seems that I'm not alone in that.

Cisco fires Brazil chief over tax fraud charges

yeah, right.

Guilty?

Ah, so Cisco adheres to the "guilty until proven guilty" legal theory.

Suspend without pay until the investigation / trial is concluded, I can see that.

Fired just because the guy was charged, before any sort of trial is held? Hmmm. If the guy is found innocent, does he then get to sue Cisco for being idiots?

BOFH: Spreading the festive cheer

yeah, right.

back in good form I see.

Ah, classic BOFH. Very valid insight, followed by cruelty and revenge. Love it!

Panto star sacked for foul-mouthed outburst

yeah, right.

innuendo

The man says "our shows are for families and do not even have any innuendo in them".

Then I have to ask: What the fuck is the bloody point? The whole IDEA behind panto is that there IS innuendo. LOTS of innuendo if it's done right. It's funny as hell for the children and the adults, and the adults go home wondering just how much little Jamie really understood...

Damn, talk about having utterly and completely missed the point.

Want an icon for

Point <--------------- ... ---------------> The idiot referenced in the article.

E-voting vendor sued over machine change

yeah, right.

same?

"the relocation of two circuit boards, the redesign of cables and "various changes" in mounting brackets" is hardly "exactly the same configuration" seeing as the point of the changes was the CHANGE the configuration to make maintenance easier (apparently).

So there's liars, damned liars, and voting machine manufacturers.

I wonder if the USA will see a third corrupt federal election in a row? The utter lack of control they seem to have over their voting mechanisms would point in that direction.

Amazon's $399 folly book reader

yeah, right.

I can't carry my library

I would love a decent electronic book reader. Why? I travel a lot. I like to read when I'm getting from point A to point B. But I read very quickly, so a good sized book only lasts me about 2 hours. My last trip, I went through 15 books. Do you have any idea how much bloody room 15 books takes in ones luggage? Especially since I'm not going to just throw the damn things away, and shipping them back home costs more than the book itself!

Of course, I'd also use it for my research material (as the man said, you can't grep a dead tree). Then, since I have it around, I could use it to take notes (given a decent touch screen). Or use it to practice my Japanese kanji with a good flashcard reader.

Yes, I'd pay at least $400 for such a device. Probably more. 30 hour battery life on a black-and-white screen book reader / PDA combo? Hell yeah! Where do I get one?

This latest abortion by Amazon, however, doesn't qualify.

Disability law can protect alcoholic workers

yeah, right.

treatment?

If it's cureable, is it a disability?

Alcoholism/addiction can be treated. Can those claiming the protection of disability law for their alcoholism then be required to seek treatment in order to continue that protection?

Tories call for mobile phone ban in schools

yeah, right.

levels of ban?

There's banning the physical devices completely from the schools, and there's banning the use of them. The first is probably not an option, the second is something I would wholeheartedly support.

As in, if your phone rings in the school, or if you use it in the school, something bad happens to you (whatever "bad" means in schools today, given that almost all authority to punish has been removed from teachers and school administrators).

Meanwhile, parents clamouring that their precious dolts need an electronic leash should be told to fuck off. They do NOT need to contact their children during school hours. If they have a problem, call the school.

Frenchman spit-roasts 550kg camel

yeah, right.

record? Really?

Or just the first one that applied to Guinness book? Because I'm pretty sure multiple camels have been barbequed in North Africa over the years without all the self-aggrandizing foofaraa.

NZ bans Brit immigrant's overweight missus

yeah, right.

really?

The BMI has been generally shown to be a crock of shit in most medical publications. Example: given that it only measures height vs weight, a short, very muscular person will have a high BMI - yet might only have 5% body fat!

IF this story is true, then there are some bureaucrats in New Zealand that need a damn good whipping, just for being stupid. Maybe such people should be forced to emigrate if they don't want "burdens on society"?

Fox News: Filthier than the internet

yeah, right.

Fox?

Oh, it's that American right-wing pseudo-christian propaganda channel, right? It's not available where I am currently, so I just keep hearing bits and pieces. Do people actually believe what they say?

Boeing guards its right to tail employees

yeah, right.

privacy vs profit

Yes, it is the company's computers, and the company's time. So long as they have adequately warned their employees, and haven't buried the warnings in a stack of 100 pages of employment manual.

However, once the employee is off work and off site, the rights of the company to invade the privacy of their employees should stop. If the company believes the employee is acting illegally (not just against company policy), then let them involve the police. Otherwise, it's just invasion of privacy and should be punished. Harshly.

Employees are not slaves. Damn close, but still not. It's time companies were reminded of that fact. Privacy is quickly vanishing in the USA (and it's almost completely gone in the UK), it would be nice to slow down the pace a bit.

Gene Simmons blames college kids for ruining music biz

yeah, right.

Simmons, Simmons...

Isn't that the ugly, sweaty guy with bad hair doing the exercise videos? Seems to me that's the real crime.

Half of computer users are Wi-Fi thieves

yeah, right.

Napoleon is back!!

Wasn't anyone paying attention? The UK is now a "guilty until proven innocent, and good luck with that" type of country. Helps to have a press with no morals or ethics to push that agenda. The police "investigate" someone, the press charges ahead to try, convict and sentence the person while being able to use their name and image as much as they want. Presto - guilty, and no courts required either!

Many countries are going that way these days, so it's not that much better elsewhere, unfortunately.

B3ta served DMCA notice for Photoshop Prince challenge

yeah, right.

counter-suit

If it's a valid parody, then the DMCA has clauses that allow a counter-suit for filing a false take-down request. Personally, hope this tosser gets burned really badly on this particular campaign of his. Maybe give others pause? HAH! Yeah, right.

Girls' school head condemns bubblewrapping of kids

yeah, right.

about bloody time!

It's about bloody time someone with a shred of sense went public! Bumps and bruises are great teachers - stop kids inflicting them on themselves and you stop them learning anything about life.

How I wrote an iPhone application

yeah, right.

Half works.

Well, your lovely app seems to work with Safari on a Mac, but it completely fails in Firefox. Although why you'd write applications for the iGorilla is beyond me.

Spanish cartoonists fined for royal sex mag cover

yeah, right.

so much for...

...freedom of the press? We don't need no steenking freedom of the press!

Can't have those large conglomerates making negative comments about the next ruler of Spain! What WERE the legislators thinking when they passed that drivel?? What's next - no negative comments about any politician? Oh, wait, they've already done that too. Next up - no voting against the incumbent.

Court date for challenge to 'new' patent rules

yeah, right.

Copyright

The idea of patents is to provide a monopoly to the inventor as a reward for sharing their methods with the public. After a reasonable length of time, but while the invention still has value, the invention becomes part of the public domain. It's also only meant to protect *innovative* things that would not occur to a skilled practitioner of the art.

I could argue that 19 year old software has very little value, and should therefore not be protected by patent. It's also questionable as to whether ANY software is truly innovative, or simply an evolution of all the software that has gone before.

The same argument could be argued about copyright protection for software. Is 70 year old software really going to have ANY residual value for the public domain? If not, why are we, as a society, wasting resources protecting someones copyright for no benefit to society?

Divide current terms by 10 for software and it might work. 2 year patent terms or 7 year copyright protection for software makes some sort of sense. But the longer terms just don't cut it. But of course I live in a fools paradise. Money talks, and those with money will keep changing the rules to increase their money while keeping others out. It's the way of the world, and patents/copyrights have become just another tool by the ruling oligarchy to keep a firm control on things.

Animal rights activist hit with RIPA key decrypt demand

yeah, right.

It's working!

It's about time! Lame society, with it's "innocent until proven guilty" malarky! We don't need that. If the ruling junta tells the police to say she's guilty, then by God she's guilty! It's about time the general public realized that, and I'm glad to see so many here at the Register agree.

Napoleon was right - it's guilty until proven innocent. None of these civil rights around here! We don't need that kind of muddle-headed thinking. No! Not at all! We have declared that she is guilty, therefore she is! Courts? Don't need the damn things. They just get in the way of imposing our justice on others. Privacy? Pshaw! who came up with that silly idea? Nobody needs privacy is they haven't done anything wrong. Of course, we decide what's wrong. When we want. How we want. That's the way of things.

Peons. Know your place. Don't argue. She's guilty until we say otherwise. How else could it be?

Multics source code released into the wild

yeah, right.

Multics on a chip anyone?

Yeah! Now work can continue on the Multics on a chip!

I've yet to see anything that comes close to matching the security that Multics had. I also miss the flexibility that the Multics ACL used to give for access control. That was how it should be done, not the pale imitations we have now.

Of course, these rose-tinted hindsight glasses might be at fault. I don't think so though.

@Rippy: the main issue would probably be replicating the necessary hardware ring structure required for the ring gating to work correctly. Although the necessary hardware might be doable on a modern FPGA at this point... hmmm....

Windows random number generator is so not random

yeah, right.

peer review

With no real, effective peer review of the algorithm and implementation, are we surprised?

I have reason to believe, based on knowing several of them, that the technical folks working at Microsoft are generally technically competent. Unfortunately, the Microsoft corporate culture doesn't actually allow any of that talent to create quality products, as the competent technical people are, as usual, simply peons to the mostly technically incompetent managers. Managers whose focus is strictly on the next quarter, not on long term quality.

Ah well. Eventually such a system can hopefully only crumble as people realize that they're being ripped off. Until then, it's a good lesson in how fools and their money are soon parted.

eBay glitch wipes out 11 year-old account without a trace

yeah, right.

Fuck ebay

They have no accountability, complete deniability, utter irresponsibility, and they're assholes to boot. They provide a useful service, yes, but the way they go about doing it makes them less trustworthy than a hungry fox in a hen house.

Until they implement some form of policy that sees them accept responsibility for their fuck-ups, I'll be staying well clear of them.

Oracle 'cheated' in TPC benchmarks

yeah, right.

rules != morals

Which only goes to show that "legal" and "moral" are only tangentially related. Being reduced to defending immoral cheating as "legal" really is the last refuge of the morally corrupt.

Of course, there's much worse than Oracle out there (that we know of - it's amazing what companies get away with when nobody is looking), but still, it sort of sets the stage for the whole thing doesn't it?

Surge in encrypted torrents blindsides record biz

yeah, right.

Use it or lose it.

I've been repeating this mantra for several years. Encryption: use it, or lose it.

As we can see from this article, the law enforcement folks are now trying to equate "privacy" with "criminals". Anyone who wants privacy through encryption must obviously be a criminal.

Unless encryption gets much more popular, and much more widely deployed in many different applications, the governments of the USA, UK and the like will be in an ideal position to ban its use. After all, it's only used by criminals. France has already enacted laws to t his effect - only "approved" encryption (ie: stuff they have back doors for) is allowed in that country. From the comments of the law enforcement dickheads quoted here, it looks like the UK is quickly headed that way as well.

Encryption: use it or lose it.

Hushmail open to Feds with court orders

yeah, right.

use it or lose it.

Encryption. If people don't get on the bandwagon and start encrypting all their communications, in the near future you will lose the right to do so. Governments can easily impose anti-encryption legislation when so few people are using it, under the old saw that "if you've got nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about".

Trouble is, governments change, and ordinary people do have things to hide from not just the government, but from their neighbours, their boss, and a host of others who can get access to your secrets.

Encryption. Use it now, or lose it. There are dozens of programs out there that can be installed and used.

As for Hushmail, they're a scam. I hope they get sued by their customers.

Camelot pulls scratchcard amid numerical anarchy

yeah, right.

Mancunian?

If I was from Manchester, I'd want to distance myself as far and as fast as possible from someone that thick.

-6 > -8? That's not just a lack of GCSE math, that's a lack of year 2 arithmetic!! Did this person ever attend school at all?

Quacks probe brain-boosting tech ethics

yeah, right.

Thoughts...

It could be argued that our ability to change our environment to suit our needs has stifled our need to actually evolve to meet a new environment.

We are therefore left with two choices:

- let the statistical process of evolution continue in whatever directions it takes. Unfortunately, those breeding the fastest today are generally also those with the least brain power (religious fundamentalists of all types, chavs, trailer trash, etc.). It looks like "brain power" may actually be a detriment to species survival in our current world.

- let certain humans "improve" themselves in order to "speed up" or "direct" evolution. The trick is to make sure that what they're doing is actually an "improvement" and is "desirable". So we let these early adopters be guinea pigs and observe over a long period of time. If the changes lead to successful adaptations, it gets rolled out in a form of deliberate evolution of the species.

- let the machines take over as the species with the best survival rating. Perhaps fighting the machines will make us better humans. Or better batteries.

Real F-15 joins massively multiplayer virtual war

yeah, right.

It's already a book.

Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card.

Next step is to put the pilot in the simulator and the wingman in the plane itself to handle things the automated stuff can't do. Then you train 12 year olds with incredibly fast reflexes into thinking they're just playing a game when in fact they're killing real people and bombing real cities.

Ender's Game, when science fiction is closer to reality than I'm really comfortable with.

Babbling net software sparks international incident

yeah, right.

Bwahaha!

Oh, that is so grass! Turtle me a new newspaper, thought journalist BabelFish fodder 鞄 yourself.

Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail strike out Iran

yeah, right.

One rule?

If American companies are subject to American law, doesn't that mean that Yahoo's and Google's protests at their having to follow Chinese law are somewhat hollow?

Or is there one rule for those who own lots of American treasury bonds, and another for those who essentially resource targets for the next American land grab?

'We can't lock them up forever' - top cops join terror debate

yeah, right.

Long time.

Of course they can't lock people up forever! People grow old and die, so it's not forever.

They just want to lock them up until they can take them out in a body bag. That's not forever, it's just... well, next Thursday if the new "data extraction" techniques don't pan out.

Prince stomps on unofficial websites

yeah, right.

Fair use.

Ah yes. Yet another airhead with absolutely no clue as to what "fair use" means in copyright terms. That or, like the RIAA and others, his organization knows what it is and hope like hell that their fans^H^H^H^H victims don't.

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