* Posts by DR

202 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Feb 2008

Page:

UN locks Apple, Google, Microsoft in a room for patent peace summit

DR

Re: Microsoft being tricky bastards as usual

Fair price doesn't just mean a small fee, it means something that's fair to the market place.

this needs to be a fixed quantity applied equally throughout the market place. not a percent of sale cost.

Higgs boson chasers: Now only 1-in-300 MILLION chance we're wrong

DR
Coat

just like rolling a six on a dice.

that's 50/50 as well you either do it or you don't :)

Mozilla to Firefox users: Ditch crashtastic McAfee plugin

DR

OK. so i'm an AV developer.

I say, nuts to you mozilla, I can't keep up with your dev cycle, development alone takes more than 3 months, and testing all the parts with all the scenarios takes more than 3 months. so I just won't support you...

now you're an average guy using my AV.

you go to a page with malicious scripts, that won't be stopped by my AV, (because I don't develop for your browser choice).

who do you blame?

if you have AV installed, and bad virus related stuff happens to your machine you blame the AV, you don't blame the browser developer for their insane product cycle, and you don't blame yourself for your click happy shenanigans.

BT to fibre-up another 114 exchanges

DR

Why could you possibly think that 2100 premises were worth investment?

a different poster earlier commented about the exchanges and linked to the fact that Brackley (population ~14k) has to be served by Banbury (population ~41k)

2100 homes (even assuming 6 people per house which would be above average) would likely see a population of only ~12k?

consider how much it costs to install fibre with the people digging up roads etc the cost of the fibre, the cost of the people installing it, and the equipment costs... it's probably just not financially viable to put fibre into your exchange. probably isn't now, likely never will be without considerable population growth...

the idea that a RAF base should be a important deciding factor is also laughable, I work in an office next to a RAF base, in a rural area, broadband here to residences get normal ~8mb, possibly 20mb lines, the business I work for has decided (as an IT company) that a good speed connection is vital, so we have a 100MB LES.

I'm sure that the RAF also have their own lines, and are probably not using BTs residential services.

Plods to get dot-uk takedown powers - without court order

DR

title

You are missing the distinction between civil and criminal law.

Grow up, Google: You're threatening IT growth

DR
FAIL

it's funny that you think that Apple invented the first home computer

Since IBM had a home/consumer PC out before apple was even formed as a company.

http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/compersonal.htm

http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm

IBM definitly had the first consumer PC, a couple of years before apple did.

So care to mention anything that apple did invent?

And whilst apple did invent the first GUI, that was only the first gui on a home PC, they ripped the GUI idea off from Xerox.

Apple are just as good at stealing ideas as any other company.

Just because you don't know any better doesn't make it not true.

Australia cuts solar subsidies, and not before time

DR

I have to disagree

"£2k pounds won't get you an installation, to be sure. And don't try to do it yourself or get a cowboy in, only approved installers can get you the paperwork you need for the "feed in tariff" contract. That's a 25 year contract, with the payments index linked (went up in April)."

and that is what I see as the problem, and it's a problem that the author responded to in reply to the first post.

firstly, £2000 will actually get you a beast of a system, if you're willing to construct it yourself, or use unapproved fitters.

it'll pay for it's self environmentally (energy to make it compared to energy generated) in the same time as a "professional" system.

economically paying for it's self takes a little longer. because you can't have a feed in tariff because you're not using approved equipment... and that's the exact point that the author made about child care.

£2k will get you an unapproved system and even get it fitted provided that you're willing to put a lot of time and planning research and knowledge yourself into the project, Savings at the power station mean that environmentally the system will pay for itself and your savings on your bills will mean that the system will pay for itself in the money cost terms.

Alternatively you can opt for an approved system by an approved fitter, basically a guy who has sat on a pointless course for a day and gained a certificate for it...

then you can spend 8k on the same system, (which pays for it's self in the same time environmentally), and because of the feed in tariffs will likely pay for it's self in the same time...

the difference in the two approaches is this:

if you go with the approved system you have to have at least £8k upfront, most people don't

if you go with the approved system you'll get a FIT tariff, which is set-up to justify an arbitrary target and robs everyone (rich and poor, but especially the poor since you can assume that the rich can have the system installed themselves and gather money from the poor) to pay over the odds per unit so that you get your system paid for...

and how does this relate to the authors reply...

well, the fitters are UK guys, they are the ones charging over the top for a system that you have installed because they can still see it's worth it because of your highly subsidised unit price. the FITs and ROCs are benefiting the UK installers only.

The panels for your unapproved system can be bought cheaply,

if you want panels approved for FIT/ROC you have to buy from UK distributors, for panels that have been through an approval process, and there is a commission added on top for that.

i.e the FIT/ROC system is benefiting the panel distributors who also realise that the system is worth money to you, so they'll charge you as much as they can as well...

the reality of the situation is that the solar industry even in the UK is good enough now.

the feed in tariffs and green stamping of equipment and installers to qualify for the tariffs are pushing up costs.

the idea that someone is a cowboy because they've not sat on a day long £200 course to tell them what panels they are allowed to use is laughable.

(hint, if you really want a system for £2k, go on the course yourself, approve your system yourself, neither the ROC certified courses nor the PART P certs for electricity working is impossible for your average GCSE school leaver to get -and you'll save yourself about £6k -probably not quite that much as you'll still have to buy rubber stamped more expensive panels).

Everything Everywhere stops plundering the charity box

DR

I think that you misunderstand

it doesn't cost nothing to accept donations from their partner charities.

they still need to run servers, employ staff and still get charged processing fees by the banks for the funds that they collect.

but for the bigger charities they waive the fee's then cross charge them to the smaller customers... because politically it's easier to say that you support charities, you collected all the money for comic relief and did it all with a charitable spirit costing the charity nothing... then don't say that you just charged a smaller charity more because of that.

that's why comic relief get charged nothing, and a smaller charity are getting charged 10%,

if you consider that a large charity like comic relief is making greater use of the equipment, the large events means that staff are probably working on standby rather than on call through the night (to make sure that the system doesn't fall over) and cost more because of that it seems unfair to not charge them!

If they charged everyone fee's to process their donation -i.e if every charity or organisation were to pay their own way fairly, then the processing fee could probably fall to a much lower percentage anyway... (so 1% of all donations rather than 10% of a tenth of the donations)

and to all the posts above saying it's a charity, I don't do any business with EE, but if I did, why should my service charge go up to support a load of charities whose cause I may not even agree with?

DR

ok

it still costs to send a message.

You chose to donate via text, why should I pay for a part of a message that you chose to send to a charity.

what charity did you donate to? do I even support their cause?

the network charge is there, oddly enough because you chose to make use of their network to get your business done.

Fujitsu £2bn broadband project throttled at both ends

DR
Coat

if it's anything like their upto 20MB service

then we can expect about £600M

UK.gov opens Red Tape Challenge regulation-slash website

DR

they might well wantg brake swerve gotten rid of

but they can't because it was brought in in response to the EU wide driving license regulations

it happens on closed roads (read car parks/airfields) in this country because the mandated speed for the brake/swerve/emergency stop is 50KMph... whilst in this country most residential roads where these test would take place have a 30MPH speed limit, (50KPH = 32MPH). and performing the test on a faster road (say a 40MPH road) would likely mean that road was more crowded, with much faster traffic on it anyway.... in short not safe to be testing the as yet unqualified...

so ridiculous it may be, driven up the cost of the motorcycle test it may well have... but removable by this scheme it won't be because it's an EU legislation thing.

Fuel foolery, merger warnings and Budgetary boons

DR

50%? it *could* have been

there was as economics show on radio 4, either Tuesday or Wednesday (I can't recall).

anyway, the point I'm getting to is that in America it appeared that there was consequence to actions, banks did close, loans were foreclosed, homes were lost.

the end result, in the place where they were reporting from (Chicago?) even though they were in a nice neighbourhood there were now a lot of empty houses, there was also around a 50% drop in house prices.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want people to loose their houses, their lives, or their fortunes, but if that's what it takes for house prices to be actually realistic then I'd prefer that to these crazy schemes where the government are pissing away everyone's money helping a small handful of people.

UK is a closed source 'stronghold'

DR

the real problem?

there's too much open source. not not enough, all agenda driven by the people making it, with not a hint of an invest-able opportunity.

That's the headline, now here's what I mean.

How many variants of Linux are there? how many are actually needed?

how many forks do exactly the same as a different fork, but the developers didn't get along so they fork a project and both follow the same road map competing for the same users in the same limited space throwing confusion into the market?

How exactly is your average middle manager mean to pick the wheat from the chaff? how do they know which one to go with? what support arrangements are they getting? so many open source projects are brilliant but are written by only a few people.

What happens when project developers have disagreements and a project just dies? (taking a useful tool with it).

damn small Linux is a perfect example of this, a really nice fast tiny OS, that stopped development after the guys that were developing it had a spat and went their own ways.

yes the project was forked and went somewhere else, but that's hardly the point, if I'd invested my time specifically developing for this fork, and the new fork IS different then where does that leave me? wasted work, uncompleted project, no more time being spent helping me?

lets say I've embedded this software into products half way round the world, it's not like I can just recall and redeploy lots of devices...

sure I can follow the new fork, but what if the developers fall out again? where does that leave me now?

what if my CLI driven service suddenly gets a new developer who want's to move all the configuration to a GUI driven interface but I don't want that on my server, do I have to stop using the service, never update again, expose myself to all the risks that a new exploit will be found and I can't patch...

I say that open source is un-invest-able not from the point of view of investors funding the software house but from the point of view of people picking up the technology...

with no clear road maps given by the developers, lots of OSS being developed by people in their back rooms when they have the time, how do I know what the future will hold?

(to be fair this perhaps doesn't apply to Redhat, or Suse, etc) if the future of a project is uncertain then how can I ever justify to a CTO that we should go this route? what happens when the project folds for whatever reason? then your whole business is left out in the cold whilst you scrabble to find another OSS project that will complete your needs.

-note I'm talking about business using the software, not development houses.

how is your average accountant going to decide what OSS package to use?

I'm not saying that OSS is impossible, just without clear heavyweight winners in place it's difficult for the small businesses to decide.

I suppose the simplest way to describe what I mean is this.

hypothetically, I'm an IT manager in a school, what version of linux should I roll out as our desktop OS. plus what office software, what presentation software what art software? in the technology shops, what CAD software, etc...

that's before you've even got to the office side of things and looking at accounts packages attendance registers, server stuff to hold it all together.

The answer to the question is not important, what is important is that I could ask here (a magazine full of technical people who would know what they are talking about).the point is that if there were 100 answers they would all be different.

there is a phrase that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft either, because whilst it costs money, you can at least depend on them to be there to answer the phone and fix your problems, even if it does cost a lot to log a ticket.

Fukushima update: No chance cooling fuel can breach vessels

DR
Coat

I might have the benefit of 20:20 but...

if you need a copious supply of water, then it makes sense to build on the coast...

but why the Pacific coast, why not the coast of the Sea of Japan? -much less risk of tsunami in that nice more sheltered patch of water?

if for this fact alone surely the comments about "was the risk properly assessed" or "was the site a wise choice" actually make sense.

Group-buying deal for £99 iPhone 4 may have breached consumer laws

DR
Coat

202 = 50% of stock?

so total stock = 404 -the phone you are looking for cannot be found

Microsoft rallies IE6 death squads

DR

re: just *why* are XP and IE6 supported for almost 13 years?!

Don't know about you, but I'd have thought a 13 year life cycle was actually something pretty amazing. and a very good thing.

Just think how much time (=money) would have been lost by businesses upgrading in this time had they been using either Macs or Linux...

and yes, those OS are great for me, at home where my time is free and I can upgrade whilst watching the tele in the evening. but not so great when you're a company paying a support department to plan the update, implement the update train the users etc...

since XP came out, I think Fedora (as an example) has had 8 versions. ok perhaps you needn't retrain staff all the time, but that's still (possibly) 8 roll outs in 10 years. 8 rounds of testing all your apps, 8 rounds of pilot roll outs, 8 rounds of feedback sessions etc...

That's quite a bit of money that IT depts are going to have to spend. possibly even outweighing the cost of having bought XP in the first place, (compared to a free OS)

it's not as simple as my post makes out, but having a *very* stable OS is a good thing for businesses.

O2 boots up boobies blocker

DR

think of the adults!

just tried. www.page3.com (seemed like it would be on the lighter side or wrongness!)

apparently I'm old enough to buy an iphone, old enough to sign a credit agreement for the tariff to use it, yet not old enough to use it as I wish...

Thunderbolt: A new way to hack Macs

DR

the rather obvious solution...?

>the rather obvious solution to the posited hypothetical scenario is to not use your primary work computer for presentations. Just have a dedicated laptop set up in each theatre. Presenters insert a USB stick with their presentation files. Job done.

So you actually advocate taking random USB sticks and plugging them into random machines?

You don't think that also carries risks of virus distribution etc?

EU law not tough enough for online piracy, says Brussels

DR

"something that is infinitely available."

music is not infinitely available. once you've digitised it, it is infinitely copy-able -that does not make music (as a whole) infinitely available.

stop paying for music, you'll see...

when the record companies can no longer afford to go and find artists and give them record deals so that they can afford to record albums who will be providing your music then?

when the artists have to go out and get a real job, and don't have time to get into the studio who will be creating the music then?

>>"Certainly not by assuming that just because something made money before it'll make MORE money in future without any further effort."

are you suggesting that if a recording company have recouped their costs then they should no longer charge people to obtain the music? older music should be fair game for piracy?

why should the first thousand people to buy a CD be paying so that the remaining million who want the CD can download it for free?

Firefox: freedom's just another word for 'kerching!'

DR
FAIL

No, the internet is not paid for by your ISP fees

Your connection to the internet is paid for by your ISPs fees.

websites have hosting cost, hardware costs, possibly staff costs and their own ISP bills to pay for. that's why they need adverts, so that in the torrent of places that you can just go to and look at for free there is money coming from somewhere to pay the bills.

the choices are subscriptions. (-which some will pay for).

donations -unreliable funding model

advertisements - which scale well, (more visitors = more costs, but also = more ad revenue to fund the site).

Ads are far and away the easiest way to fund a site. targeted ads are the most likely to be clicked since they are most likely to be relevant.

Blocking an advert means that a site won't receive revenue.

a site not receiving revenue means it'd soon close down.

less sites = less freedom on the internet. or only those that can afford to "bank roll" their own site can get their sites out there.

so I'm one person who is glad that FF haven't gone ahead and blocked all tracking in their browser.

if I can see one small targeted possible useful advert on a page, (that pays the site well) then I'd prefer that to ten large and relatively useless ads on a page that pay the site relatively little (so they have to display more).

I'd like a subscription option for *some* sites, as it'd be nice not to have adverts, but to be fair, on a daily basis the average person must follow the odd link, from one article of interest to another article of similar interest. I don't want to pay a subscription to view a site every time I go to a new site to see an interesting article -just because there are no adverts. -so subscription only sites aren't really an option either. -how would you ever find a new site, you can't browse articles to see if you like the content, you don't want to pay for content without knowing if you like it.

I also don't want to see 10 ads on the page to view a free version of the site, because someone gave the ad company lots of money to push (completely irrelevant to me) plumbing supplies, Basically sign me up for targeted tracked ads, they pay the sites better, so they need less ads, they are relevant to me, so they just aren't as annoying.

iPhone App Store bars mention of Google Android

DR
Go

am I the only one...

who just doesn't care?

one would assume that if I had an iphone, I probably would be using that iphone, and if I were downloading iphone apps from the iphone app store, that the fact that the application had ports on a different phone, running a different platform in a different store that I couldn't access, and even if I could somehow access these apps I couldn't even run them...

I don't see anything wrong with apple wanting to keep the descriptions for apps clear and concise. in fact I wish that they were even more strict. about it.

Designer pitches iPad gaming wheel

DR
Coat

re: what a pointless product

quite, the plastic steering wheel is quite cool though

Google 'open' memo betrays deep corporate delusion

DR

I for one am glad that google don't open source their page rank system

I'm glad that they don't open source page rank.

The reason:

at the moment any website that anyone writes can hit the number one spot based on the quality of that site, the way that the site is put together, the quality of the article, keyword prevalence, and the amount of people that 'rate' the article and link back to it.

it means that regular people can write a site and they have every chance of getting ranked towards the top of google.

Open the page rank system and you open the possibility that people will be able to game the system.

so the search engine optimised spammers pages get to be top ranking pages.

Then the people that were just creating a website end up having to employ the services of the same SEO spammers in order to get their page to the top.

Open source page rank and you create a mercenary SEO industry that will stifle the ability of google to return useful search results, instead of just a lot of craftily made pages selling Viagra rather that giving information.

Google: Do no evil, pay no tax

DR

obvious solution

with dell, ebay, paypal, google etc all registering overseas to avoid paying higher corp tax the answer is surely obvious...

reduce corporation tax in the UK, then you won't have companies like google turning over (taking out) 140 million quid without putting anything back in terms of corporation tax.

New minister for Whitehall IT

DR

fail?

"She's got a BA in Public Admin from Leicester Polytechnic.

A third rate qualification from a third rate polytechnic in a non-related subject but I'm sure she'll make up for it in other areas.

Mr A Non MSc, BEngs(hons), MBCS, MIET, MIEE"

are you sure about the qualifications you have?

interesting that you list MIEE, since there is no IEE any more, it's IET. one would have thought that after an institution ceased to be and amalgamated and re-branded with another institution that you should stop claiming membership to it.

Cornish separatists take aim at pasty students

DR

Well perhaps all the students should leave Cornwall

then all the Cornish universities would close and local jobs would be lost.

and the Cornish LEA can pay the LEA percentage of fee's to other universities outside of their county and help other people who aren't Cornish get jobs and expand their businesses.

and then what would happen?

Cornwall is already a county pretty much dependant on tourism, I'd suspect a little extra local income not so weather dependant might be nice...

guess I was wrong.

O2 finds new way to bind iPhone users

DR

iphone won?

"Are you kidding. Who gives a toss what phones other people have. The reason most people have an iPhone is because it beats the whotsit out of any other phone. The whole debate of iPhones v Others is just about over. The iPhone has won, get over it."

really, I'm still yet to see a useful feature that the iphone has that my 3 year old HTC wizard doesn't have.

Oh, it's got GPS, but had I plumped for GPS rather than a full qwerty slide out keyboard i'd have had what is basically an iphone years ago.

I can install my own software too. but I don't have to pay for that.

sometimes, I look at an app on the adverts and think that's really useful, (like the bump to exchange contact details). until I realise that I'd have to pay for that, and the "old friend" that I meet would also have had to pay for it, so it soon becomes something that is useless as not everyone has it.

the spirit level, I really really want that application on my phone. but anyone whose used it can see that it's not accurate.

Honestly, I've played with the Iphone and I just don't like it.

I am an O2 customer, I find their coverage really good, and their customer service when I've needed it is good,

I have used/played with Iphones, and I can honestly say that when I come to renew my contract, (later this year), I'll be going again on a £35 a month contract, (because of the minutes/texts and free bolt ons), but I won't be getting an iphone. I'll see what HTCs latest offerings are again and get one of those.

James Martin apologises for cyclist outrage

DR
Happy

some cyclists good, some bad,

reg motortards hating cyclists #

By Ray0x6

cyclists are quiet, non-polluting, non-congestion

Cyclists cause congestion by travelling far below the speed limit, in the same way that tractors cause congestion on country roads.

ideally everyone using a road should be able to move at a fairly constant speed, and not be held up by a cyclist, which causes then to brake, wait for a safe place and then accelerate again to overtake.

braking and accelerating causes more pollution than driving at a steady speed, cyclists hold up traffic and cause this.

Cyclist are a cause of pollution.

As for the guy saying that motor cyclists are responsible for 50% of accidents in towns (that they are involved in), I'm quite sure that the statistics on this, (which I don't have to hand) back up your claim, there is a word that describes most motorcycle accidents, (sidsy) -Sorry i didn't see you, I guess that must be why they run special campaigns asking drivers to be more aware of bike riders. -but yes, they also have to warn bike riders not to act like twats as well

By Naich Posted Wednesday 16th September 2009 09:45 GMT

To all the people who don't want me to cycle to work tomorrow - tell you what, I'll take the car instead and rather than being held up for a few seconds, you can sit behind me all the way. Morons

Yes please do take your car, then we can sit behind you travelling at 30MPH rather than 10 or 15MPH.

or just be mindful of the fact that you are piloting a slower vehicle and perhaps get over a little when a car is behind you so that they can over take you a little easier?

By Dammit Posted Wednesday 16th September 2009 10:49 GMT

Stop

Another cyclist was killed this morning in Whitechappel by an HGV turning left.

I think that you'd need more details of this to pass judgement. I mean the lorry was turning left. you say the lorry didn't look and killed a poor innocent cyclist.

I say that the cyclist put himself most likely tight up against the left hand side of the lorry, (likely where the cycle lane was). ignored the indicators, the physics of the situation, (that the lorry would encroach at the ape of the corner because of it's physical size), and likely sat in the blind spot of the drive so that he couldn't be seen...

you say that it's the lorry drivers fault. I say that cyclists should be more aware of what they are doing, and more considerate to other road users.

10to4 says he's held up by queues of cars...

so am i, just often those queues of cars can be caused by cyclists!

10to4 says (regarding cyclists jumping red lights)

someone you've never met isn't now dead but has gained a few seconds on you, and has failed to prove you right? I don't get it -

I never looked at it like this, it's not that red lights are there to control traffic, or stop some traffic to make it safer for other traffic, it's clear that lights go red just to hold up cars.

from now on I'll take your lead and just jump red lights in my car shall I? after all you are saying that it's ok for road users to jump red lights?

fuck the pedestrians that may be crossing the road, bollocks to the other traffic that want to go.

my mode of transport (a shit car) is slow, and take a lot of effort to get up to a good speed so I should get to ignore the rules of the road?

And FYI I do notice the cyclists who stop at lights, I have no problem with cyclists in general, just the bad ones, who ride slowly in the middle of the road lane, (as opposed to around 1 meter from the left side as I was told cyclist should when I took a cycling proficiency test in school many years ago). I have a problem with the cyclists who ride two/three or four abreast holding up traffic, and I have a problem with cyclists who cut up lorries turning left, (but lets face it they don't last long), I have a problem with the cyclists who jump lights and get in other peoples way and endanger themselves and other people.

All the cyclists who actually ride sensibly and considerately get my consideration back, (like I don't drive up their arse I do give them plenty of space when overtaking etc).

Renault unveils e-car foursome

DR

the first one

wtf were they thinking.

it's looks like someone took a smoby kids car and stuck extra pointless crap to it.

Microsoft to encircle Google and Apple with Windows Mobile split

DR

microsoft don't have a strategy

Microsoft don't have a strategy, at least not a good one.

the part where their strategy fails is in the marketing.

Apple pretty much fail as anything other than a design and marketing company, they don't excel on hardware manufacturing, or even having really cool and unique ideas/latest technology, what apple do well that Microsoft don't is getting people to want to buy their products.

I often feel like either I'm going mad or the world around me is going mad, when Apple put adverts on TV saying you can install applications on your phone, you can copy and paste, you can send emails etc I sit there thinking so fucking what, I've been able to do that on my phone for the past three years, (an HTC/windows mobile phone).

And that's the difference, to have a windows mobile phone you'd have either had to see one working and actually thought it looked cool, or have swallowed a MS business marketing campaign...

the question is where were the microsoft ads on TV saying, wow, look at this really fucking cool thing that you can do?

They weren't there!

MS missed a trick on this, their platform was essentially open, and there is no reason that they couldn't have setup an apps store equivalent, if microsoft had a strategy it should have been to point out the strengths it had over the iphone OS last year, or the year before... whenever the iphone came out that couldn't copy and paste, couldn't send mms, didn't have blue tooth etc etc etc.

Trouble is that the iphone was/is popular. the only strategy that would have worked would have been to destroy it in it's infancy. by offering a more mature product that did address some of the short comings.

I can only assume that the reason for this is that MS make the software not the phone, so they don't push the phones as they consider this the hardware manufacturers job, or the operators job... the trouble is that by saving a few million dollars on not running a decent advertising campaign, they've likely lost a few hundred million dollars of sales that have gone to apple and allowed them to develop a product that is now at least as good, if not better than the offerings from MS

Kaspersky beats Zango in malware classification case

DR

like it or not...

@"Hopefully to kneecap future generations of annoying, useless, intrusive companies whose idea of a business model is infiltrating someone elses machine and squatting there."

My first question is do you know how Zango was installed?

Second question, Does a user actively selecting to install Zango, either by downloading from the source or by installing alongside another app that they got for free, because the publisher of the other app funded their development through it, actually sound like infiltrating?

so my third question is are you an idiot?

All users who were "infected" by Zango at one point of another actively chose to download something that was either just Zango, or had Zango attached as a revenue stream for a third part, (whose software you were installing).

The only people who installed Zango unaware were those who just clicked next several times without reading.

Personally, I'll agree, I did find Zango annoying, but I chose to install it to use a third party application that had aligned it's self with it.

I chose to use that software, may people chose to use that software.

it's not like Zango was some kind of dirty trojan that "infiltrated" people's computers, they chose to install it.

After their death I was reading the post mortem blog posts, the ex-directors had released.

They were completely honest about the mistakes that they made, in their business, but also honest about how companies like Kappersky saying that their software was malware had crippled their business.

Personally, I don't think that anybody who chooses to install software should complain about it.

and I don't think that they should call it malware. they ruined a business with their miss-classification. and a court ruling should definitely have been against them. (kapersky)

Yes, I agree Zango did use resources and upset the user experience, for that same reason I'm now classifying Java as malware. for it persistently runs a java quick start on a machine I have at home to reduce load times.

I'll also classify Itunes as malware for it's service that runs persistently, (despite the fact that I've not plugged in an Ipod into my computer in well over a year).

Yes, I chose to install those applications. but the fact that they run all the time degrades my user experience.

so that's the same situation. an app that a user chose to install that always runs, degrades the user experience, would kapersky have the balls to classify Itunes as malware? and do you think that the ruling would be the same when Apple took them to court...

ISPs vs BBC iPlayer: Missing the point?

DR

It's not even the whole salers problem.

It's not even the case that BT retail should be begging BT wholesale to reduce their prices and bugger up that side of the business too!

The problem is simple, people pay for the amount of packets that they transmit/recieve.

BBC/Google et al already have an internet connection and already pay for their content to be uploaded when they lease this connection.

(imagine that BBC for example may lease from BBC Whole sale)

BBC already pay BBC whole sale to shut packets onto their network.

BT retail uses BTWholesales network and thus BTR pat BTW for the packets shunted through the network.

IF BT retail are finding that they can't make money or that users are requiring so much bandwidth that they are struggling to make a profit because the whole sale provider takes too big of a cut then the problem is simple.

it's not that the free ride is over for content providers, the free ride should be over for content consumers.

BT retail should adopt a realistic pricing strategy and chanrge it's customers for what they use.

if it costs £5 per 1GB to move data across the network, then BTR should realise the folly in selling an unlimited package at £11 a month, (assuming that the customer downloads more than 2GB).

it's not the people who place big content online that are to blame for BTRetails woes, it's their customers bandwidth hungry habits, and it's their customers who should be paying for what they use.

we don't need an end to net neutrality, we need an end to stupid unlimited packages, an end to ISPs over selling their capacity at a knock down price to try to compete with each other.

Apollo 11 - The Owners' Workshop Manual

DR

@robert moore

You can get haynes manual for specific cars, not just random sets of cars.

perhaps the books that you;re thinking of are the data books designed for garages so that they only need buy one book for a series of cars?

and Chiltons is Haynes, still written and published by the same haynes company.

YouTube flooded with porn

DR

@phil +1 @@phil, what are you stupid?

What form of protest is this?!? You're not showing the type of content I like so I'm going to make sure children see porn.

Nice one, idiots.

+1 to that.

"@ Phil

Every remember childhood ? Collecting the rain destroyed porn mags disguarded by underage drinkers the night before."

yes, remember it fondly, but I also believe that I was at an age then when I wouldn't have likely been searching for things like hannah montanna as well, (though that didn't exist, but the age suitability of porn, even your first look at "rain" soaked, pre-used porn is somewhat older than the hannah montana audience

Another 0.03% of Blighty goes wind powered

DR

thoughts above

gee, do you really think that everyone has a new efficient TV. I know that I don't.

I guess that the energy savings over say ten years could pay for the cost of a TV, but by your logic I'll have needed a new TV by then presumably paid for by energy savings.

To the guy who said that people who think that energy saving light bulbs don't save energy,

replace a 100w bulb with a 8w energy saving bulb see the amount of energy used per bulb over a course of perhaps 10 hours, the saving might be small, but it's an every little counts scenario.

and that's the only criticism I have of the article, it's just ignoring the fact that in truth, really every little thing that we can do to wean our addiction of carbon emitting fuels does count.

and I say carbon emitting fuels as I take the same stance as the author, burning coal or gas, whether it's in a power station or in your home is still burning coal or gas, so heating and cooking should be taken into account.

to the guy who posted that we could use a wood burning stove, well yes, but that's even less efficient than a stove sing refined gas to heat our houses, so if we're looking at fuels which we still burn, and don't care about emitting carbon etc, then why invest anything at all.

a massive wind farm might be an eyesore on the landscape, but that's (if you believe the global warming bumf) is just a price that we'll have to pay in order to keep the landscape. rather it was covered in metal poles with spinning bits on the end than covered by seawater.

as for having solar panels on your house, I agree, when either the energy prices rise so much that this is actually a good idea, or the technology and equipment to do this falls to a significantly low rate then I'll do it.

most people are going to be like me on this issue, if I save nothing, then what's the point in spending money to implement it? I may as well just keep paying for energy on tap from the grid rather than paying to generate my own.

Billy Bragg: Three-strikes lobbying is 'shameful'

DR

FAC

if only they'd called it the featured artists group.

joking aside, it' all very well for Billy Bragg to go on about how music should be put out there for less money and there shouldn't be the big labels.

but as others have said that completely ignores how most artists have been picked up by talent scouts. recorded in a studio and released an album that's actually made it to the shelves in HMV.

who the fuck pays for all that before even being sure that people will 'like' the artist... -oh yeah, the record company.

so by all means billy bragg can p2p his music for free, but emerging artists need to be paid, they need the record companies to be able to employ people to search out and find new bands, they need the record companies to be able to provide a budget for a good studio, they need the record companies to be able to provide a marketing budget, and enough money to press enough CDs to put at least one into every HMV store in the land. -and that's why the record companies take a cut, so that the wheels can keep rolling with the net 'artists'.

All that said, I do still think that most CDs are overpriced and contain shit.

Michael Dell faces questions in crime-camera case

DR

a rose is a rose by any other name

and so is a fucking camera.

"we're not allowed to sell cameras"

they could have called it a banana, but that doesn't stop it from being a camera.

Swiss woman rolled over Facebook

DR

migraine

As most people have said here, Migraine sufferers generally feel intense pain upon even opening an eye. -so if she had a migraine then she couldn't possibly be posting on facebook cause it's physically hurt.

It sounds like what she really had was a bit of a headache and didn't feel like working. to many people now are quick to say that they have a migraine, when what they really have is a headache.

With regards pulling a sickie, if you're ill, you're ill, there is not a lot that you can do about it.

if you;re faking then you deserve the sack.

US declares 'public health emergency' over swine flu

DR

Just last week

just last week the pigs were in trouble for beating protestors, This week the pigs are in trouble for having flu.

perhaps this will urge some politicians to get their snouts out the trough.

Darling's £0.5bn offshore windfarm 'leccy-bill stealth levy

DR

@wind generation is stupendously expensive

"Interestingly, BWEA also say that the 'energy payback' time (how long it takes to generate the amount of energy used to make the unit), is 6 to 8 months for wind - but 6 months for coal or nuclear."

in this case it takes 6 months for coal, and 8 months for wind to become energy neutral,

but since you also point out that a coal station produces 800 times the amount of energy isn't it also fair to say that this means that it takes a lot more energy to produce a coal station?

Besides which energy payback is a bit of a moot point because the article is talking about fiscal payback,

how many coal stations does 0.5Bn buy? and how long before you pay that back with daily operation costs, (like maintenance and fuel)?

wind may be more expensive with regards daily maintenance, yet has no fuel costs since the fuel is renewable.

Also, coal power stations tend to have a rather large staff roster, whilst wind farms don't seem to have that.

Self-replicating machine replicates

DR

@AC

I think the point is that the plastic will be much denser in raw form than when fully formed. There will also be less need for massive amounts of packaging and padding. Fewer lorries on the road and ships on the sea, yet each carrying more weight, but overall less weight and more efficiency.

I don't see what you mean, say you were shipping plastic packing boxes.

you fill a lorry with 100 boxes,

if you ship the raw materials for 100 boxes then may fit in a transit van rather than a HGV lorry.

but the weight is still the same. -unless you're counting vehicle weight as well?

Steve Jobs: 'I wanted respect, not backdated options'

DR

$1 a year...

that explains why he only has the one black turtle neck jumper then.

Street View nod prompts call for privacy watchdog reform

DR

FFS!

if you don't want your unrecognisable blurred face, connected to your body.

or your car with it's blurred number plate.

or your house (not blurred) to be on streetview

or you find that anything that isn't blurred that should be, then you just request that google take it down.

it's not hard, and it's not difficult.

all reports say that they are very responsive to this.

stop complaining. if you have a problem with a particular scene on streetview you can request it's taken down.

as for private streets, yet this is true. if you made your street private then you wouldn't let google in...

good luck on getting the council to agree that your street is private land though, and have fun dragging your bins to the end of the street each week.

Judge sends Blockbuster to court over Facebook Beacon Borking

DR

@Steve Swann

"Anyone schooled in law around here that might be interested in such an action?"

no, but I have an armchair, and a soap box that I freely distribute bad advice from like most other reg readers.

Microsoft security chief trapped in endless identity sales pitch

DR

trusted suppliers installing their trusted apps on your trusted hardware

I agree with all that's written above...

and this is exactly the way that the appstore works for the Iphone,

device manufacturer, only allows certain apps, that they deem appropriate, and you get to pick and choose from what they let you.

I'm not bashing apple for this, I'm just saying that the model that seems to be described here where big business can sign their apps so that they are 'trusted' already exists and most people accept it.

those that don't accept it have to run untrusted apps to break the trust association meaning they can install from anywhere, (jail breaking).

it's be a shame if the PC market went down this route as well. because surely the best thing about the PC market is that you can install what you like, when you like, your machine your business...

certainly I note that I have a lot of tools on my work laptop that the AV reports as possible hacking tools, but are in fact pretty useful apps that I use to do my work... how long before we can't use certain tools because MS decide that they don't like/won't sign them?

BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day

DR

@Duncan Hothersall - Sunday Times style headline from El Reg?

"Up to 40,000 URLs on the IWF block list accessed each day DOES NOT mean, or even come close to meaning, 40,000 child porn pages. As we know, from recent articles in this very publication, the IWF blocks a lot more than "child porn" - sometimes they block an entire site, or an entire page, when the only thing that should be listed is a single image. Assuming your average page, with images, CSS, JS and the rest, might deliver 10 files to a web browser, you can cut the figure down to 4,000 a day at a stroke."

a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing can't it just...

and I assume that you've only got a little knowledge, -either that or you just didn't think it through...

yes, your website server 40,000 individual objects, images, css documents java script etc... so that could be called 40,000 blocks for that site...

EXCEPT, a 404 page is returned, so none of those objects that would have been referenced are actually ever referenced, your browser won't try to download those objects, as it is never told to download those objects.

so the 40,000 blocks are exactly that, 40,000 blocked attempts to access filtered pages.

the quality of those blocks is yet to be discussed, and can't be fully appreciated unless a list is published so that it can be independently verified. -not a job that I want.

Pirate Bay guilty verdict: Now what?

DR

@Steven Jones

"The argument that the site was there as a general purpose directory for innocent use of file sharing was fatally undermined by two things. First the stupid arrogance of calling it "Pirate" Bay and, secondly, because if lacked any means of taking down links which breached copyright. Indeed the only reason the site was popular was that it was largely used for streams of copyrighted material. These four made money from this business model (not necessary for a conviction of course, but no doubt a contributory factor to the sentence).

So can people finally stop equating eBay, Google, BBC and so on links to this case. It just tends to confirm your own loose contact with reality..."

OK.... lets look at this very simply, we'll look at google,

firstly, as you know google own you tube, as pointed out above, you can find movies on youtube, i.e google ae hosting copyrighted material, (as well as hosts of songs). as I've said before in the google vs. PRS threads, search for a song name or artist name, you'll see hundreds of boot leg recordings, videos, and covers, (and cover versions are covered under copyright law). so Google host illegal content AS WELL AS providing pointers to illegal content, and in some cases, as well as providing links to illegal content, certainly in the case of text and images, they'll even cache that content thus the store illegal content even when a user has not uploaded that content.

google put ads on the page, and boast that they index everything so you can search for anything you want, "windows" + "XP" + "torrent", yes, a very specific search term, but one that you can make. and google freely provide the search results and also display ads along side them, they are the worlds biggest ad broker, and they make their money by putting ads along side all searches illeagal or other wise, that's how they are like TPB...

HOWEVER! just to prove that I'm not stupid, I do realise that providing links to illegal material is not the core business model of google, it just happens to be one of many uses for the technology.

Anyway, back to you you tube argument,

we've already seen that they do host illegal content.

it's called youtube, tube being an old word for TV, so it's like the TV that you control, put whatever you like on there, we'll just stick some ads next to it and make whatever money we can.

youtube encourage people to upload all kind on content, including illegal and copyright infringing material.

you think that google really want to take down popular content that makes people come back again and again and again. they provide a link to take down copyrighted content because in the countries where they are based that provision is the LAW, they provide a means for take down to stop themselves being sued in a court.

TPB don't provide links to take down because they are in Sweeden, and the LAW in their country doesn't necessitate this.

Anyway, the Pirate bay, arrogant name yes,

yet no more arrogant that you tube, the TV all about you, for you to upload what you like.

take downs? a minor point that only comes about because the law of the relevant land specifies it. and doesn't come about where it's not required.

are you suggesting that if TPB provided a link to request take downs of their pointers that they'd have had more of a chance?

comparing TPB to google is amateurish if you say that they only do what TPB do, because google in fact are doing far more than TPB ever intended to do.

Rail union ballots for strike over fingerprints

DR

@ enrico

"How hard is it to know who you are employing? If your staff retention is really so poor that this is impossible then you have a larger problem than not being able to identify people"

Ever worked as a cleaner?

I used to work as a school cleaner, whilst I was in school, turnover in such jobs is high because the pay is poor and the conditions are , well dirty. -it's not a fun job.

turn over is likely high because there aren't a lot of career cleaners, most people take on cleaning jobs because they are either just out of work and need a job, just really need a job, need a part time job to fit around education/kids etc...

nobody takes a cleaning job because they really love the smell of bleach, it's almost always a last resort, and thus not a job that anyone really intends to stay in too long.

BT chief: People don't need fibre to the home

DR

loosers will always cry

"What we cannot do in the UK is go back to monopoly," he said. "Imagine that coming from BT."

yes, well they would say that when they are behind virgin already.

they'd got many years of expensive infrastructure to put into place before they come to the same level of speed that virgin already offer.

during this time with the same investment virgin can improve and expand their existing network.

BT don't want to see a monopoly because they can't see it being their monopoly...

And yes, Ferraris are faster than Fords, most people make do with Fords.

I think that a more accurate description would be that modern locomotives are faster than steam trains...

He's right of course, there aren't many applications that require 50Mbps download speed, but that's not to say that people don't want that.

especially with TV being provided by the internet, houses having more than one computer...

I think that the best advice that BT could be given is this.

Build it and they will come.

put the infrastructure in. make it over capacity.

then you can run adverts saying, virgin not the only fibre provider, BT provide fibre, we give you what we sell you, no slow down, no caps, no limits, pay for what you get and get what you pay for...

with a promise like that -that they actually could fulfil people will want to use BTs service.

Pirate Bay loses trial: defendants face prison time, hefty fines

DR

PB V Google

Last I saw the pirate bay allowed you to upload torrent files...

in fact when you download a torrent file it comes from torrents.thepiratebay.org...

this is not the same as google indexing and providing a link to torrent on another persons server

if the pirate bay were literally just searching lists of torrents on other servers and providing a link to it then you could call them a search engine. but they actually facilitate the means of getting the torrent files by hosting them.

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