* Posts by David Hicks

1235 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2008

Boffin finds gene for coke addiction

David Hicks
Paris Hilton

Gene or no gene -

Coke addicts were 25% more likely to have the gene. and this means that if you have the gene you may want to be vaccinated against the high... right.

So what proportion of people are coke addicts? And what proportion of people with the gene are coke addicts?

Methinks this guy's got shares in a coke vaccine company. The 0.1% or less of people with coke problems do no in any way justify screwing around with the brain chemistry of the 99.9% of folks (maybe 99.8% of those with this gene) that don't get into coke problems in the first place.

Coke vaccine! Honestly, it's not like you can "catch" coke like a disease, and if you're planning on sticking it up your nose then it would seem to me that a vaccine would make the whole thing a waste of time and money...

Paris, because she's a statistic.

Universities reject Stasi role

David Hicks
Thumb Down

I can see this going down well with the students

They tend to be a reactionary lot anyway, but enforcing lecture attendance and handing in of coursework?

There would be riots!

Surely it's a student's right to sleep through lectures, miss the coursework and then scrape through the end of semester exams?

Apple opens Macbook front in iPhone jailbreak war

David Hicks
Jobs Horns

They're doing a lot of this

The new gen iPods have put some sort of cryptographic hash on one of the indexing files they use. Result - try and do anything with Amarok or any other iPod management software that's not iTunes and you get an iPod that tells you it's full but has no songs on it.

It's just not cricket I tell you.

Sony pitches blue-laser Compact Disc revival

David Hicks
Flame

@Vladimir

"The point is simple - CD-DA (by specifications) does not recover from 100% of errors, better manufactured CDs produce fewer unrecoverable errors, fewer unrecoverable errors means better analogue sound."

No. It means less skips and glitches, which you shouldn't have on a CD anyway. If you have a CD that has unrecoverable errors on it when you buy it then you take it back.

You said "which won't be heard on a ghetto-blaster but will affect the sound when listened on a good equipment."

Which is nonsense, because unrecoverable errors will occur on every piece of equipment, given that they're unrecoverable. This tech MAY ensure longer life for your disc.

Better defined pits won't make a scrap of difference to this compared to scratch resistant coatings. They certainly will not subtly increase your listening pleasure unless you're the kind of delusional idiot that spends hundreds of quid on two feet of triple-insulated oxygen-free copper cable...

David Hicks
Paris Hilton

@Vladimir

"You should really try to play a CD or two on a good separates system and not on a PC with a "surround" soundcard and some cup-sized "high-technology" speakers."

You just proved my point mate - the same CD will sound a million times better on a system with a decent DAC, amplifier, speaker set etc.

You don't magically fix the pits by putting something into a higher end system.

Paris, because your reasoning is, well...

David Hicks
Unhappy

@Vladimir Plouzhnikov

"beside the obvious errors such as cause by scratches etc there are much more subtle errors, which won't be heard on a ghetto-blaster but will affect the sound when listened on a good equipment."

Wrong.

Sorry, but that's utter nonsense. Pit definition needs to be good enough to get a one or a zero out. Nothing else.

There's no such thing as a more rounded zero or a sharper one. Pit quality has no effect, no effect AT ALL.

Sorry for raising my voice at the end there, but you audiophiles angry up my blood something chronic. Read the science, understand the encoding mechanisms, learn what does and doesn't actually affect the waveform reproduction by a digital player.

Yes - there are better and worse speakers, DACs, interpolation techniques, clocks stabilities etc. But pits are either adequate or not.

David Hicks
Paris Hilton

Digital data is yes or no

Better pits?

It's like people selling high-quality HDMI cables. Whilst analogue cables *may* benefit the transmission of signals, and better definition and materials may have benefited sound reproduction in the era of Vinyl and cassette, in the digital world it's snake oil.

Unless there is hidden data that a Blu-disc player can read to retrieve higher resolution sound or more channels, whilst maintaining playability in a standard CD player, this is worthless.

Jacqui Smith prints seized by No2ID in daring dabs grab

David Hicks
Black Helicopters

@Gordon

The possibilities are endless, Identity theft is just the start. Fingerprints can be faked in a variety of ways once you have the blueprint, from there you can use the id card to get a passport, credit card, access to her bank accounts...

Study clears cannabis of schizophrenia rap

David Hicks
Unhappy

@Too many self-interested people AC

Well done, you've just provided a lot of anecdotes and conjecture backed up by not a single fact, statistic or study.

The fact is that your anecdotes are based on experience in a hospital ad therefore your experiences self select to the catastrophic.

Not to mention you have not a shred of evidence that any of what you said was caused in any way by cannibis.

Did you consider that cannibis might be a symptom of suicidal tendencies in teenagers? That teenagers who are feeling that low, depressed and isolated may turn to drug use rather than drug-use make them that way?

No, in the same way as people in the 50s demonised rock music for making people behave a certain way, you have made a flawed assumption that weed caused the things you have seen. This study points out just how wrong you are.

And as for your right not to smell anything that offends your delicate nose - f*ck off mate. My freedom to fart trumps you right not to be nasally offended any day, or are we banning that next?

Porn breath tests for PCs heralds 'stop and scan'

David Hicks
Black Helicopters

MicroSD / M2 to the rescue....

Any serious data smuggler is going to use one of the new ultra-small formats. All the good this law can do is catch idiots.

But as others have mentioned, the negatives are massive. Proliferation of private data is no laughing matter and it appears that governments (especially ours) have been making a game of finding new places to leave people's details in huge numbers.

Add to this that governments (notably the US) have been complicit in corporate espionage in the past and you get a very uncomfortable picture.

It also does nothing to stem the flow of data into a country where people have access to the internet, from which they can, securely and easily, connect back to their pr0n server at home and transfer all the illegal filth they want.

This is yet another form of Security Theatre and ministers wanting more to put on their political CV.

"Look at me! I put anti-paedo measures in place! If you don't vote for me then what does that make you?"

'Extreme' extreme porn law puts Scots out of kilter

David Hicks
Unhappy

Hurrah for more blurry legislation!

So depiction of rape will be illegal.

As unpleasant as it is, I can think of several films that depict it. Not in a way made to turn people on, but as a shocking act. I can also think of (non-dodgy) anime that depicts it, however that's getting pretty close to the line. And by the time you look at some of the weirder Japanese stuff (Urotsukidoji), well who the hell knows whether you're supposed to get off on that or not?

And if the intent of the material, rather than the actual content, is at issue then we have a recipe for the worst possible of laws - one that is so subjective that it can likely be used against anyone the police and/or justice service don't like.

Roll on the UK police state.

Panasonic says Intel Atom not up to snuff for its PCs

David Hicks
Happy

Is it only the eee 901

That has decent battery life then? I can get a couple of movies out of it on a flight, which seems decent enough to me.

Developers to get Windows 7 pre beta next month

David Hicks
Gates Horns

Am i missing something?

Were people complaining about having a movie editor or an email app?

I thought the problems were the interface, the UAC, the enormous memory and processor requirements and other things of that ilk.

None of those actual problems can be resolved by taking out a few apps that people don't care much about and only load up voluntarily, surely?

Microsoft may just have completely missed why people don't like Vista....

Google spills Satan Phone dev kit

David Hicks
Linux

"it says the source code will be set free as the first Googlephone goes on sale."

Yes, it had better be really, given that it's a legal requirement of using (amongst other things) the linux kernel...

Blockbuster: DVD to Blu-ray shift slower than VHS to DVD

David Hicks
Unhappy

I tried to go Blu

I have the full HD LCD TV, I have the PS3, I figured it was time to watch a Bluray movie and se if I could tell the difference.

I tried going in to my local blockbuster several times, only to find that the Bluray selection was not only more pricey but very small and consisted entirely of total dross. After my fourth visit over as many weeks, I eventually settled on "Diary of the Dead" a film which I'd been told was awful but I thought might at least be a laugh.

Got it home, no joy, PS3 says no because I bought it in Japan and the film is region 2 only. Bugger that then eh!

DVD still looks fine to me, and at least I can get a multi-region player for that.

MEPs demand privacy safeguards on cross-border policing

David Hicks
Thumb Up

At least they're talking about it

From the headline I had assumed that the proposal would have been "no privacy for anyone except state officials". That would have followed the usual principle of "One rile for us, one rule for them" that seems to have become the norm lately.

The fact that individual privacy is a concern at these levels is good. Now, lets have some strong protections please.

Net Suicide Bill would breathe life into government censorship

David Hicks
Black Helicopters

Time for internet 2.0?

Yay for censorship!

The internet has been pretty much lawless for its whole life so far, and that is what's made it great. It's the one place that government haven't waded in crying "Protect the vulnerable! Think of the children!" and so we get the free exchange of all sorts of ideas, from the useful to the perverted and ridiculous.

Filtering and blocking this avenue of free and unrestricted speech should not even be on the minds of western governments. The fact that china is criticised for their effort to do the same should be more than enough to put them off. Of course there I'm ignoring the easy excuse "They are censoring, we are protecting!", but in the end it comes down to the same thing.

It's time for a distributed, encrypted net that routes around or through ridiculous propositions like these.

Hands on with the T-Mobile G1

David Hicks
Unhappy

Where's the source, Luke?

Seeing as some of the stuff on the phone is supposed to be GPL - where's the source?

I know they've released an open source Java SDK, but I want the whole system for playing with and porting. Their site says 4Q 2008, but that's ages...

MI6 agent's moustache falls off during TV interview

David Hicks
Black Helicopters

It's a carefully planned image management exercise

it's all in hand, never fear, our heroic spies are simply giving the impression or incompetence so that nobody will ever expect them to be the world's best....

Actually, due to ever increasing budget cuts it's just as likely that they had to use water and flour as they couldn't afford any real glue.

Anonymous hacks Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account

David Hicks
Unhappy

@JonB

"The fact is that the "stupid cow" was a victim of a crime, and as usual there's a bunch of pompous (and even more arrogant!) geeks blaming her for being a victim, blame the criminals, they did it."

You missed the point.

It appears she is dishonestly using her private email to conduct official business, something for which the Republican party has been chastised before, in order to avoid transparency and disclosure laws.

Whilst she will play the victim and the republican faithful will lap it up, she should be disgraced by this further suggestion that the party is indulging in unethical and illegal acts. The fact that she feels the need to keep it off official servers is damning enough and illegal in Alaska.

Android springs to life next week

David Hicks
Unhappy

Sauce?

Where's the source luke?

Some of us want to hack it to run on other things.

DfT rounds up Road-Pricing 2.0 contractors

David Hicks
Flame

No money for roads?

You're having a laugh?

There's money for war, for games, for police, for a billion and one useless council employees, for more surveillance (and more council employees to run it), but there's no money for roads.

Right.

And yes, to agree with others, there's already a very effective pay as you use road tax - it's called fuel duty, and it even magically takes efficiency and environmental concerns into account by costing bigger users more money.

What the government should be doing, if they have any real intention of being any help to anyone and effecting any change at all, is taking the money they're using for this (and all the other things I mentioned) and investing it in public transport infrastructure.

Fat chance, when we can just watch and tax the citizens a bit more though eh?

Robot airliner anti-missile escorts proposed

David Hicks
Unhappy

I thought the only people to have shot down airliners...

...in living memory where the US air force on "practice" manoeuvres?

Either way, this is scary. I'm really not worried about that possibility, but I am getting very scared of what the west is turning into.

Netbooks and Mini-Laptops

David Hicks

What's MIPS compatible?

MIPS is a farely widespread chipset - my wireless router runs linux on MIPS and the Sony PSP is also MIPS based.

Linux has MIPS compatibility, so you shouldn't have much problem with a distro like debian, which has full MIPS support.

BPM unravelled - a live, interactive event

David Hicks
Unhappy

D'oh

Oh wait, I get it, it's just a webcast.

It was the "Come join us, live and online" that threw me. I read that as two separate options.

David Hicks
Stop

You might tell us where it is!

How do I know if I can attend or not without a vague idea of location?

Scientology critics fight YouTube takedown notices

David Hicks
Thumb Up

Times are a changin'

For the scilons anyway. Looks like they could be forced out of France too -

http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/09/08/europe/OUKWD-UK-FRANCE-SCIENTOLOGY.php

Several high-up French Scientologists appear to be on trial for fraud and illegally practising as pharmacists.

Ubuntu zoo preps for new arrival

David Hicks
Happy

@Naming

Is it necessarily going to be a K naming thing?

The current release is Hardy Heron, but does nobody remember Hoary Hedgehog? Or Warty Warthog?

From their version page -

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DevelopmentCodeNames

it looks like they missed out on C as well. Crappy Carp anyone?

ID scheme plans 50,000 cards by April

David Hicks
Alien

I'm honestly finding this hard to believe

I mean, I'm finding it very difficult to believe that this is still going ahead after all the negative publicity, the government's already poor image, the supposed impecunity of the treasury, the economic downturn coupled with ever increasing taxes etc etc.

Bah, I suppose whichever civil servant is in charge of the scheme wanted to make sure his pet project got completed before a government with any sense or popular mandate got in at the next election.

EA Europe struggles squeezing out Spore

David Hicks
Unhappy

@AC

Err, no. It's affected, The users have been affected by the problem, not effected. You can't effect a user, unless you are god.

Which brings me back to Spore. Whilst I'd love to spend some time effecting and affecting the evolution of some self-designed beasties, I'm annoyed at the price.

I thought I'd have a go at buying online; I'm not really fussed about having packaging or media. Unfortunately, EA have chosen to sell it online for 40 quid. Or 50 dollars if you're American, which is yet another pricing insult to the British. Not only that but you can get it from online retailers for 26, with shipping.

You'd think electronic delivery would be cheaper...

Open source release takes Linux rootkits mainstream

David Hicks

@Gordon Fecyk

If you do everything on linux whilst logged in as root, you are a retard.

It's that simple.

Phorm: Our business is fine, honest

David Hicks
Paris Hilton

This should be opt-in only

Because the only way they'll get anyone to pass their data throught this system is by not advertising it widely and slipping it in under the radar.

What sane customer would want this?

Actually I think a lot of things should be opt-in only. It's too easy to claim ignorance of opt-out arrangments, or make it such a hassle that few do it.

And like many other things, it makes me wish the general populace were more computer literate and actually cared about the dilution and abuse of their rights. Far too many these days seem to equate human rights with "being soft on criminals".

Paris, because I don't think she's the exception to the rule.

Dell launches Inspiron 9 mini laptop

David Hicks
Happy

So not much cheaper than a 901

And with slightly worse specs and battery life.

OK, I'm not so annoyed I jumped on the first linux/atom machine I could.

As for 3G, well, you've got a mobile phone haven't you? Bluetooth the two together et voila!

Mythbusters RFID episode axed after 'pressure' from credit card firms

David Hicks
Unhappy

@you guys by AC

Who cares about counterfeit money, so long as there's not too much of it? The effect of that is to slowly dilute the value of money.

RFID allows someone to read my card details, clone them and then directly drain *my* bank account.

Different scales of consequence. One is national and slow, the other is personal and immediate.

David Hicks
Thumb Up

So as usual...

... the blackhats will work it out and abuse it, whilst those that seek to bring legitimate security concerns to the public are silenced.

Hurrah for lawyers!

Government kids database under fire, again

David Hicks
Unhappy

Ach, yet more monitoring

I already feel like I'm being watched all the time. Which I am, because I live in London. Every day it seems there's an announcement about a new database to keep track of who we are, where we go, what we do there and now this - a database to keep track of whether our children are fitting into society.

I am fed up to the back teeth with this government. We really need a full reset, a full legal review of all the laws on the books, all the public sector and all the programs and monitoring. Get government back to what it's supposed to do - serve and support the public. Not leech from and spy on the public.

The balance of power in this country is all wrong.

Dell Inspiron 910 mini-laptop to be a hardware hacker's dream?

David Hicks
Thumb Up

WWAN + WLAN + SoftAP

= Mobile hotspot in netbook form?

That's kinda cool.

Commodore launches little laptop

David Hicks
Thumb Up

Shame I just got the eee 901

Or this thing would be top of the list.

I loved my c64, and the logo alone would sell this thing to me.

US to give some rendition info at Gitmo trial

David Hicks
Unhappy

Should reveal it anyway

American intelligence be damned, if we've had a hand in this, or even knowledge of it at high levels, the gov't ought to come clean.

This sort of thing is a stain on our country and its history.

Debian delivers FreeRunner open-phone package

David Hicks
Thumb Up

I'm particularly interested in Debian on Freerunner

As I have lots of other debian machines, and the Openmoko firmware seems to be in something of a state of flux at the moment. Not only that but unreliable and unresponsive.

Time to give one of the major players a go on the hardware.

Teachers give toilet CCTV top marks

David Hicks
Black Helicopters

@Andy Turner

"Well of course they don't need them for the teachers

They're not bullying each other and vandalising the school. Of course it's "one rule for them and another for the kids", because the kids are behaving differently. If they want to be treated like adults, act like them too."

So what do I have to do to be treated like an adult in today's surveillance oriented utopia?

I don't want to be watched constantly either, as a law abiding adult, but that hasn't stopped anyone yet.

Pandora prepares to join titsup.com club

David Hicks
Unhappy

I still listen to Pandora

That's one of the benefits of having tunnels going all over the world.

It'll be a shame to see it go, I've found a lot of great, obscure stuff through them.

Road Pricing 2.0 is two years away

David Hicks
Thumb Down

Road Pricing 2.0 is two years away

David Hicks leaving the country 1.0 is now one point five years away.

I've had enough of all this.

US judge says University can ignore Christian course credits

David Hicks
Thumb Down

@AJ MacLeod

"As for the supposed incompatibility between Christianity and real personal freedom... just see how free the people living under anti-theist communist rule have been and are now."

yes, because communism is the only alternative to a christian theocracy right?

Honestly, it boggles the mind...

@Michael

"What concerns me is that the state university bases their objection on the notion that this history class is slanted in its world view."

Then be concerned no more, because they based it on the fact that the course did not adequately prepare the students to take their degree course.

It's that simple. It's not worldview or bias, it's that the educational material in these schools, teaching belief in the inerrancy of the bible and of fundamentalist religions, is directly opposed to the critical thinking required in a real academic history department.

Simply put, what they've learned is useless.

And to those who pity the children - if enough universities follow this example then maybe the parents will get the message and stop sending their children to these third rate indoctrination camps.

David Hicks
Thumb Down

@Tim Greenwood

Sorry mate, homeopathy has been shown to have no greater rate of success than the placebo effect - i.e. it's a load of old tosh I'm afraid.

David Hicks
Alien

@ Anonymous Coward

"Macro evolution is yet to be proven, as are all creation theories."

False, speciation has in fact been observed in extant species. Macro evolution has been proven beyond doubt.

Alien, because fundaMENTALists are as wilfully ignorant of reality as the conspiracy theorists.

David Hicks
Paris Hilton

@Richard Scratcher

Nobody believes Norse Mythology or claims it as the ineerant basis of history.

Im sure the university recognise courses in Christian Theology, just not it biblical science or other unfounded crap.

Top-secret Android handset surfaces on YouTube

David Hicks
Linux

@Thomas

"Clicking an icon on the dock causes it to jump up and down until the relevant program has finished loading."

Each to their own, but that would annoy the pants off me. Especially as it doesn't mean anything other than "The operating system acknowledges your click", not necessarily that your program hasn't hung at startup.

On thew whole design issue - that comes later. Right now they are building a platform and software stack on top of which design can later be put. Yes, design is important, but you need a rock to build it on.

Aussies: Eat roos, save the planet

David Hicks

@tom

I never did understand organisations like viva - what's inherently worse about eating Ostrich or 'Roo compared to Cow, Pig and Sheep?

Bah, guess I'll never understand them at all, anybody that doesn't appreciate a good steak is some sort of alien in my book.

I particularly dislike the fact that they took it upon themselves to harangue the supermarkets until they stopped stocking these meats.

It's my choice to eat them or not, not yours you filthy hippies.

David Hicks
Thumb Up

Mmm, tasty jumping meat

Whilst roo might be a bit tougher because they actually use their muscles rather than just kinda hanging around slowly gaining weight - it's darn tasty.

I had a nice rooburger last friday actually. Delicious with a bit of mustard and ketchup.

I'm all for it mate!