* Posts by Haku

1902 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Apr 2007

Kodi-pocalypse Now? Actually, it's not quite here yet

Haku
WTF?

Muddy waters.

This Torrentfreak article UK Govt Refuses to Back Down Over Criminalization of File-Sharers (March 6, 2017) says that the government wants to bring online piracy jail sentences up to the level of offline piracy jail sentences; up to 10 years...

But in another article, UK ‘Pirates’ Get 20-Day Grace Period After Each Warning (January 25, 2017) we're told that people in the UK who are caught using bittorrent to download copyrighted media will only get a warning email, and if they continue to pirate then they'll get another warning email but the next one won't be sent out within 20 days of the previous warning and no action will be taken beyond warning emails.

Although apparently you won't get done for using Kodi etc. to stream copyrighted media you haven't paid for, however if you sell Kodi boxes in the UK you're likely to get arrested: UK Police Arrest Man For Selling 'Pirate' Kodi Devices (December 21, 2016).

Talk about mixed messages.

Reg Lecture: Sex, AI, Robots and You

Haku

BT splurges £1.2bn on securing Champions League rights, Sky heads for an early bath

Haku
Unhappy

So my broadband cost is going up to pay for something you'd have to pay me to watch.

Makes perfect sense.

Did you know? Amazon does film production – and it treats those workers like dirt, too*

Haku

Re: Typical Hollywood

Ain't that the truth, David Prowse who acted one of the most iconic film characters in history, Darth Vader, once said this:

“I get these occasional letters from Lucasfilm saying that we regret to inform you that as Return of the Jedi has never gone into profit, we’ve got nothing to send you. Now here we’re talking about one of the biggest releases of all time,” said Prowse. “I don’t want to look like I’m bitching about it,” he said, “but on the other hand, if there’s a pot of gold somewhere that I ought to be having a share of, I would like to see it.”

Haku

I bet they didn't short change Hammond, May & Clarkson....

US military drone goes AWOL, ends up crashing into tree 623 miles away

Haku

D.A.R.Y.L.?

Two-thirds of TV Licensing prosecutions at one London court targeted women

Haku

Re: Salesmen?

It turns out you can polish a turd, but that doesn't stop it being a turd, or leaving you with dirty hands.

Prisoners' 'innovative' anti-IMSI catcher defence was ... er, tinfoil

Haku
Facepalm

Re: Ready for the down votes, but...

"Isn't it about time Ofcom arrived in the 21st century and licensed low powered jammers?"

Yeah sure that'll work, because everyone knows you can make radio waves stop at a specific distance without having to resort to any sort of metal shielding....

Planned 'cookie law' update will exacerbate problems of old law – expert

Haku

I hope it means an end to this bollocks:

"This in-your-face annoying popup is obscuring part of our website because by law we have to tell you we use cookies to track you. You can go ahead and click that little X in the corner but it won't do any good other than make this message go away, we're still going to track you. [X]"

Because browsing in incognito mode or using cookie scrubbers makes browsing the web bloody frustrating with all those mandated by law popups.

Amazon's AWS S3 cloud storage evaporates: Top websites, Docker stung

Haku

Over exaggeration.

People who flippantly use phrases such as:

"That's like half the internet."

"It's all over Facebook."

"It broke the internet."

Should be made to stand in a cherry picker in front of a blackboard the size of a skyscraper and write out a billion times "I will not exaggerate ever again."

Two million recordings of families imperiled by cloud-connected toys' crappy MongoDB

Haku

The rush to bring a product to market overlooked security?

No surprises there.

On a similar note it's probably about time encryption was introduced as a standard to the radio control hobby market, because it's apparently fairly easy to hijack someone's drone if you have the right kit with a bit of knowledge, and it wouldn't surprise me if someone decides they can make some money selling an easy to use drone hijacking device.

There would be a danger it's a run-of-the-mill ~1kg camera drone being operated in the vicinity of pedestrians (which it probably shouldn't be), but could be so much worse if the drone in question were a large hexacopter / octocopter capable of carrying cinema quality cameras that weighs many kilos and can cost 10's of thousands.

Sony: Never mind the phones – look out at what our crazy lab scientists have done

Haku

Do people actually want robots/computers that only communicate verbally?

Or is it a case of R&D depts thinking we do because so many popular sci-fi tv shows & films have some sort of voice communication between people & machines?

Gov wants to make the UK the 'safest place in the world to go online'

Haku

Next they'll want to make website blacklists a thing of the past.

By making website whitelists instead.

Isn't that what North Korea have done?

Autonomous cars are about to do to transport what the internet did to information

Haku
Facepalm

Autonomous cars will be great... ...until they're hacked

Oh, they've already started?

Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It - Wired (YouTube)

Machines taught how to 'smell' by new algorithm. How will they cope with shower-dodging nerds?

Haku
Coat

How will they cope with shower-dodging nerds?

Easy.

Said nerds will simply hack the code to make it ignore certain smells.

I want it hot and wet – preferably with Wi-Fi

Haku

Re: Where was this, pray tell?

Really? From your description I could've sworn you were in somewhere like this.

Ad men hope blocking has stalled as sites guilt users into switching off

Haku

Tracking = unsettling

There's something very unsettling when you visit a website and see an advert for a specific product you were looking at on a previous, completely unrelated website.

That and animated adverts can GTFO, especially flash ones.

More brilliant Internet of Things gadgetry: A £1,300 mousetrap

Haku

£1,300 and it only catches ONE mouse before it needs to be reset?

For a mere fraction of that price you can make your own trap that can catch lots before needing to be 'reset':

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rotating+bottle+trap

Gulp! Drones dodge spray from California's gaping moist glory hole

Haku

It does resemble a bumhole...

On that note, has anyone played pooh sticks with it yet?

UPS & drones: Delivery company launches UAV from truck

Haku

I see UPS now wants some free advertising after seeing Amazon get theirs.

/cynic

BT and Virgin Media claim 'broadband' tax will cost £1.3bn

Haku

Big businesses complaining about paying tax?

Awww diddums.

Get it while it's hot: NASA's Space Poo contest winners wipe up $30k

Haku

There once was a comedy show called "Testees" a few years back, about two guys who made a living from testing random stuff.

If a space toilet need testing then these poor saps would be lumbered with the job.

A dark and depraved comedy, with some hilarious moments, so should appeal to the average Reg poster here reading these comments :)

Haku

I'd hate to be in the same pod as the 'cork guy' if there was a sudden decompression...

UK prof claims to have first practical blueprint of a quantum computer

Haku
Happy

Re: Thumbs up for the use of the word 'bollocks'.

That's the spirit!

Perhaps the next word we need to er spread the word of is 'numpty' which has the benefit of sliding past most swearword filters on websites and in games.

Haku

Re: Where's Captain Cyborg?

Maybe he had a failed firmware upgrade and is waiting for someone to reboot him.

Haku
Thumb Up

Thumbs up for the use of the word 'bollocks'.

I believe we need to use this word a lot more, to the point where hopefully it'll enter the venacular of residents of other countries.

Kids these days will never understand the value of money

Haku

Re: Is there any great change from our point of view?

It's almost like we need a VPN service for electronic money so 'they' can't track what we're spending it on.......Bitcoin?

Haku

All just numbers on a screen...

"...everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy..."

"...and then when you ran out of money you just go well I can't do any more things now..."

-- Louis CK

I'm of the "if I don't have the money I'm not buying it on credit" mindset which is why I don't have any debts and have trouble understanding people who have the means to live debt free but are in continual debt through loans &/or not paying off their credit card statement each month fully through their own choice of wanting to live beyond their means.

I like paying for things in cash whenever I can because it's a tangible form of money that gives me a sense of how much I've spent and how much I have left, rather than looking at numbers on a screen that aren't always as up to date as the physical money in your wallet.

Maybe I'm just getting old, the few grey hairs in my beard are suggesting this too...

Get orf the air over moi land Irish farmer roars at drones

Haku

So you can't shoot at drones...

...but what about a catapult and a bag of self-destructing ammunition? (ice cubes)

Grumpy Trump trumped, now he's got the hump: Muslim ban beaten back by appeals court

Haku

*grabs popcorn*

Ahh, today's tantrump episode to muse over.

I'm gonna get fat from all this popcorn if he carries on like this for the next 4 years :(

Scottish court issues damages to couple over distress caused by neighbour's use of CCTV

Haku

Re: CCTV coverage, where is the line drawn?

Unfortunately the police didn't say it in writing about suggesting CCTV, and entire wall removal could get tricky because part of it is integrated into the structure of 2 houses.

The BBC news website reported in January this year that councils have said lorries should be banned from using satnavs for cars as lorry specific ones know details about low bridges & narrow roads, although enforcing it could prove tricky, especially if for example a lorry driver had the right satnav installed but choose to use their smartphone instead because they tried to use a shorter/quicker route, or simply ignored the satnav.

Haku

Re: CCTV coverage, where is the line drawn?

It probably won't 'fly' because a neighbour a few doors away has just recently become a councillor and would quickly notice it. Although god knows how he got that position - he got an ASBO some years back, I forget what incedent caused it but he's been a general arsehole to his neighbours for decades.

Maybe he'll get a sign sorted but I doubt it as he doesn't have the same issue with the narrow road we do.

Haku

CCTV coverage, where is the line drawn?

The curved road immediately outside our house is only wide enough for one vehicle to pass, the drystone wall next to the road gets knocked almost on a regular basis from lorries using satnav, which over the years has resulted in broken stones and a few times a section of the wall being knocked right down.

When it came to filing a police report of the latest knock down incedent (the wall was only just rebuilt a couple of weeks ago) they asked us if we had CCTV footage of the incedent and I think they suggested we get some installed to get the vehicle and hopefully the registration plate 'on film' due to the regularity of poor lorry drivers.

I'm easily capable of installing such a HD system to capture footage of every vehicle & their registration plate that passes, but it would also capture high quality footage of everyone who also walks past, including the many parents and their children walking to the primary school just along the road.

Do I install the system and hope nobody complains? Or just leave it to the insurance company to keep forking out for the stupid lorry drivers that blindly follow their satnavs?

We have tried to get the council to put up signs at the ends of the road warning lorry drivers but they said no.

Want to come to the US? Be prepared to hand over your passwords if you're on Trump's hit list

Haku

Re: Our Huddled Masses

"We'll be busy building a wall all around our borders

Reminds me of the dystopian anime film "Vexille" where Japan sealed its borders physically and electronically with a giant EM dome so nobody could enter/leave or communicate with the outside world.

Spoiler alert:

Years later the US navy breaks in and discovers everyone had been infected with nanotechnology that replaced all their cells which turned them into synthetic people, but something went wrong with the nanobots because everyone lost their free will and became lifelike machines.

Prepare your popcorn: Wikipedia deems the Daily Mail unreliable

Haku

Re: It might not be the Newspaper of Record...

"there's no newspaper or publication (perhaps the Encyclopedia Britannica??) that should be considered a reliable source without further research."

Sounds like you're referring to Wikipedia...

Cardiff researchers get £250k to monitor Brexit hate crime on Twitter

Haku

Re: Free speech

It really makes me laugh when people cry that their "free speech" is being curtailed on privately owned websites.

Haku
Devil

Tracking people who post shit on the internet?

They should find me easily, I've been posting shit on the internet for over 20 years now.

Euro bloc blocks streaming vid geoblocks

Haku

Wonderful news!

That means when I go to Europe from the UK I'll be able to...........bollocks!

Who's behind the Kodi TV streaming stick crackdown?

Haku
Alien

"a conspiracy needs two people"

Well that nullifies a lot of the 'information' spewed by conspiracy theorists on the internet.

Another day, another cloud price cut – from partly free to all free

Haku

Free cloud storage? I'm waiting to get paid to use cloud storage.

Apparently BT have given me 500GB cloud storage because I'm on Infinity 2, though I haven't even bothered investigating it after years of being with the service.

Why? Because like virtually all of those services as soon as you stop paying you lose access to it. My harddrives don't need regular payments to keep working.

Vapists rejoice! E-cigs lower cancer risk (if you stop smoking, duh)

Haku

Re: Aussie smokers are in for a rough ride.

If you're in America or have access to a VPN service in the US then this is certainly worth a watch. Aired in 2014 but the situation hasn't changed much since:

VICE on HBO Season One: Addiction (Episode 7) (YouTube)

A Vice reporter goes to Indonesia where they think that smoking doesn't cause cancer but in fact cures it, and there's no legislation against tobacco advertising. The culture of smoking there is so open and lax that children start smoking at age 6...!

Haku

Aussie smokers are in for a rough ride.

Australia plans to keep increasing the price of a pack until they're AUD$40 (£24).

So either you quit, or move on to vaping, or buy on the black market, or you've definitely got more money than sense.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38733502

Police drones, robo surgeons and chatbot civil servants. What could go wrong?

Haku

Re: "The UK should also take a look at using drones for policing, apparently."

Or property managers...!

Haku
Terminator

"The UK should also take a look at using drones for policing, apparently."

So this is the next stage of our dystopian future that was triggered by Brexit & Trump?

Big Tech files anti-Trump brief: Immigration ban illegal and damaging to business

Haku

"He could say he opposes serial killers working in child care and the left would protest"

*cough*bullshit*cough*

Trump's immigration clampdown has Silicon Valley techies fearing for their house prices

Haku

I bet Donald has been having a tantrum(p) or two over the past couple of days:

Trump bid to restore travel ban rejected - BBC News

David Hockney creates new Sun masthead. Now for The Reg...

Haku

Re: El Reg and Sun, hmm...

Thanks, though being awake for 20 hours now I just realised it could've been a lot easier to make the image using a different word, so I did:

http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/VforVulture.jpg

And that's me done for the day.

Haku
Coat

Re: Right to much serious

You know that old adage "An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay"?

No it doesn't, I damn nearly broke my jaw trying to chew an iPad!