Posts by Josh

My local hospital

uses jammers to block cell signals in different parts of the building, such as the lobby to maternity and the ObER and delivery rooms, but not the maternity rooms themselves...isn't this just as likely to cause problems as the cell signal itself? If so, I don't buy the EMI stuff. They also provide wireless APs in some of the same jammed areas. I doubt the rfid tags will cause any problems if neither of the other two signals are, unless they just happen to be on poorly chosen frequencies. I think the equipment in the field is probably better equipped to handle such interference than we are told...seems to be the fear of the most remote chance that EMI could occur. I've not researched it, but I have never heard of any scenarios where actual EMI did occur and was noticed/reported/harmful.

How about ads?

will they be addressing such issues as advertised bandwidth and data rates?

Neurostimulator

"I'm also a bit curious why this was invented in the US, I'm not sure how much electricity's going to be generated walking from the house to the garage anyway....."

We have to start working on things like this now, while we still have some cheap energy source to power and produce all the crap we consume, like the car in said garage. When that source is gone, this technology will have been (hopefully) much more developed to power the future version of what devices you would bring in your car today.

Do you think it would be possible to generate more power from larger animals, like camels or horses?

RE:M&S Food to introduce new product range

Everytime I hear/read "Soylent Green" my mind instantly associates with baby feces.

RE:COnfused

It means the ISP portion of AOL will be split from the Advertising portion of the same.

What I want to know is why? Something to do with taxes? Or maybe reported revenue?

@jeremy

Don't forget about google.org

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20071127_green.html

Wondering...

Since the cards were winter themed and regarding temperatures, I would find this story even more ludicrous were we to find out there was a cartoon-ish thermometer complete with temperature marks (dipping below zero) printed on the cards...seems like the classic kind of cheese that gets printed on these things.

Has anybody seen one?

Streamripping

I've never seen internet radio broadcasted at such quality to make it remotely worth ripping. I am sure audiophiles would be even less inclined to use this as a source...

WTF?

This was invented by someone who has never done yoga...

OK maybe the inventor did yoga, but I suspect it would have to be because it was trendy at the time...

RE: A telescreen?

Your comment was along the lines of my first thoughts. However, I was soon reminded of the recent news regarding Bush signing a bill into law that broadens the federal government's electronic eavesdropping powers. I then realized that the only reason we don't already live in such a scenario is that there hasn't been a corporation insightful enough to realize the profit potential in first creating the device for US consumers, then secretly selling software to the US govt. that allows them access to these devices via the internet.

Or is this what this article is really about?

None

Growing up a military child, the first street name I remember living on is 'Interceptor'. Add that to the end of my first pet's name, and you have 'Pussy Interceptor'! Great fun in that, though it's downside is it sounds more like a title than a name.

Best visual aid of the day?

The two runners up are of course this site, and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/11/iphone_blended/

:P

Second thought

This is a demonstration of a problem I have noticed in Ohio:

For some reason, many organizations in Ohio rely on the technically challenged (Picture old bitty bragging: "I'm computer illiterate ..hahaha...") to hire all the techs and other IT sorts. You can see where proper selection and bullshit-filtering would become a problem. Added to that is the reality that dawns on the true techs who actually make it through the senseless hiring process: the idiots who almost hired the bullshit-with-many-acronyms-resume/interview person over the truly experienced tech is also in-charge of the other important decisions, such as your budget, or even the tools you are 'allowed' to use to do your job, or if that flashy new software the bullshit-with-many-acronyms-sales-brochure is touting as the next best thing actually does anything...

you get the picture.

Title

"The idea is not to stash away a thousand movies on a single disc, but to use the technology for secure long-term storage, the Prof said."

Can they be not one in the same?

Really though, I think it will be useful to many more than we imagine. "Backup techies" permeate many layers of society, through many industries.

I definitely see the US govt. needing this kind of backup capability. Just in defense alone, with all the integrated systems and projects being developed...imagine the kind of storage it takes to archive all the helmet-cam footage every soldier will one day have. On the other end of the spectrum, hospitals could make great use of these storing the various imaging records they produce through a year. Need a CAT scan from before Mrs. Johnson's embolism formed? Go get the disc labeled "2007".

I have only once ever scratched media to the point that a computer can't read it (and I have had some pretty badly scratched media in my time). I have even been able to read discs in a computer after having scraped dried wax from the surface. I would find it hard to believe that I somehow got all the wax out of the tiny scratches in the media...

Specifically, "long-term storage" indirectly indicates that the media will not be taken in and out of it's case and loaded into a reader many times, if ever, further minimizing the chance that the DVD will become unreadable due to scratches, should it ever need to be read.

Now if your REALLY serious about durable storage, even better than using tape, you could simply hand chisel the data into the inside surface of a hermetically sealed shipping container, then fly it to the freaking moon, and strap it down with 700 chains, then finally lock it into 50 feet of concrete-steel cluster-f*** mess. OR, If the data is so important to need saving for 5-50 years, buy a damned jewel case.

Agree

I like messing with things like this, but the hysteria is wrong. He isn't saying hacking is wrong as much as he is saying it's wrong that people have NOTHING better to do.

In addition, this struck me as extreme as well:

"The iPod had the greatest cultural impact of any piece of technology over the last ten years." This guy sounds personally offended by the comment. Did you forget about the CPE for broadband? Beginning about 10 years ago, this has been gradually introduced into many consumers' homes, making things like the ipod possible. How many songs would you download on a 56k?

Even just Windows XP has by far affected more people than the ipod has (not that it was necessarily a good thing). Or how about DVD players and discs? Remember how wifi changed the way people worked? Or how about digital cameras?

Get off your finger for a minute and think about what's coming out of your mouth rather than whats going in your ass.

Done that...

A long time ago. This was what i always thought was one of the coolest things about keyboards. Many a times this has saved us from someone spilling soda all down the keys. Brings a whole new meaning to 'sticky keys'.

Really..

This happens all the time. The difference is, this guy either did something really heinous they couldn't prove (and are taking him down on this), or he has failed miserably at 'office politics', and just pissed off the wrong cop.

You forget...

I don't think this is meant to be scrambled per se. The US has a lot of intelligence tracking the locations of missiles and launchers around the world. Remember the big raucous when we found out Kim Jong was setting up long range missiles for test launch? He didn't warn us before we knew, we saw them setting the things up. By the time they get the missile ready for launch, we should have the plane already within lethal range.

This is assuming, of course, that we're really on the ball, and that past discoveries of 'possible impending missile launches' haven't been operational flukes.

They really need to get this thing down to a smaller size, and launch about 24 of them into orbit...then it may actually be a deterrant to launches (e.g.:why waste the missile?)

RE:London WiFi points

Wondering if the survey done in NYC wasn't really just Manhattan?

Were there really only 6300 APs in all over the city? I would think there would be more, being that the city completely covers 5 of the most densely packed counties in the US. Can there really be only 6300 APs serving a city of more than 8 million people?

Wow...

This is just absurd...

Bandwidth

I worked at a cable co in the US for a few years. My experience has been that these (US) cable companies never have enough resources for the amount of users, in hopes that not everyone will jump on at the same time, thereby increasing the savings(profit). They even do this with DHCP leases for the devices attached to the CPEs. To save on server (and admin) costs, they don't have as many IPs as they have customers, and usually that works out OK. But then again, when everyone DOES get on at the same time, suddenly we're running out of IPs, the backbone latency starts to skyrocket (in a bad way, similar to DDOS...think 5 DS3s and a handful of DS1s connecting us to the big-boys (sprint, verizon, etc...), trying to feed ~10,000 subscribers, using 3 or 5 Mbps cable connections), and the tech support lines get so flooded they ring busy. Most customers know there is a system problem by that busy ring. What we aren't allowed to tell them is that although we accept payment for a service advertised as 3-5mbps, we don't have the capacity to allow every paying customer to get that throughput to the internet at the same time. What the customer is told when they call in is that "While we can't guarantee you will be able to obtain 3 or 5 mbps through our backbone to the big-boys and the internet, you ARE getting the 3 or 5 Mbps they pay for, and if you download a file from OUR SERVERS you will see the appropriate download rates. "

Sure you don't have to provide 3 or 5 mbps if the fine print reads 'actual rates may vary according to insert-PR-BS-here'; but that's just poor customer service, and that's why it is wrong.

Who in their right mind thinks a customer will happily (and knowingly) pay for the 'ability' to connect at those speeds, when they can't be reliably utilized?

As an analogy, some customers would call and ask if switching from 10mbs LAN to 100mbps LAN would improve their internet, and obviously, you're connection to the modem is 10xs faster, but not anywhere past that point in the route. All of them said something to the effect of 'then why bother paying to upgrade?'.

If the customer can't realize the value they are being sold on, they WILL leave, in search of something better, or at least more transparent. Also, I am highly suspicious of any company that blames their problems on their customers. It IS the companies responsibility to adapt to the customer's needs and want's, otherwise, someone else will, and you're left SOL, with no revenue.

You could say customers 'might' reach the full bandwidth potential they were sold on, causing a loss of service or high latency for other users, or you could just as easily say it is VM's fault, for not having the infrastructure that 'might' be required to keep everyones service usable. It all depends on which end of the fiber you look from, and which dotted line you signed on (or didn't). From the customer's point of veiw, 'Page cannot be displayed' means 'the service you are paying for is no longer available'. Even if it's wrong, that's what the customer expects, and if that can't be provided for, the customer will find someone who can.

Did Google know...

if it was a test or real, or were they completely unaware of this ad altogether?

How long will it be before Mr. Stevens is charged with attempting to infect machines by some overzealous prosecutor who knows dick about PC security?

"That's the kind of figure that might be recouped by selling access to compromised zombie machines, providing hackers had enough funds up front,..."

Not anymore, you just gave them your (cheaper and easier) source...

Not Discrimination...

On roommates.com part:

"Roommates.com requires people looking for roommates to fill out forms with personal information about themselves, as well as their preferences for their roommates. Through drop-down menus, registrants can state a desire to live with only straight males with no children, or with only lesbians with children, or several other similar combinations."

Key words being "registrants can state a desire to live with..."; roommates.com just allows it's customers to discriminate, which I didn't think was illegal when you are choosing who you will live with. (If it is, it shouldn't be)

And who was the dumbass who tried this case? Why would you want roommate listings delivered to you of people who have already decided they won't live with you anyway?

RE:mmm

By Stephen

Posted Tuesday 17th April 2007 13:42 GMT

"Banks are there to make money, just like any other business."

Banks have always and will continue to make their money on loans. These fees are just icing on the cake. The bank is not doing me a favor by holding my money, I am doing them one, by providing the capital they need to back these loans, however flawed the system may be. This is why banks pay you interest on monies on deposit; to compensate you for the time that you have spent separated from your money.

"Why should banks not be allowed to earn money if they have specified the exact charges that will apply if you do XYZ.. People say they should only be allowed to charge what it has cost them to administer these bounced cheques and such like... why?"

Because banks do get it wrong sometimes. Here's the deal where I live:

Many of the local banks are just now getting online. Obviously there are going to be bugs in those systems, so there will be inconsistencies in amount stated as your account balance, especially when you consider the ATMs are not on this network, and the tellers seem to be on a network of their own. All in all, you have 3 different sources of information on your balance, all saying three different amounts. Throw in the policy taken by ALL banks, that you are always wrong and they are always right when there is a balance discrepancy (though which of the 3 systems is right depends entirely on who you're talking to.), and you are left without the teeth of your own calculations. On top of all that, there are some mysterious processes at work here. I can start a month with 100$ in my account, and spend 99$ on one transaction, leaving 1$ left. This will show as the balance as well in most cases, but then again, sometimes the balance will show more or less, as if it's somehow possible to get anything other than 1 dollar when you remove 99 of them from 100.

This problem has become so widespread here, that most of the banks have had to put up signs saying they will not refund fees, so the tellers don't have to waste so much time telling people that. Have you ever seen software that was 100% bug-free from day one? Why are we supposed to believe banks have this , but no one else in the world can seem to produce it?

This is just the basics of it. We could go even further by talking about the wide variation in number of days/weeks it takes for supposedly instant transactions to take place, on top of the entire cashless society being pushed on us by banks (restrictive teller hours + minimal ATM locations + fees for using competitors ATM = I can't choose to use just cash anymore, unless I choose to never use a bank account, in which case I will never be able to obtain fair credit to buy a house or drive a car to work). This results in people having to keep track of many small transactions over the course of the already busy day, plus the addition of any fees they may have been charged by their bank AND any competing organizations which just happen to handle said transactions/withdrawals/deposits (but this is already moot, because the bank is right, not you), and still tell me with absolute certainty you know what is in your account without looking. Then tell me all these transactions were posted today, and not a month later when you have forgotten.

Makes me miss the days where I could tell how much money I had by adding the cash in my hand to the amount I was told was leftover when I withdrew it.

Keeping your own ledger works out very nice, but don't forget to check for fees that you may not have been aware of, and don't expect a bank to take your ledger seriously either.

Of course, this is all assuming we're not talking about fraudulent transactions.

RE: Heroes... Posted Thursday 19th April 2007 07:09 GMT

"sadly enough there could be now too many precedents to think that a "counter-threats class" is avoidable in modern schools."

That may be the best solution I've heard in all the years of schools shootings.

SSN?

Kids and folks with little or no disposable income are usually the only people who buy prepaid cellular in the US. These also happen to be the people who are least likely to have some sort of ID displaying a SSN. Not a big surprise here, we love making it hard for poor people to have luxuries in the US, no matter how inexpensive they may be. God forbid poor people get a cellie, they may launch a crime family and start bombing things.

If we're going to label this under homeland insecurity, I can understand the limit on numbers of phones bought at one time, or even needing an ID to buy more than 5(?) at a time, but not to just buy one. Besides that, do we really believe a terrorist is going to show his real ID when purchasing his bomb parts?

I like prepaid because it makes it easy and affordable to change providers, costs less to change my # (30.00 cingular VS 20.00 new prepaid phone), and because they can be obtained so cheap, if I damage my phone, I can get a new one instantly, for less than the cost of handset repairs or replacement for one of the contract plans, which may take anywhere from an hour to a couple of weeks.

Good thing I'm not in Texas, I might be tempted to find one of the local teens and buy him a 36 pack of nasty-lite in exchange for buying me a prepaid under his name and SSN, just to stick it to the bastards who created this waste of legislative power.

Why just XP?

"Dell is responding appropriately to a small minority of customers that had this specific request,"

What about the small minority of customers asking for linux, or no OS? Could Dell please respond appropriately to us as well? When you have to sell software that is over a half-decade old just to keep people buying Microsoft on a new machine, we really get a look at who has who by the balls.

Details

Did they even check to see who was listed at fault? Say I'm talking on my cell, rolling along in rush-hour gridlock, and someone rear-ends me because HE wasn't paying attention. What's that got to do with the phone? I know people who were sitting stopped, on the phone, and still got hit.

Also, what about the people who were not injured?

All this shows me is that if your in the hospital for a nasty wreck, you were more likely to have been talking on the phone at the time, not that it was necessarily caused by talking on the phone.

Finally, when will people learn to multi-task responsibly? I don't know about these folks, but if I'm talking on the phone, or doing just about anything else, my priority is the road, and I will block out/ignore the other party or just drop the phone if needs be. My life is worth more to me than the courtesy of saying "hold on" or "goodbye" before tossing the mobile. Think you look dumb? Imagine telling the other party you have to go because you wrecked your car not-paying attention, and you want to try to stop shitting yourself while the paramedics cut you out of your rolling deathtrap.

Re: A LOT

RE: Any one who said the police are to blame:

Besides all the common sense arguments already put forth against this, does anyone who has ever needed police in the past really believe they are likely to arrive in time? Based on my experiences ( and they are widely varying), I cannot both be at ease AND know I place nearly all of my personal safety in the hands of others, let alone the cops (who have been killing a steadily increasing number of unarmed people where I live).

RE:NRA

I can't say for sure, but I think American Media (in it's quest to 'generate' news) probably contacted the NRA for comment, and the NRA was dumb enough to give one.

RE:What the "but banning gauns dosn't" lobby misses...

"Is that there is every difference between a premediated crime andone of passion. Sure, a career criminal might get a gun in the UK. But if someone gets jilted, he won't have a gun on hand."

No, he'll just get a knife, or run me over with a truck, or get a can of gas and set me on fire, or any of the other thousand ways to kill someone. EVERYTHING becomes a dangerous weapon when in the hands of someone commiting a 'crime of passion'.

RE:Oooh boy

"I don't know about you, but when I think about going to the library, or the gym, or for lunch, I don't think "Must remember to pack a weapon in case some looney gets jilted"."

I don't think that either.

Nor do I think about the possibility of getting mangled in a car wreck; I still carry full coverage auto insurance, and I would bet you have something similar as well.

RE:what nonsense some people talk

"Try resarching per capita deaths from shootings, where the US has something like 80 times the number of deaths of the UK."

Do the same for Canada, where guns are not banned, and you will find similar results ( though there have been schools shootings in Canada). Again, this seems to indicate something deeper than the laws is wrong here. (See comment "Guns don't kill people ...

By Thomas Huxley")

Re: Crime of Passion

"Isn't that what the US Army is there for?"

Who will protect the American citizens from the US Army?

RE:RE Crime of Passion:

In the words of Jake Burns in the song, "Roots, Radics, Rockers and Reggae"

"Throw away the guns and the war is all gone."

You do realize that war was around for millenia before guns were, right? If you want to get rid of war, the biggest first step to take is to ban religion. Before guns were a part of war, untold millions died in the name of various gods...

RE: "it is only through guns that tyrants are kept in check."?!?!?!

"what PRECISELY keeping in check of the tyrant known as Bush have your guns achieved??"

What makes you think hes not already 'in check'? Do you honestly believe he is not capable of committing much more evil than he has already?

"Get real; criminals will ALWAYS get guns; it is EXACTLY this type of massacre that disarming normal people will avoid."

What does this statement mean? You talk of disarming normal people, right after stating criminals will always get guns.

RE:You leave us alone

Love your first paragraph, however, please don't group all Americans with the nut bag you quoted. These people are a dying group in America. We are moving away from xenophobism, towards the ultimate discrimination: Me above all.

RE:Guns don't deter guns!

"The thing that, surprisingly, hasn't been pointed out yet is that even the best marksman in the world cannot deflect a flying bullet!"

But we're talking about a chance to save a life here. The 1st shooter might miss, but not the marksman. Also, such an incredible marksman would also be likely to have incredible speed, maybe getting a shot off as soon as the other guy levels his weapon to aim.

"There will always be criminals and if you want to deter them from having or using guns you need to make it harder for them to get them." Or you could try to deter them from being criminals.

Re: My $0,02

Posted Tuesday 17th April 2007 15:50 GMT

THANK YOU

RERe: "it is only through guns that tyrants are kept in check."?!?!?!

By adam

I support the 2nd amendment....but I don't agree with one single thing in your list. See how you are prejudicially assuming things about everyone who doesn't agree with you single viewpoint?

RE:An appropriate time to bear a firearm

I'm glad to hear that you were able to help yourself. Statistically speaking, you're lucky to have kept control of the gun, but then again, you were screwed without it to begin with...

This was all a terrible mistake, and a tragedy on many levels. The silver lining I find is the amount of arrogance, ingorance, and hate people still hold for each other has been laid bare in a national spotlight. Still, I fear this will not matter to most people in a week, and everyone will be blamed but the shooter, because Americans no longer understand the phrase "Personal Responsibility".

Where are we?

"If we can't trust people with top-security clearance, where are we?"

How about you start with firing the people who gave them such clearance, as well as those who trained said people.

doesn't disrupt subscribers' existing service

They don't want to disrupt subscribers' service, and it seems they don't want to do anything to protect it either. <sarcasm>It's OK if 'hackers' can disrupt your service, as long as Be doesn't actively participate in the cause of the problem</sarcasm>.

Also, how laughable that the customers came up with a fix AND made it available before the provider could even get one that doesn't bump the boxes...