* Posts by h4rm0ny

4560 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jul 2008

Dev gives HBO free math tips to nail Game of Thrones pirate leakers

h4rm0ny

>>"How about spending a lot less trouble and creating equasions that result in widely and fairly distributed content rather than noosing anyone who doesn't comply with your barbaric demands?"

I had a go at such an equation and came up with this:

Cost of Production + Profit = Fee per copy * Number of Pirates.

But I still can't come up with a value for Number of Pirates that makes it balance. Maybe if I set a negative value for Profit...?

h4rm0ny

It's not a matter of whether there are a group of pirates from different regions willing and able to co-operate. That's one requirement (and not a small one given these pirates compete with each other to be the first to release stuff, btw), but it's not the only requirement. It's also a matter of having to compromise multiple sources and about the distributor knowing which ones are compromised.

Right now the studio knows only that at least one of its recipients were compromised. With this, they can say: "studio X and Y in Poland were compromised, also studio Z in the UK". They can then proceed on that basis - this is valuable information. And if it were just one recipient that were compromised they would not merely have a shortlist of suspects, they would KNOW which one it leaked from. Also, it is harder to compromise many recipients than one.

You seemed determined to argue against this on a basis of lack of perfection. In fact, this is a very good and useful solution and the possible ways you point out to defeat this are partial and also more and more difficult the more recipients you hope to compromise.

h4rm0ny

>>There's also the issue that the screener copies can get stolen without the screener's knowledge,

Just because a solution isn't perfect, doesn't mean it isn't good. Whether it is stolen from a particular recipient or they handed it over knowingly, it still narrows down your investigation a huge amount.

>>"Plus, as noted, some pirates are determined to cover their tracks and are willing to cooperate with others to cover each other's butts by collaborating on their copies to defeat watermarks"

Doesn't matter. It changes the requirement from needing one compromised source to several in order to pull off this "co-operation". You are supposing many sources to be compromised and conspiring. If there are few or only one, you have again narrowed your investigation enormously.

Microsoft points at Skype, Lync: You two, in my office – right now

h4rm0ny

Re: Yeah, it's great but...

Incorrect. Firstly, privileged parties do get to review the source code of MS products for security reasons such as this. Secondly, whilst you might not notice, there are plenty of parties that would notice Lync reaching out of your network to send your information back to MS HQ. Kapersky Labs would be on that faster than you can say "lawsuit". It's neither in MS's best interests nor their capabilities to pull this. Would you really want to chance the reputation of your flagship product (Office) on the idea that no-one would ever monitor their network traffic, no security specialist would ever test it and none of the numerous people who would have to be in the know in your company would ever blow the whistle? Short answer: you're a raving paranoid who hasn't thought this through.

What is not paranoid however (but slightly more on topic) is the idea that a really good product (Lync) will be screwed over by a forced merge with a pretty awful product (Skype) for the sake of Marketing trying to monetize the Skype user base.

National Grid's new designer pylon is 'too white and boring' – Pylon Appreciation Society

h4rm0ny

>>"And what about rights for Pyladies?"

I prefer Yoga.

h4rm0ny

>>"I don't think anyone who's a member of the "Pylon Appreciation Society" has the right to call anyone or anything else boring..."

You're commenting on a news story about pylon colours. Just saying...

h4rm0ny

Re: White pylon

I think it's not my place to say what colours or patterns they should have. It should be thrown open to local communities. Schedule days when they can be turned off and provide some scaffolding and paint, and let people turn up and decorate them. What's the worst that could happen?

Microsoft's top legal eagle: US cannot ignore foreign privacy laws

h4rm0ny

Re: turn it round ...

>>"The idea that Kelly was murdered is frankly pretty absurd"

You have no idea what you are talking about. Many very respectable people consider it a very serious possibility and we had a very major inquiry into it (the Hutton report) and several members of parliament called for that campaign. You have, I'm going to repeat this, no idea what you're talking about. For example your following two comments:

>>"Here's a guy with very loose connections to the Iraq thing"

Assuming if by "the Iraq thing" you mean the invasion of Iraq, he did not have "very loose connections". He was one of the chief weapons inspectors for the UN, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in uncovering Saddam's biological weapons programs the first time around. He was one of the world's foremost experts on Iraq's weapons capabilities and treated as such being an advisor to both JIT and British Intelligence services on the subject. He was also one of the proof-readers of the dossier which was the legal basis for UK involvement in Iraq. Only a special kind of ignorance could say he "had very loose connections to the Iraq thing" and I'm saddened to find that I'm conversing with an idiot. Your second statement is similarly imbecilic:

>>with no real voice (literally)

He was the primary source of information on this to the one of the UK's biggest newspapers and undermined the entire legal basis for war. The information he provided (which is subsequently shown to be true, btw) was read or listened to by most of the nation. And you call that "no real voice (literally)". He was an official advisor to the UN and the UK government! No voice? He was a major voice in what you call "the Iraq thing".

You've just typed his name into a search engine, haven't you? You have no conception of the context for any of this. For example you write:

>> If the assumption is the government goes around arbitrarily killing people who simply criticise it

Clearly you have no idea what was actually at stake here. This wasn't someone "criticizing" the government. In order for British Prime Minister to take Britain to war, there had to be a legal basis to do so. Do you get that? We would not have gone to war without a legal basis to do so and the British Prime Minister would have been convicted of war crimes for doing so. Got that? The legal basis for war came down to Britain arguing that Iraq had WMDs. And here was one of their own chief weapons inspectors who had led big parts of the investigations formerly, saying there was not a case for this.

For you to present this as the UK government killing people for "criticizing it" shows a complete ignorance of what you're talking about. Without a case that Iraq had WMD, there was no legal basis for war and the UK would not have been able to go to war. That was what was at stake and Kelly threatened that. Hundreds of thousands of people died in Iraq and many British soldiers amongst them. It's not as if the architects of that war didn't think there would be such casualties. If people are knowingly able to cause that much death for whatever reason, do you really think one more body in the foundations would stop them? It defies all logic to suppose people would commit to a course of action that condemned huge numbers of people to death yet allow one more life to stand in their way. Are you arguing that British Intelligence lacks the capability to arrange a suicide? Of course not. Are you arguing they don't have motive? Of course they do as demonstrated. Are you saying the architects of the Iraq war would shy away from killing someone? By definition, they haven't. So what is it in all this that you are calling "frankly pretty absurd"?

And all this ignorance on your part in order to try and construct some case against Russia! One can point out flaws in Russia without having to pretend one's own government never gets blood on its hand.

h4rm0ny

>>"They could, or they could go the licensing route, but both of those options mean the Microsoft name can't be on the product, which means it will be a much harder sell"

"HP Cloud - A Microsoft Azure Partner".

The branding side of this is actually the easiest part. It's the business organization and contractual sides that would be a (surmountable) nuisance. I actually think the biggest concern for Microsoft and other American businesses, is the PR hit from if they end up handing over customer data to the US government - that's something they're extremely keen to avoid.

h4rm0ny

Re: turn it round ...

>>"They can't even frame people for assassinating Putin's political adversaries right."

Well we left Dr. David Kelly with a barely-plausible suicide in the woods and then ordered there not to be a proper inquest - it's not like Britain is either unwilling to kill inconvenient people when the stakes are high enough, or necessarily perfect at hiding it when they do.

(No black helicopter icon - the Kelly case is far from some tangled and improbable conspiracy, it's depressingly likely that he was killed on the orders of someone in our own government.)

h4rm0ny

>>"Do you really think it's a moral decision on Microsoft's part?"

Obviously not. I don't think anyone including the person you replied to thinks that MS lack self-interest! :D But the point is that they are currently the "Good Guys" because privacy is a selling point to us and MS will do anything to get our money - up to an including good things on occasion.

It's why I always prefer to pay for my software than to use a Freemium model. I want people to compete for my money on quality and ethics, rather than cost and hidden data mining.

h4rm0ny
Headmaster

Re: "US cannot ignore foreign privacy laws"

>>"Microsoft, along with the likes of Red Hat might survive, as they sell the software behind a lot of cloud infrastructure, but you can wave goodbye to Facebook, WhatsApp, Azure, AWS, iCloud, Outlook.com, Office365, Salesforce etc. "

They wont go away. It will have very serious consequences, but they have options. Azure from the technical side already has everything it needs to do proper data segregation and indeed it does it already. If Microsoft lose (and I seriously hope for them, us and the US IT industry that it doesn't), then they pull some corporate shellgame and appoint licensor corporations in Europe and Asia that under strict controls allow them to be "Azure Partners" or whatever terminology Microsoft come up with.

MS are mildly evil, not stupid. There are a number of ways they can divest themselves of "control" but ensure the money keeps coming in. Azure already functions in a way that allows this, it's the costly restructuring and headaches that come with doing it on the legal / corporate structure side that would be the problem. Also the PR fallout from losing this case and handing over European data to the US government would harm them.

AWS have to do a little more work on proper data segregation (I think) but basically have the same options available to them. RedHat can pretty much roll on as they are now regardless of how this plays out. Salesforce I don't know much about.

Do androids dream of herding electric sheep?

h4rm0ny

Re: No shit Sherlock!

>>"You don't actually know any farmers, do you?"

Nope. Now tell me how that invalidates a statement that drones will continue to improve in capability.

>>"Post proof or retract."

Inductive reasoning. People have been able to fly toy planes and toy helicopters for decades. Drones are no harder than these. Actually, the better ones are noticeably easier. Why would there be some special exception for drones. Flying a drone is easier than all sorts of things people do routinely. Ergo, most people can fly or rapidly learn to fly a drone. Ergo, this is not a barrier to drones being successfully used.

>>"The older dawgs do the work as the pups learn the drill. Lather, rinse, repeat."

Well there you go - I was saying it took at least a year investment to train up a dog. Now you're telling me it's actually a multi-generational investment. So that's even more of an advantage just being able to buy a drone has.

>>"Which is how it works. Growing mutton on a large scale isn't something that happens on a whim."

I have no idea what you think that has to do with anything I wrote other than it leads me to think what you're somehow hearing is someone saying farming is trivial and getting angry.

>>"Nope. Unless you think that purchasing a drone (or eight) and a thousand or so sheep will automatically make you a successful sheep rancher. In which case, you are completely deluded."

See previous point - you somehow are hearing things I've never said at all. I've just said that I think it very probable that drones can replace sheepdogs and automate some of the herding work in a way that a sheepdog cannot.

>>"You obviously don't understand farming. The critters work best (and are tastier!) on a set schedule."

You obviously don't understand what you're reading. I just made the argument that drones will be able to adapt to complex schedules without human intervention whereas you are trying to counter-argue that by saying animals work best to a set schedule. I know - that's what I just wrote: animals get used to a set schedule. Drones will be able to work to any schedule you program without it making any difference.

>>"Of course it is. But dicking around with the critters internal clocks will make them taste like ass."

I don't believe for a second that shifting schedules around a bit makes sheep meat taste discernibly different and just because your drone will be able to vary its schedule doesn't mean you have to be moving sheep around every half hour. It's a capability that is useful from time to time which sheepdogs don't have because sheepdogs can't read an online calendar.

What I'm hearing from this and your previous posts, is someone who either loves sheepdogs or considers sheepfarming a specialist career, getting angry with someone who points out that technology is making some aspect of it easier. And not actually reading what they say very well, either.

h4rm0ny

Re: No shit Sherlock!

>>"Really? Any technologically illiterate sheep farmer can "go into a shop and buy one", and suddenly be able to dispense with the dawgs? What colo(u)r is the sky in your world?"

Yes, eventually. As I wrote, that is not the case now. That IS where things lead. And I'm English so the colour of the sky is generally "grey" since you ask.

Also, I don't know why you suppose a sheep farmer should be technologically illiterate. This isn't the Eighties anymore. People who can't use a drone are a minority now, I would say.

>>"It's not "a year or so of training", it's a lifetime of running the farm. Puppies learn from the adults. Farmers aren't exactly "I want it NOW" kind of folks"

I'm pretty sure that it IS a "year or so of training" for a sheepdog to go from puppy to useful animal. If you're arguing for it actually being longer than this or multi-generational (puppies learn from the adults), then you're making an even stronger case for people to adopt drone approaches than I am!

>>"Why yes. Yes I can. And that's "dawgs" not "dawg". They know the routine, and follow it. Including opening and closing gates when necessary."

I don't believe you. You can't decide that on Monday to Friday you want sheep in field A at 7:30, but on Saturday to move them over to field B at 15:00pm and have a sheepdog take care of all that unattended. With a drone, that is foreseeable technology.

h4rm0ny
Terminator

Re: No shit Sherlock!

Early versions of a technological solution often are inferior to a trained specialist. But what they provide is ease of access. The early crossbows were inferior longbows in pretty much every way, but you could give them to a mass of peasants and teach them to use it in an hour - a longbow took a lot of practice. This iteration of a sheep-herding drone might not be as good as an experienced sheep farmer and a grown, trained sheepdog. But you can go into a shop, buy one, and suddenly the year or so of raising and training of a sheepdog is unnecessary.

And after a technological solution has made something mass-available, the next step is often parity in performance, finally followed by replacement.

Can you tell your sheepdog to go out at particular hours of the day and move your sheep around without you? I would imagine a sheep-herding algorithm is fairly simple in the grand scheme of things.

US govt bans Intel from selling chips to China's supercomputer boffins

h4rm0ny

Re: Excellent

Maybe a Chinese consortium would like to put in a bid for AMD. The company has always had a lot of talent and has always suffered through lack of cash. They would also make an astronomically better starting point for a chip designer than starting from scratch (or trying to re-implement Intel technology without assistance).

h4rm0ny

Re: I wonder...

>>"The US national debt is a problem for China not the USA."

Kind of. I'm familiar with the joke about owing the bank a million dollars and it's still funny and still contains truth. But it's not that simple. Both the USA and China have constraints on them due to the size of the debt. China can't just call it all in and sink the US economy without hurting themselves (and they wouldn't be able to anyway, due to all the safe-guards and options built into such loans). But whilst they can't choke the USA to death, they can put the squeeze on in any number of ways. The USA should take care with this.

h4rm0ny

This is so stupid it's almost funny.

Scratch that. I actually laughed out loud at this story. It's a gallows laugh - the depression at the short-sighted stupidity of this will settle in shortly.

The USA is still fighting from the idea that they're on top and can keep others down. That idea is out of date and the actions that would make sense from that point of view now translate into alienating near-equal partners and making enemies of them.

Saudis go ape, detain Swedish monkeys at border

h4rm0ny

Re: Thank gawdess the poor little critters didn't get shipped!

>>"If they did, they probably would have been ordered beheaded or stoned to death as spies"

Hartlepool and Saudi Arabia. They're in good company with each other, it seems.

h4rm0ny

Re: Pulling a Wikipedia?

>>"No, that's the picture the guy initially claimed was taken without him knowing, after he had put his camera down and left it. After it was pointed out that therefore the monkey owned the picture, his story changed to one where he encouraged the monkey to use his camera, which thereby assigned the copyright to him"

Really? Can you back that up? Or is it a factoid made up later by a Wikimedia supporter? He had specifically travelled around the world to photograph the macaques, he had purchased the equipment he spent a week slowly getting the monkeys familiar with himself so that they would be comfortable around him and his equipment, he set up cameras ready, he did the expert work of photo selection, post-production work (I can tell you for a fact that photos don't just come off the SD card looking like that). And at the end of all that, Wikimedia Foundation take his most lucrative and valuable return on all that expense and effort, and start posting it without recompense because they say a monkey activating the camera makes it uncopyrightable. Better throw out all those BBC wildlife documentaries as well because the camera they set up was auto-triggered by a wandering animal in the night (despite that in both cases, that was the intent of the photographers).

Honestly, Wikipedia's attitude to other people's work is sickening.

h4rm0ny
Alert

Pulling a Wikipedia?

I hope El Reg. is using that picture with permission. That's the one that the Wikipedia zealots declared was free to use because the camera was activated by a monkey, not the photographer.

Microsoft goes cloud KERR-AZY, chops Windows Server to bits

h4rm0ny
Facepalm

Re: 92 per cent smaller...

You see a smaller memory footprint as a negative you should be compensated for? Interesting. You must be greatly disappointed that the latest iPad isn't 5% the cost of those inch-thick old Windows tablets. After all, it's a lot thinner.

Streak life: Oz woman flashes boobs at Google Street View car

h4rm0ny

Re: Naked he-boobies legal. Naked she-boobies not. Explain.

>>"At the end of the spectrum, wasn't there some suggestion 4 - 5 years ago that Australian censors were to ban A-cup size or smaller, 'cos they might be mistaken for underage girls?"

There were rulings by the Australian government / courts that banned pornography (video or stills) that featured women who "looked underage" regardless of their actual age. It was suggested / implied by this that women with small breasts would get included in this, essentially being banned from pornography in Australia. Though obviously a woman in her fifties with small breasts would not be caught by the law, in practice it means that many women in their twenties (potentially even thirties in some cases) might be ruled "underage porn" because they had small breasts. The law passed in 2005. I don't know if it's ever been modified or how much it was applied so cannot comment on that.

An Australian senator is on record as saying that pornography of women with small breasts "encouraged paedophilia".

US Senate to probe the Obama-Google love-in

h4rm0ny

Actually, Google outspend Microsoft on lobbying. Given the current situation described in the article, it looks like Microsoft have been outbid.

Project Spartan: We get our claws on Microsoft's browser for Windows 10

h4rm0ny

Re: Cortana, Spartan...

>>"Anything related to the Internet and online services, I'll stay far away from Microsoft."

I'm fine with many of their services, but you're right about Cortana. It (and it is an "it" not a "she"), wont run without access to your emails and possibly your txt messages as well. Which is a deal-breaker for me as I wont allow that. And it's an unpleasant decision on MS's part as well as this isn't necessary for Cortana to work. If I am happy to use basic aspects of Cortana - such as making appointments in my calendar) without the invasive profiling aspects, then that should be my choice. But MS are clearly wanting to tie you into allowing full access to all your data. Which I wont allow.

So for me, Cortana is a major step back for this reason.

h4rm0ny

Re: Annotation?

>>"So I can draw on a page and then send it somewhere as a picture. How exactly is this different from just hitting print screen, pasting into Paint/Powerpoint/Whatever and doing exactly the same?"

Presumably it's quicker and already integrated into quickly sharing with groups.

h4rm0ny

Re: Fork of IE?

Whoosh.

h4rm0ny
Paris Hilton

One question:

Can I turn Cortana off and just enjoy it as a streamlined web-browser?

Torvalds' temptress comes of age: Xfce 4.12 hits the streets

h4rm0ny

Re: just works

Actually, I'd put it the other way around Gnome (simple) or KDE (looks most like Windows) are probably best for the non-IT specialist. Look for a guide on how to configure something in Ubuntu and there are lots of convenient Gnome-tools to do it. On Xfce, this is less the case. I use Xfce myself because I do like the minimalist approach that just keeps out of my way and don't need cosseting with warm-friendly shortcuts. So I consider Xfce the DE of choice for the GNU/Linux advanced user.

h4rm0ny

Slightly creepy article heading

..is slightly creepy. Reminds me of the Sun's countdown to when Emma Watson was "legal".

Nuclear waste spill: How a pro-organic push sparked $240m blunder

h4rm0ny

Re: billions of tons of lard

>>"just because some marketing w*nker put's organic on the packet, does not mean it's better either at the job it's supposed to do, or for the enviroment!"

Organic cat litter is organic material such as pine chips and decomposes. Inorganic cat litter is typically clay and does not. Worstall basically went on wild goose chase because he apparently doesn't own a cat and can't use Wikipedia. Or even ask a friend who does own a cat!

And you have taken up his ignorance and run with it.

h4rm0ny

Re: Inorganic

But it's a journalist's job to hypothesize wildly to support their world view, not check or wait for facts.

h4rm0ny
Facepalm

Re: billions of tons of lard

So basically I just read a two-page rant by Worstall about "hippies" (which appears to mean anyone who buys organic to Worstall) and how they are in some vague but implied way responsible for someone in the US not knowing how to do their job -- all because Worstall doesn't know that organic cat litter actually has a convenient purpose to it and wants to blame a nuclear accident on a "pro-organic push".

I really should learn to check the author before reading in future.

Microsoft dumps ARM for Atom with cut-price Surface 3 fondleslab

h4rm0ny
FAIL

Re: @h4rm0ny - @h4rm0ny - Great news!

>>"I was aware of that and, since MS is no longer interested in ARM platform, I asked politely if manufacturers can now be allowed to let us disable SecureBoot on ARM devices so we can install other OS on them.

>>You failed your second attempt too!

MS only this week announced a Windows version for Rasberry Pi (an ARM platform if you're not aware) and are most certainly building OSs on ARM so you're clearly wrong that "MS is no longer interested". Secondly, MS is not preventing manufacturers from selling ARM devices with undisablable Secure Boot anywhere I'm aware of so you should really be directing your question to the OEMs. What device is it you think MS have caused it to be locked on - specific names, please. Because if you're talking about MS forcing the hand of OEMs you plainly can't mean the Surface RT / Surface 2.

"Failed my second attempt?" Seriously? You're the one who launched in here with one-line off-topic posts wrapped up in snark about how many fingers you were holding up, not me.

h4rm0ny
Paris Hilton

>>People have asked me: "Mr Coward - just what is the difference between Microsoft Surface 2 and Microsoft Surface 3?" And I answer: "1".

Funny, I got 86.

h4rm0ny
Facepalm

Re: @h4rm0ny - Great news!

>>"On ARM ? Are you sure ? Look at my hand, how many distinct fingers can you count ?"

You realize that the entire point of the article you are commenting on is that MS have shifted the latest Surface off ARM and onto x86? How many fingers can I count on your hand? Six, probably, based on your evidenced intelligence.

h4rm0ny

Re: tesco pico surface

Similar, but I got a Linx tablet. Very good value. However, the Pen on this device could be a really big plus. Great for both taking notes and for meetings where you want to whiteboard things and just hit save at the end.

h4rm0ny

Re: Great news!

Yes. Enter the UEFI BIOS and slide "Secure Boot" to the "Disabled" or "Off" position.

If you can't do that, you probably shouldn't be turning it off.

Power, internet access knackered in London after exploding kit burps fire into capital's streets

h4rm0ny
Thumb Up

Re: No Problem

Not sure if deliberate or accidental, but I gave you a thumbsup for "effluent South".

Google whacks CREEPY predictive search up to 11 in cheap Chrome OS beta

h4rm0ny

If that hotel concierge was mentally linked to all other staff at all other hotels and had perfect recall of everything you did in any hotel for the past ten years, yes - I might find that creepy.

Hotel Wi-Fi not only hideously expensive – it's horribly insecure

h4rm0ny

Re: There are precisely three WiFi networks ...

>>"3. Both 1 and you may want, $DEITY forbid, to look up the location of a pub on your PAYG mobile without having to take a passport, driving licence or credit card to the mobile store to prove that you are over 18."

This has happened? What idiotic network provider did something this stupid and intrusive?

Bye bye, booth babes. IT security catwalk RSA nixes sexy outfits

h4rm0ny

Re: think of the models!

>>"if they had other talents/passions/better ways of making money, wouldn't they be doing that instead?"

Not necessarily. The lead in to many careers becoming profitable can be quite long. Quite a few women under the age of 25 do modelling work to help get through university, internships, etc. Also, you're a lot more likely to end up looking after a young child if you're a woman which can put paid to a lot of careers until the child reaches school age. Part-time modelling work can be lucrative and fit in with this. Do not presume that someone is unintelligent or even uneducated because they are doing modelling work.

h4rm0ny
FAIL

@Voland's Right Hand

I've read through most of the comments here and some I agree with and some I disagree with but whether they're pro or anti- the presence of "booth babes" I don't think any of them are as offensive or stupid as you calling someone in the picture "a fat beef". For one, whether people are in favour of their presence or not, pretty much everyone here regards the booth babes as people. Except you, apparently. They're hired to engage attention, be friendly and project some energy about their employer. That doesn't mean they're there for you to dehumanize or insult them.

I think any further responses from you on this topic should be accompanied by a recent photo of you in a skin-tight outfit of your own so we can all see your perfection.

Google promises Pointer Events support, with or without Apple

h4rm0ny

Why is Apple not using it?

It's a free standard and actually a good one. What is their reason not to use this?

Apple boots Windows 7 out of Boot Camp

h4rm0ny

Re: Apples values.

>>"Think MS ended mainstream support for Windows 7 in January this year?"

Worth clarifying what is meant by "mainstream support". That ends this year, but MS will continue to supply security fixes and bug fixes until 2020. End of "mainstream support" just means the standard support to end users. You can still purchase extended support packages for quite a while as well. It came out six years ago, but it's not like its suddenly abandoned.

Delving into Office 2016: Microsoft goes public with new preview

h4rm0ny

Re: Widescreen support?

I have one of my monitors in portrait mode. Not sure if that will help but it works really well for word processing.

h4rm0ny

Re: They could have saved themselves the bother...

That's a lot of words none of which address the fact that you claimed

Insert tab -> Equation button

was less intuitive than

Insert Menu -> Object -> New -> Equation Editor 3.0

You demonstrated that you don't know what you're talking about. You further demonstrate it with your reply. "Inflexible waste of space". By default it will hide itself and just reappear when you go to it. It also actually takes up around the same amount of height as the original icon and menu bars, it just looks bigger because it's one row rather than several. Don't believe me? Here is a screenshot comparison:

Comparison

As to your comments about being able to add a button short-cut if you wanted - you can customize the Ribbon just as easily, even putting anything and everything into a single ribbon tab if you want. It's easy, even creating an entirely new tab if you want and spend the rest of your life with only that if you find multiple ones so confusing. It's no less customizable, you just have a bias and are making statements that don't stand up.

Woman caught on CCTV performing drunken BJ blew right to privacy

h4rm0ny

Re: Dazed and confused ...

People should also put aside specifics that colour their judgement and realize that the category that Ofcom has just allowed this usage for is not "women giving blowjobs" but "things that the reality TV audiences find entertaining". Anything you do that is embarrassing or which others will laugh at or be titillated by is now fair game if caught on camera. They just have to make a token effort to obscure your identity.

The cameras should not be there to catch people's errors so that your typical Big Brother viewer can find it funny. It's a quick bit of cash for a CCTV company and years of misery for those pilloried on television.

Kaspersky Lab hits back at Bloomberg's Russian spy link hit piece

h4rm0ny

Re: Were the accusations true...

>>It's a sad state of affairs that the default assumption is that of law enforcement "causing you problems"

Sad perhaps, but true nonetheless. Few if any have the power to ruin your life with impunity that the government and law enforcement of your company do. Any random person could kill you, but they could not do so without grievous consequences.to themself. The government can lock you up, prevent you getting jobs, all manner of things without anyone making those decisions risking any reprisal to themself. No body has so much power over you with so little risk from using it, than your own country's rulers. The rulers or people of other countries are no threat by comparison.