* Posts by M Gale

3500 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Apr 2007

Thai firm flies in early-80s style keyboard PC

M Gale

Screeching boot-up?

I'm hoping for the BBC series' sound.

Beeeeeee..DIP!

M Gale

Yes it does

It has a super VGA plug on the back there. Despite the hype surrounding HDMI ports, SVGA is more than capable of shuffling HD video. It's been doing it for years before someone went "let's put DRM in all the way to the monitor!"

Asus at work on Android-based 'Eee Bot'

M Gale

For every situation, there is an XKCD

http://xkcd.com/413/

File-sharing Bill could give Government control of the internet

M Gale
Coat

Oh well

Mine's the one with the 32GB USB stick in the pocket.

I suppose if anyone did want to bypass this in a more interesting way, there's always RFCs 1149 or 2549.

Windows 'openness' hailed in Nintendo game defeat

M Gale
Thumb Up

Big up for the VCS posse

Still got mine. Fake wooden finish and toggle switches.

Mmmm, toggle switches.

M Gale
Grenade

Oh god no.

The day that happens is the day I completely give up on computer games.

Fuxache, it's a toy. Insert disk, press "go", enjoy. Fuck downloading updates and making sure I have Internet connectivity and making another forgettable username/password and hoping their authentication servers don't decide to throw a wobbler and tell me I'm not allowed to use what I've paid for. If I wanted that, I'd get a Windows PC and start using Steam.

EC drops Microsoft browser probe

M Gale
Badgers

The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits.

Right. Let's say you're on the board of Microsoft, hypothetically speaking. First you bundle your browser into the OS. Your OS already has a high-90s percent monopoly, so everyone uses your browser.

Then, you make the browser do nonstandard things that only your browser supports. Because your browser is the default on ninety-something percent of all home computers, you'll find web developers that start using these funky extensions.

Once lots of web sites are using standards that only your browser is capable of supporting (thanks to using calls to proprietary APIs like DirectX, or using some other Microsoft-specific security hole like ActiveX), you stop making your browser for anything other than your OS.

Congratulations. Now the few people who don't run your OS can't go on the web properly, because lots of sites out there won't run on other web browsers. You've just turned a big chunk of the Internet into your proprietary play-thing, and have vendor lock-in on a global scale. At least that's the plan, though it seems Microsoft has been handed more than one bitch-slap over that idea with this being the latest.

That's a rough guide to Embrace, Extend, Extinguish for you. Do some searching and you can probably find more on the subject. Basically, this is about more than some "free" browser.

LHC Xmas shutdown today - massive boffin roister planned

M Gale
Coat

I like you

I haven't a clue what you're on about, but you're lovely.

Personally I think it's going to end with a portal to hell being opened. I hope the boffins have been stocking up on explosive barrels and chainsaws.

Mine's the one with a spare plasma pack in the pocket.

Microsoft cops to webcode theft

M Gale
Boffin

Everybody hates a pedant..

..but still, your link to the ImageMaker incident seems to be incorrect. Extraneous "/e".

Mystery co. sues Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle...

M Gale
Linux

Lol, the ironing.

The Windows "Genuine Advantage" was what persuaded me to finally give Microsoft the old heave-ho. My old copies of XP are genuine enough, but I just don't like having spyware on my machine. I would guess this patent also applies to Steam, that ever so lovely method by which you have yet another username/password to forget and require Internet access to play a single-player game.

I'm sure quite a few people would paint me as someone who just wants to torrent unauthorized copies for free. I know a lot of people have when this has come up before. However, if I want a copy of the Orange Box (or Windows 7 for example), I can either download it or get hold of it. Fact is I've probably lost more genuine software in my time than a lot of the same people accusing me of criminality have ever bought. I am, or was a pretty good customer, even of Microsoft-published games and their PC game controllers. I've a hundred quid's worth of MS Flight Sim 2k4 plus add-ons here to prove that. Make things that run in The Toy Unix without assuming I'm a criminal, and I might be again.

And hopefully, just hopefully, this might be one more nail in the coffin of software and method patents.

US Congress earmarks $30m for anti-piracy fight

M Gale
Megaphone

But..

There already exist sanitized networks that aren't really part of the Internet. It's called AOL.

Do you REALLY want the rest of the Internet to be like that?

Anyway, children shouldn't be on the Internet, period. Would you let your little kid call phone chat lines? What about playing outside at 2am alone? Then why let them onto a gigantic internetwork full of all sorts of wierdos chatting, where it's always 2am somewhere in the world?

You want sanitized, then get AOL or form a proper schools network that's separate from the rest of the public Internet. Leave the rest of us mature adults alone to download as much smut as we like.

Kindle app comes to UK iPhones

M Gale
Thumb Down

Joy

So now articles can be unpublished from the Applephone as well.

Sorry, but I like my paper. It's not like I'm going to get through more than one book on the train anyway, it doesn't need batteries and there's no chance of the people who sold it to me breaking into my house and stealing it because they cocked up with the copyright.

Dell tech flashes woman with (her own) jubblies

M Gale
Badgers

Title

All I know of the word "coolie" is the stereotypical pointed hat thing.

UK resident here.

Google contradicts self, confirms own Googlephone

M Gale
WTF?

A title is required.

--According to the Journal, the device's hardware is being manufactured by Taiwanese handset maker HTC, and Google designed "virtually the entire software experience behind the phone, from the applications that run on it to the look and feel of each screen."--

So nothing like the original HTC-manufactured Android-powered Googlephone at all?

Anyway, after comments by Eric Schmidt, I would like an assurance that the phone doesn't come with keyloggers and other spyware pre-installed. Not that I'd touch "unlimited" mobile "broadband" with a large wooden tool traditionally used for pushing canal boats away from canal banks anyway.

Facebook chief explains bear photo bareness

M Gale
Pint

I don't do facebonk..

Or MySpack, or LiveDrama, or FriendsReUntidied, or any of the others. If I want a website, I'll make a website. I'll put what I want on it, how I want it.

..and you know, right now I'm feeling pretty pleased about that decision. Beer, because there isn't a bong icon.

Google chief: Only miscreants worry about net privacy

M Gale

Step 1: Download Firefox

..then, as other people have mentioned here, get thyself a copy of the TrackMeNot extension. It does exactly what you've just described. Also works on other search engines too.

It can be amusing to look in the status bar to see what TMN is searching for. "Eventually receive some", currently.

M Gale

lol

What six idiots didn't read this post and voted this comedian down?

M Gale
Grenade

Not quite.

You can tell Google to off fuck (reverse polish notation), and still use the rest of the Internet the same way. Oh, and still use all the same software you've no doubt paid good money for. Try doing that with Windows.

But yes. Google's top brass can go bugger themselves with pogo sticks after statements like that. I know they do automated data mining to provide targeted advertisements and whatnot, but when the boss talks like privacy is a privilege then there is something very wrong happening at that company.

TrackMeNot: Enabled. Why try and go under the radar when you can obliterate it under a hailstorm of shit?

Why is USB 3 so slow?

M Gale

But it is a standard voltage.

5v is a standard TTL line voltage.

Just so you know.

Opaque Wi-Fi laws 'damage UK economy, social inclusion'

M Gale

Why the fuss?

To people wanting a standard SSID saying whether the AP is public or not, the encryption status is good enough to denote this without limiting a fairly limited (32 character IIRC) maximum length for SSIDs even further. If you can change an SSID, you're more than capable of setting encryption (which for despite its complexity, is basically as simple to set up as "Type a password in this box. Now type this password in every machine you want connected when it asks you for it").

As for whether sharing Internet access is legal or not, most domestic ISPs will forbid you from "reselling" the service or allowing unauthorized use of the service they sell to you. A scant few offer no-strings-attached Internet access. What used to be Blue Yonder did offer a "workwise" package that cost upwards of a couple of hundred quid a month, but out of that you got a range of IPs and an uncontested pipe with zero restrictions on what you did with it.

The government doesn't need to touch on whether people share their connections to a network (or internetwork) at all, and existing laws already help to prevent misuse of computers. What might help is a clarification by the government, that if you run a <u>public</u> AP, you should expect the <u>public</u> to use it. And, that if you break into a <u>private</u> AP, you shouldn't complain if the local plod finds you and rapes you six ways to Sunday for it.

Also, adopting the public/private words to describe any open/encrypted AP, with or sans HTML, could help.

WPA keys gone in 60 seconds

M Gale
Paris Hilton

eh..

As far as I'm aware even ye olde WPA is only fast to crack if you use dictionary words. Make your password something obfuscated and you shouldn't have a problem unless the people cracking your network happen to have brought a lawd-knows-how-many-nodes Beowulf with them, surely?

Paris, because she knows all about unsecured access.

How to run Mac OS X on a generic PC

M Gale
Grenade

Well I'm a stubborn bastard..

...and if it's not available for Linux, it's obviously not good enough. Why bother paying £129 or £79.99 or whatever when you can get the "Ultimate" edition for free and spend the money you saved on a real support service? As in one where you can get help, rather than be told "sorry, it's all your fault, and no you can't take the software back because you might have copied it."

As for "oh but you can't play all these wonderful games" or "but you can't get Microsoft Word", see the first sentence above.

Government unbans dirty vids but bans 'legal highs'

M Gale
Thumb Up

@_wtf_

Albeit without a civil war to make it so, ironically enough.

Personally I'd be all for a more.. err.. confederated approach. A Europe of individual member states rather than a United States of Europe. It's bad enough that you have one bunch of bastards in Westminster deciding how 60m people are supposed to live (and cocking it up while they are at it), but having one bunch of bastards in Brussels or Paris or wherever deciding how 580m people live? And we don't even get to vote them out?

Nice one! Thumbs up! Etc.

When ISPs hijack your rights to NXDOMAIN

M Gale
Pint

A note from a crusty old dialup user

Still got this account from years ago, back when it was called "Surfunlimited" and came from a company called Blueyonder. I get proper DNS errors (or at least, my SQUID server tells me it's getting a proper DNS error), no bullshit redirects, and the link at https://my.virginmedia.com/advancederrorsearch/settings tells me I have to be a Virgin Media BROADBAND customer.

I guess this is one of those rare occasions when I can pat my trusty external v90 with its serial port comms and blinkenlights and say "good boy". Well, that and being able to circumvent IP bans with a simple redial. Not that I'd ever do that.

McAfee false-positive glitch fells PCs worldwide

M Gale
Badgers

@Mage

"Block all emails with executables."

In a perfect world this would work.

Unfortunately too many people want HTML email and documents that can contain scripts. Plus you never know when the next bright idea is going to come out of Redmond for including "active" capability inside some otherwise safe format.

Badgers because.. I can.

Pressure group demands UK apes China net filter plan

M Gale

They're doing it wrong.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12)

So this means that MediaWatch should be more concerned with MPs, expenses, spin-doctors and ultra-nationalists (hello BNP), than such fleshy concerns as pornography, surely?

M Gale
Coat

Oops

MediaMarch.

I'll just get me coat.

Data watchdog clears mobile phone directory

M Gale
Boffin

Exploitable?

Apparently when you enter a number (I tried a random mobile with a Mr Rick Astley as the name and an address not far along up my street so I know it's valid), it sends a 5 digit code to the mobile number as a text.

Any idea if that's the only thing it sends? I can see it being truly amusing if it sends details of the registration along with the code. "Hello, a request was made to register your mobile number under the name 'Hi buddy, it's me SomeHackerFriend, coming out later?' The authorization code is 12345."

Even if it's only the code that gets sent, I could imagine some evil /b/tard and a quick script sending millions of random requests out to random numbers in very short order.

Though of course I wouldn't suggest doing that. Oh no.

Goggles because 118800 must be blind to not see this.

Apple adds 'S' to iPhone 3G

M Gale
Stop

Mobile Internet is a rip off

And until it gets cheaper than land-line Internet, I ain't having it. I mean really, how much money did c&w spend running cables through every neighbourhood in the country that they want to service? And how does this stack up versus running a single wire to a mobile tower to service an entire neighbourhood? Hell, if you've got LOS between two mobile towers you don't even need the wire.

Also if you are a first time customer for Cable or any kind of landline, it means a team of people and a van coming around to dig your garden up. Mobile Internet? A USB stick in the post. What do you think is cheaper?

Then let's mention the limited "unlimited" connections, that will charge you 10p per megabyte if you exceed the "unlimited" limit. Sure even land-line ISPs have a fair use policy, but you'll usually just get throttled even if there is a per-user policy and not simply a restriction on the whole network at peak periods (the fairest solution, IMNSHO).

There must be a bunch of people raking in the dough and laughing their socks off while we go for the WONDER of mobile broadband, paying inflated prices for extended contracts like it's some kind of bargain.

Wake up, people.

BNP DDoS 'mega-assault' not actually mega in the least

M Gale
Flame

Fascism != Nazism, FYI

An article on the BNP attracting so many comments? Who'da thunkit?

Anyway, to quote, "The British Nazis are Labour, no other political party has done so much to bring a Fascist regime into play as them, so many freedoms stomped upon by the Labour boot of oppression."

I think someone has confused nazism with fascism. The BNP are more like nazis. "New" Labour (and the tories) are more like fascists (if you let them get that bad). Fascism is more like Starship Troopers than Stormtroopers, though there may be some overlap since they are both somewhat authoritarian ideals. Fascism is "unity" (whether you like it or not), and basically involves business owning government (hence the term 'corporate fascism'). Nazism is similiar, but underpinning it is the notion that "race is nation". It is also a primarily _socialist_ ideology, so more like government owning business than vice versa. So nazism is inherently racist, whereas fascism is not necessarily so. However either ideology is not desirable in government if you wish to live in a country that values individual freedom.

In either case, the BNP has ties to Combat 18. A bit like Sinn Fein has ties to the IRA. Going to tell me they aren't neo-nazis now?

Yeah. Flame warning for this entire comment tree methinks.

Google Chocolate Factory patents Data Center Navy

M Gale
IT Angle

Patents...

...only apply within national waters, don't they?

Isn't the whole point of these datacentres that they are located outside of national jurisdiction?

And yes. Floating ship with computers on it. Next you'll tell me that some company tried to apply a patent to sudo.

Oh, wait..

Blunkett to press for cyberwar probe of BT's Chinese kit

M Gale
Thumb Down

@Dave Ross

He's not said scrap the ID card. He's said replace it with a mandatory biometric passport, presumably all linked into whatever kludge of a database the IPS get together. To me that sounds like.. uhm.. an identity card!

Still, nice to see confusion in the ranks.

IWF denies wielding Pirate Bay banhammer

M Gale
Coat

At least be consistent..

..and block Google. Filetype:torrent anybody?

Oh by the way, use https:// for your PirateBay requirements. Frankly I rather like getting Ubuntu in torrent form, and the IWF's Mary Whitehouse Filter doesn't cover secure HTTP. Neither does whatever BT and Vodaphone have done.

Mine's the one with a 16GB USB stick in the pocket.

Jackalope gets jaunty with Ubuntu nip and tuck

M Gale
Thumb Down

KDE4?

Aren't Canonical supposed to be making the distro that's suitable for Joe Public?

And they put KDE4 in it?

Ouch.

Music industry sites DDoSed after Pirate Bay verdict

M Gale
Paris Hilton

Anonymous has an image?

I remember some comment somewhere, about large media corps. See, they like to flip flop between "product" and "license" in whatever way they see fit. You want to replace broken/damaged media? Oh no sir, you bought a product. Want to play it at a party? Oh no sir, you bought a license.

And people bawwing about Anonymous' "image", get yourself to http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Anonymous and feast your eyes upon the biggest BOFH on the Internet. Truly the green-faced tuxedo wearing chaotic-neutral Heath Ledger's Joker Actalike is someone the Bastard can learn from!

Also, "TPB lists many copyleft software, of course someone whose technical level is measured by the ability of developing a few Excel macros likes to spread the bullshit that torrents are only used illegally." <- quoted for truth.

And while I'm here, aren't there people experimenting with BitTorrent for apt downloads? Not that I'd expect the 'tard who thinks BitTorrent is illegal to know what Debian's Aptitude is.

Lastly, the Internet is one huge P2P network. Guess we'd better shut it down then...

Paris, because she's got more sense than some of these here commenters.

How the government uses dirty data to legislate morality

M Gale

"We live in a democracy"

We (UK citizens/subjects/peons/whatever) live in a constitutional monarchy, albeit one with pretenses towards democracy. The US is a republic - determined by that bit of paper that starts with "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." A democratic republic, but a republic nonetheless.

I don't think a "pure" democracy has been tried in modern times, and if so probably not with good results. Personally I couldn't care less what the government calls itself. So long as I can do whatever the damned hell I please, and as long as it doesn't harm a soul on this earth, I see no reason to legislate against whatever I plan to do. 51% of the populace be damned if it means screwing the other 49% over.

Also, BOFH for Prime MInister. He can't do any worse than the current shower, and he's distinctly less sado-masochistic.

Microsoft claims IE8 is 'a leap forward in web standards'

M Gale

How many microsoft execs does it take to change a light bulb?

None. They declare darkness to be a new standard.

(the old ones are the best ones, eh?)

NSA offering 'billions' for Skype eavesdrop solution

M Gale
Alert

@Ian Michael Gumby

"I wonder how fast you can break AES with a data center filled with PS3s running Linux in a cluster... ;-)"

Probably not as fast as a few Tesla machines in a cluster.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/personal_supercomputing.html

Ho. Ly. Sh<carrier lost>

Google Earthlings fly to Mars

M Gale
Coat

So we've got the flight sim for earth, what's for mars?

Cyberdemons and exploding barrels?

...I'll get me coat.

Man trademarks ;-) emoticon

M Gale
Pirate

Only applies to similiar products/services?

All this stuff about trademarks reminds me of a company that makes a fairly well known web browser. Apparently they changed the name because people might confuse a bit of software with a crap ancient car designed by Pontiac.

Jolly Roger, because the Intellectual Property lobby needs keel-hauling. Arr!

New terror guidelines on photography

M Gale
Coat

Fun stuff.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rGjz7xqQqkU

Not sure if I posted this here before, but here's my own tuppence worth. I still have the Section 60 notice with "filming a police officer" on it. So.. stopped and given a telling off for the grand crime of filming a couple of high vis jackets.

Mine's the one with the spare SD card in the pocket.

Home Office guides plods on photography

M Gale

Seems a bit redundant.

http://flickr.com/photos/24715866@N02/2954831575/sizes/l/in/set-72157608177270227/

^^^guilty as charged, your honour. I was indeed filming the police officers; they were f***ing everywhere. Difficult not to.

This mean I get a fast-track to the NIR?

YouTube rolls out Scientology double standard

M Gale
Joke

More of the same, please.

The Register, rocking hard as always.

Church of Scientology, aiming a gatling gun at its own feet, as always.

Hope we get to see some Tom Cruise missiles come May 10th. I can't wait to see what the horde come up with this time around.

Hang on, did I just post nonanonymously? They're going to get Blue Shirt Guy after me now. OHSHI-

http://mancfags.com/Blue_shirt_guy

DHS official moots Real ID rules for buying cold medicine

M Gale

This will work, because criminals are stupid. Obviously.

So.. why not pay someone else, or several someone elses, to buy it for you, if you are some kind of dodgy meth manufacturer?

Oops. But that would mean all this ID balls is completely unneccessary and slows the meth makers down by, oh, about 10 seconds. Or roughly as long as it took me to think that solution up.

UK ID card service mounts birth, marriage, death landgrab

M Gale

Hah.

"It means we stop "Holiday Healthcare" where people who have never paid an NI contribution in their life come to the UK and get free treatment."

Haha. Hahahaha. No.

What will happen is the NHS will continue to be free at the point of delivery to ALL people, like it always has been. Even if some poncy bloody pointyhead up in the clouds decides it's not, I don't see many doctors breaking the hippocratic oath and just sitting there watching someone bleed to death in A&E because they aren't on the NIR.

As for them damned evil dark-skinned people coming here and stealing our jobs, I imagine that will happen as well. The difference is, you or I will have to pay through the nose for this anal reaming that poses as a convenience, whereas Johnny Foreigner will get his stretching for free after six months, with the state providing a nice amount of lube to help. IE: immigrants will get ID cards given to them.

So, the ID card will help precisely bugger all apart from making some Home Office prats feel better about themselves.

Stats office deal sparks confidentiality fears

M Gale

Too late

The Census 2001 itself was made with heavy involvement from Fujitsu-Siemens and Lockheed Martin anyway. Getting worried about it now is shutting the stable door after the entire farm has bolted.

I'd be more worried about the UK's national identity registry. Like the census, only doubleplusgood.

Open source 'leaving Asia behind'

M Gale

The Ruby programming language?

Big in Japan, or so I've heard. And open-source to boot.

www.ruby-lang.org

Any port in a storm: the display tech battle

M Gale

It's new therefore it's good?

I agree with Nick Ryan and DrFix. At the moment I have a 19" CRT monitor that provides me with excellent picture quality at 1600x1200, and is passable at 2048x1536. It far surpasses any flat screen technology I've seen yet, and connects via ye olde VGA port. HDCP is just a good reason for me not to buy something, and I really can't be bothered with high-def disk formats until they reduce to the price that DVD drives are at now.

Some people might call me a Luddite. I'd prefer to think that I'm not stupid enough to pay for something that will not give me one iota of noticeable performance increase.

About that TV service, Mr Branson...

M Gale

Lies, damned lies, and inconsistency.

To "get a clue", the real cost of bandwidth is rather low. So, therefore the service to end-users should reflect that. Most of the people here aren't complaining about not being able to get gigabit connections for 50p per month. They are complaining about not being able to get the service they are paying for.

And in reply to other comments, I have heard of some pretty funky excuses from VM before. Someone I know was recently told that the reason his Internet service wasn't working is because wireless routers are incompatible with the service. Well. Half an hour and a quick router reset later and the Internet is working again.

Now, a few months ago I phoned the tech support line for another friend after even I (I'm humble, I know) couldn't get a D-Link router to play ball. The person I got hold of helpfully went through all the usual DHCP renewal procedures and such. None of it did anything, but the router did inexplicably start working by itself 15 minutes through the call (the guy on the other end was as surprised as myself). What's happened in the past few months apart from the name change? "We don't provide support for routers" would have been fine if somewhat annoying, but why are tech support blatantly lying to their customers?

I'll go with VM for broadband as and when I get around to upgrading from dial-up, simply because in this area the ADSL availability is somewhere between abysmal and non-existant, and because the speed of the cable broadband service in this area is pretty good (less so for TV). However, I won't be ringing tech support in the event of a problem unless it's absolutely necessary. The last thing I need is for someone to tell me that the Internet won't work because I'm not connected via a Microsoft Windows machine, and the last thing some poor sod in 1st-line tech support needs is me achieving critical mass and nuking their earhole with obscenities while explaining exactly how wrong they are.

Why the world has lost interest in IPTV services

M Gale

What a great opportunity...

...to tax people over £100 per year for owning a computer, regardless of whether they watch the BBC or not.