* Posts by Eddy Ito

4662 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2007

US Navy's plane-hurling mass driver in tech hiccup

Eddy Ito
Alert

Software problem?

Intern 1: "Is this function supposed to be cos(-x) or -cos(x)?"

Intern 2: "I think they're the same thing so it doesn't matter."

Biometric cash machine lands in Europe

Eddy Ito
Coat

Like in the movies!

When cigar cutters are outlawed, only outlaws will have cigar cutters.

Apple promises fanbois iPad WiFi fix

Eddy Ito
WTF?

Really?

"adjusting screen brightness"

Normally I'd say WTF? but in this case should we adjust the fucking volume too?

Bill Gates chucks cash at climate cooling cloud creator

Eddy Ito
Flame

Re: Use brains

"... makes Venus's surface hotter than Mercury's... even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance."

Ah, smell that? It's what comes from the south end of a northbound bovine. It is true and anyone who looks it up will be aghast but they probably won't look up the definition of solar irradiance and finds its units, W/m^2. A bit of quick math will show the area of Mercury to be roughly 1/6 that of Venus and carrying that a bit further shows that 4 times the irradiance on 1/6 the area results in 2/3 the power. Could it be that Venus is hotter because it receives more solar energy than Mercury? Flames because somewhere a straw man burning.

Bring on the thumbs down wiki brigade!

Android tops iPhone in US (no thanks to the Nexus One)

Eddy Ito

Nokia vs US

Nokia has little share in the US smart phone market because very few of their phones are readily available. Most people here get their phone from the carrier, usually locked and with a multi year contract. A quick poll of the 4 major carriers in a Boston, MA zip code shows very few Nokia smart phones at all.

The smart phone breakdown is Verizon has a duo with the 2705 & 7705. AT&T shows a pair, a 6790 and an E71x. T-mobile flies solo with the 5230. Finally, Sprint has a whole lot of nothing Nokia. That makes 5 models of which none are new and it has been my experience that Nokia in the US generally lags everywhere else by at least a year, probably more.

If you want a half decent Nokia clever phone here you must buy online or know the location of a specialty shop. Most folks just hit the local carrier kiosk and pick up whatever is there. This is also why Google's Nexus One sputtered. Heck, I'd wager roughly half, maybe more, of all general public phone upgrades in the US are impulse buys made while people are out shopping for something else.

Alleged Jobsian email promises iPad printing

Eddy Ito

It will come

with the $99 OS upgrade. Now I know why the Goog was doing that whole print via google server thing.

Physicist unmasks 99-year-old mistake in English dictionaries

Eddy Ito
Paris Hilton

hypobaric chamber siphon

So, does the El Reg PARIS team feel up to a few siphon experiments in the hypobaric chamber? You can use your choice of beverage! Come on, you know you want to.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/10/paris_qinetiq/

Mafia Wars dons deprived of pit bulls

Eddy Ito

Ok, I'll bite

So you got me curious enough to do a little search on Mafia wars and Zynga will have a bit of explaining once they get any serious Peta players. It seems that you can buy businesses like fish and cock fighting arenas as well as traffic in "undocumented workers". I'm certain Peta will be on them like soy sauce on sushi and the feathers will fly over the fish and fowl fighting. The human cargo? meh, not so much.

US prosecution of McKinnon 'spiteful', says ex-top cop

Eddy Ito
Alien

Just another Obamanation

It really is a petty thing our, meaning the U.S., gubbermint is trying to do. The large part of it only serves to advertise that the U.S. is "tough on crime". Roughly that translates as "I am the great and powerful Oz". You see the "logic" is that if they make a mountain out of this molehill it deters other moles by showing that they can play whack-a-mole very badly. No wait, I mean if they stomp really hard on this ant and ignore all the other ants then they won't have to stomp on so many later. Ok, so maybe there isn't a good catachresis for group that needs an anal craniumectomy but at least you get the idea that it's a fish of a different color. I mean they just want to know if he actually found it. Perhaps amanfrommars can explain it better than I can.

Eddy Ito

No, you're not.

It isn't that our system is better, it's that our gubbermint is more afraid of its citizenry than anything else.

Perv scanner todger quips provoke Miami airport assault

Eddy Ito

That's what happens

When people don't read. Had our little fellow been a reader he might have known how to subvert his rival. That said, he should start with "The Prince" and who knows, he could be POTUS one day.

Javascript guru calls for webwide IE6 boycott

Eddy Ito

B2B or B2G only

"... most major corporates and government departments still use IE6 and will continue to use IE6..." "So yeah, sure. Boycott IE6 is you want, and watch your sales crash."

If we assume that the first statement is true and an IE6 market share below 18%, the second is only true if your customers are made up of those major corporations, government departments or their employees who only shop at work.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that the average Joe is using his work computer to do all his online buying. Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm the only one who uses my "coffee break" time to browse and research at work and only buys at home. Hey maybe some people trust their employer enough to hand over their credit card info through a work computer but I ain't one of them. Heck, I wish there was a way to get paid without telling them my so-so security number.

Given the OS market trends I don't see IE6 clinging for much longer. I'll even play prognosticator and say that over the next two years a lot of development money will be spent migrating away from IE6. It's either that or run IE6 in virtual XP sandbox but that isn't going to remain a sustainable policy for long.

Finally, perhaps El Reg can shed some light on the rumor that Amazon is dropping IE6 support in some parts of their site.

Report reams IT admins for secretly snapping student pics

Eddy Ito
Grenade

Oh, it's ok then

"The 69-page report found no proof that anyone deliberately set out to spy on students..."

Where have I seen that before? Ah yes, about that kiddie porn case, it went something along the lines of "your honour, there is no proof that my client deliberately downloaded the photos that were found on his computer."

Soot, hydrofluorocarbs 'low-hanging fruit' to fight warming

Eddy Ito

Why it will never happen

There isn't enough money in it and it tends to be a bit more work than advertised. Add in the fact that, as most people probably won't notice, it doesn't really enhance one's "green cred" and you have a "perfect storm" making "low hanging fruit" a rather "bitter pill" without government "assistance" of some form... but probably another.

Mobe-wielding drivers getting away with it

Eddy Ito
Big Brother

re: Crowdsourcing

Can you believe it, I got nicked by my own mother... for taking _her_ call!

Apple demands public apology for iPhone parody

Eddy Ito

I just want to know

Will the Scientology folks start going after Apple for theft of trade secrets trade secrets? Also, would that be (trade secrets)^2 or trade^2 secrets^2?

EFF fights Facebook bid to outlaw one-stop social apps

Eddy Ito
Pirate

Honey wagons?

If you made a few dozen accounts filled mostly with bull shit, would it be possible to devalue Facebook's position? I'm guessing that by throwing enough bad apples into the bananas the buyers of the data wouldn't be able to get enough reliable information to be able to make effective marketing campaigns. It could have a catchy name like operation spambook. Arrr...

Parliament to turn itself into computer game for young ones

Eddy Ito
Go

Make it a series

Personally, I can't wait for "Bloviator 3: Revenge of the CYST*!"

*Common Yuppy Social Traditionalists

State senator eyeballs smut during abortion debate

Eddy Ito
Go

Would it be too much to ask?

Would the senator please forward the email so we can determine, once and for all, if the lovely ladies are in fact wearing bikinis?

Apple boots STD psychic healing app out of bed

Eddy Ito
Thumb Up

Ah yes...

Might as well give it a try. I'm going to submit a pair of linked apps. One will be "Breast Fixer" app and the other will be a "Jug-O-Rater" app. Of course the faithful who bought a copy of Breast Fixer will be asked to take photographs of their breasts which will then be sent to a "professional master bater," meaning the buyers of the Jug-O-Rater app. After ten days a cumulative, and inverse, rating will be sent back to the Breast Fixer app as determination of treatment. If the inverse rating is low enough users will be asked to take video of themselves rubbing their breasts with all sorts of "tonics" (available online at a modest cost) and send the video back for six months of premium pay-per-view psychic stroking whereby the breasts will be healed.

US netwar-force Cyber Wings badge unveiled

Eddy Ito
WTF?

Huh?

"Apparently this symbolises "the projection of cyber power world-wide", "the space dimension of the cyberspace domain" and "striking power through air, space and cyberspace"."

cyber power? space dimension of cyberspace? Me thinks someone has been digging too deep for meaning in the hole of their morning doughnut. Besides, they left out the cyber and borg dimensions of cyberspace. Perhaps they could send enough striking power through cyberspace that would overwhelm the surge protector on the other end.

Google brings @gmail.com back to Blighty

Eddy Ito

All in the advertising

Somehow I don't believe the DNS servers give a gnats arse about the politics of copyright. Given the apolitical nature of DNS servers gmail.com here will point to the same place as gmail.com somewhere else. That is unless someone manages to inject a domain redirection somewhere along the pipe. That said... see title.

Internet Explorer drops below 60% market share

Eddy Ito

Next question

How much of the percentage decline is due to an increase in mobile browsers on such platforms as iphone, android et al., you know where IE isn't available?

Applesoft, Ogg, and the future of web video

Eddy Ito
Boffin

check again

It is all a matter of timing. For US patents it depends both on when it was filed and when it was granted. For patents filed prior to mid 1995 the term is either 17 years from the grant of the patent or 20 years from the application. If "established since 1992" means the patent was granted in that year then yes, the patent has expired but if the patent was filed in 1992 and granted in 2008 then it is still in force for quite a bit yet. Slowing the process was a common tactic to achieve longer effective patent coverage.

The current rule, regarding post mid1995 patent applications, does away with the 17 years from issue and matches the WIPO standard of 20 years from application. That said, extensions are available if the granting process takes longer than 3 years and is limited to the length of delay.

Of course this applies to utility patents and, IIRC, plant patents. Design patents, which only have a single claim, have a term of 14 years from the date of patent granting.

Microsoft: 'Prepare for 15 billion more clients'

Eddy Ito
Terminator

Fixed

"Windows Embedded Standard 7, had graduated to RoTM status."

Blokes spend 11 months in shed

Eddy Ito

Seems short

11 months just doesn't seem like enough time in the man cave when you consider we'll spend about 25 years sleeping.

HP agrees to buy Palm for $1.2bn

Eddy Ito
Pint

Umm...

"WebOS is an interesting UI built on top of Linux, but it's not worth $1.2bn. If HP like the WebOS UI so much they should port it to run on top of another OS (preferably MeeGo)"

MeeGo is Linux so if they would like I'm available this weekend to do the port... for a reasonable fee of course. I'm sure I could dig up a couple of guys to get started on the Android port right in this forum. Heck, it might even be possible to merge the three with a proper number of ales.

California's 'Zero Energy House' is actually massive fossil hog

Eddy Ito
Stop

Holy leeping frogs of light!

How is it possible? For two years in my New Hampshire house, I'll miss it, the total energy use averaged 2130 kilowatt hours per month (yes I keep a spreadsheet, why do you ask?) but that was the whole thing including heat and hot water. Damn, just where do they set the thermostat to use that much heat? Oh, let me guess, heated pool. Time for those kids to fit up some solar hot water panels. I can tell you where I won't be living when I get out to LA in a few months. Damn, just what have I gotten myself into.

Apple, the iPhone 4G, the cops and the click-tart

Eddy Ito
WTF?

Mister Meaner, Miss Demeanor or Fellow Nie

It's a phone, even if it were a stolen phone how does it rise to felony. At worst this is a misdemeanor and not a felony. Seriously, wouldn't this count under California's 3 strikes law? I believe it would and since strikes are based on charges instead of cases it's possible that this could be inflated to two felony charges and result in two strikes simultaneously if found guilty on both. But hey, at least it's nothing serious like running a toll.

Jesus descends to Google Earth

Eddy Ito
Coat

Oh, I can't wait

Soon the memristor cat brain computer will be able to scan for GoGEarth (God on Google Earth) faces faster than any bored to tears human being ever could. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/16/memristor_cat/

Then again, cats are probably atheist, we might need a dog brain computer, a shepherd perhaps.

No penis pumping for Papuan plod

Eddy Ito
Coat

Mind you

This is simply a matter of "he said, she said", no wait... "mine is bigger than yours"? yes, that's it. I can't but wonder if the commissioner wasn't itching to get this matter resolved.

Apple admits to eating 'iPad chip designer'

Eddy Ito
Alien

@ThomH

"You know, company saving, pre-iPod Steve."

A ha! It all makes sense now! There was something in that original iPod when it fell from the alien vessel, got stuck in an infinite loop and crashed in Cupertino. That _thing_ is slowly infecting the global population; poor Steve was just the first to fall under _their_ control.

Google blesses Hadoop with MapReduce patent license

Eddy Ito
WTF?

2004? Really?

Is it a sad commentary on the patent system when it takes 6 years between patent filing and patent grant? At this rate it won't be that long before the 20 years expires prior to grant and IP becomes an historical novelty.

Should you own your own data?

Eddy Ito

When can you close the barn door?

Here's the thing, when it comes to reporting the traditional indignant yarn spun is that "the public has a right to know". Too often the system lets that slide and never actually asks the question, what does the public have a right to know? Clearly there are bounds and like any right they stop when they interfere with rights of another. Does the public have a _right_ to know how many squares I use to wipe my arse? No. If someone posts that I use 3.16228 squares after steak and 3.46410 squares after a Jalfrezi, so long as they aren't asking me to wait while they get the count right, who cares?

I guess in the end it comes down to a reasonable expectation of privacy and you certainly have every right to rescind any posts you make. The sticking point with Facebook et al. is all in the expectation and Facebooks constant changing of the rules. In the long run it probably won't matter and Facebook will either get their act together or change into Fadebook as users expectations go elsewhere.

Chinese gadget maker sues HP and Toshiba

Eddy Ito

Meh...

A million Yuan? Think they'll take a check? Hmm, what do you think they want for the whole company?

Global warming dirt-carbon peril models are wrong, say boffins

Eddy Ito

Iceland to the rescue!

If Eyjafjallajökull and Co. are anything like Tambora, we'll be looking for all the degrees we can get.

Hawking: Aliens are out there, likely to be Bad News

Eddy Ito

Of course

It assumes other "civilizations" didn't figure out better ways to kill each other and go extinct before they decided to come here for a bit of exotic nosh.

Gene that allows growing a new head identified

Eddy Ito
Go

New brains, STAT!!

Given the level of brain damage in politicians, I'm willing to forgo further testing and clinical trials to get this implemented in D.C. immediately. Ideally, it should be started on the extreme wings of each party and work toward the middle. Once the House has been passed, it will go on to resolve the Senate. If it works in those two places it should work in any government suffering from craniorectal brain disease.

Microsoft FAT patent appeal upheld in Germany

Eddy Ito

Unfortunate

So anyone who wants to take a copy of myfilewithastupidlylongname.empeethree to use on their phone, GPS etc. needs to have a MikeySoft license. Wouldn't an easy, albeit not necessarily cheaper, solution be to make everything look like a network connection? That way the drive format doesn't matter inasmuch as it gets presented as http, ftp, samba, et al.

Jobsian drones shackle gamer with 'lifetime' iPad ban

Eddy Ito

Lifetime?

<rant>Whose? Mine or the little snot in the blue shirt behind the counter? </rant>

<tyrant>I'm glad I put a self imposed lifetime limit on Apple products, now they don't have to do it for me.</tyrant>

Nokia: digital SLRs are doomed

Eddy Ito
WTF?

Never happen

The big camera makers won't be going bust any time in the near future. Simple economics 101, if the demand goes down either the price needs to go down or the supply needs to go down. Sure, maybe some won't make it but as long as there are higher end buyers providing a demand for DSLR cameras, there will be a supply. Not everyone will be satisfied with phone-ecam quality. It's a bit like saying the Instamatic killed 35mm. Likewise, saying DSLRs are doomed because of phone-ecam ubiquity is a bit... premature.

To illustrate, I hereby announce that cell phones are doomed because I've put 3G, GPS and BT in a DSLR. Now you can take stunning photos and video of your vacation and share the experience in real time via a 3G link to your auntie on the phone, your friends on facebook and the world wide web at large. Now you too can be on the vanguard of the Web 2.718 twiddle-deeL33T! Buy your Vast Eddy cam today!

'Gossips' say Apple will acquire ARM

Eddy Ito

And the next day

Headline: Apple to ARM wrestle MIPS into every cell phone.

MIPS Technologies shares soar as phone makers scramble to switch, Chinese company Loongson has long head start. In other news, Oracle in talks with Google about consortium to merge MIPS with Sparc architecture and open source the new chip.

My guess is that other chip makers will be happy to take up the slack should ARM wind up subject to Apples T&Cs.

Cybercrooks befuddled by Icelandic volcano name

Eddy Ito
Alert

Cut... paste... no?

"Eyjafjallajökull... is simply too difficult to spell for most surfers, let alone virus writer types"

My money says it's name recognition. Virus writers don't put it out there because most people would see the name and say, "huh?" Now then, the words "volcanic eruption" gets people's attention even if you're selling V1AGRA!

Apple leaves profits on table for 'huge' iPad future

Eddy Ito

Profit prophets

To me this reads as just so much spin to guard against excessive optimism from the market next time 'round. It's so much easier to beat expectations when you can keep those expectations in check and it hedges against disappointment should the ipad flop. Nicely played boys, have a biscuit.

Eddy Ito

Re: To be fair you are probably not the target customer

"... hence the need to keep the price low."

You and I have different definitions of low when it comes to prices of nonessential equipment.

Eddy Ito

@bazza

"So if Apple doesn't pay out dividends, what's to justify their high share price?"

The high share price does. It makes up for the lack of dividends. Depending on the market sector a company is in will determine what if any dividends they pay.

The short version, essentially Apple (AAPL) makes stuff so they need cash on hand to pay for inventory. The larger the pile of cash, the easier it is to rapidly increase their inventory. The high price reflects this value position. If they pay dividends, they are less fluid, slower to react and if pinched they need to sell stocks to raise cash. More stock means a lower stock price for the same corporate value.

Compare this to a service company like Teekay Tankers (TNK) who only need money to purchase capital goods and pay salaries. The current earnings per share are 1.28 and their dividends are 1.03 for a current annual yield of 8.5%. They recently purchased new tankers and sold stock to cover the purchase because they aren't sitting on a pile of cash. The stock price took a hit but seems to be slowly recovering a bit.

Now then, 8.5% puts a doubling time at nearly 8.5 years where AAPL stock has a doubling time of either 1 or 3 years depending on market volatility. Also the 8.5% dividend yield of TNK isn't fixed either and when short of cash they can and will withhold the dividend. The downside to not having a dividend is you need to sell the stock to realize the profit. Note that BRK-A doesn't pay dividends either but at ~$120K/share does it really matter?

In the interest of full disclosure, I have financial stakes in both AAPL and TNK and really wish I had a stake in BRK-A but at ~$120K/share... Boy, so much for the short version.

Official: Apple iPhone is a chick magnet

Eddy Ito

I was suspicious at first

"If he's got the cash for an iPhone..." -- Says it all, no?

"...only seven per cent saying they don't care what job a prospective partner does for a living." -- I'm a bit surprised it's that high actually, but it's good news for the pimps and axe murders.

"Women also cited familiarity with soap and social ease" -- Got it, dirty with social disease is a turn off.

Amazon sues US state on customers' privacy

Eddy Ito
Stop

Bollocks

No state is interested in privacy. How many states have laws restricting sex between consenting adults or even restaurant salt? Yeah, they respect privacy as long as the sheeple do exactly what they're allowed. That said, I'm sure this driven by money but I'll wager it's more than just collecting sales tax. Most likely it's a fishing expedition looking for sales of high dollar luxury items to compare against income tax returns. They are going to hope to bag people working under the table or making moonshine, etc. Just making work for the state's anal worms.

Should all hard drives be encrypted?

Eddy Ito

Like anything else

It's all about time and trouble. Portable drives will always have the disadvantage of time not being an issue and that means stupid levels of encryption which will one day be obsolete and easy to crack anyway and hopefully the encrypted data will be more obsolete. Sure, it's better to keep everyone on a short leash and keep the data centrally located with limited secure physical access required but that isn't always practical. The trick is to maintain a reasonable balance and have a well defined security policy that is easy to follow.

Any state not requiring theft disclosure of encrypted drives is not one I wish to do business in. I can see it now, "Yes, rot13 encryption has been applied to all drives. We no longer need to disclose a theft".

That said, I'd wager half of data recovery is simply due to someone lost their sticky note, I mean, forgot their password. Every drive encryption will just make that situation worse.

Youth reject Facebook's death of privacy claims

Eddy Ito

Not surprising

Just one point, it isn't just SillyCone Valley that's out of touch, it's also the DisTrick of CoLumbia.