* Posts by UBfusion

50 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jan 2009

When it comes to Linux distros, one person's molehill is another's mountain

UBfusion

Re: Year of the Linux Desktop

Not confusing at all! Everything just works out of the box in 99% of the cases (except the very latest or exotic hardware). In fact, judging from past Reg comments, Mint is the top suggestion for a newcomer to Linux.

If the Reg ever decided to do a well-designed poll (meaning including both "what distro you use" and "what distro you recommend"), Mint still would be 1st or 2nd choice, meaning that in practice Reg readers interpret Ubuntu as "Mint" - a Debian-based distro with all the pros and none of the cons, with a clear preference to the Cinnamon desktop.

French parliament says oui to AI surveillance for 2024 Paris Olympics

UBfusion

Re: Relax citizen

It seems you are not watching enough UK/European/Independent movies/TV series - they are less more prone to the points you raise. I generally agree to the latter, but don't forget that the planet is very different after 9/11. We all should watch the news more and think harder on how to avoid tragedies like the one that happened today in Nashville and whether any kind of surveillance could have predicted it.

UBfusion

Re: Relax citizen

The very insightful observation that "there is no middle ground" reminded me that a similar problem is still not solved after several centuries, namely the problem of law and order enforcement. Any police movie or TV series can be re-framed in terms of the same eternal dilemmas of public security vs. personal freedom, or action vs. inaction, to a degree that obscures the essential question of how and who is to fight against Evil. Humans have not yet solved the problem, so why should an AI-aided solution be better at it?

In addition, the same people that vocally hate surveillance often are the same people that willingly post all their deep and private thoughts in social media (I post, therefore I am).

We have to think very well in advance in order to defend any kind of action based on surveillance. A false positive may lead to a similar disaster as a false negative (also a theme of several movies and TV series...)

Python tops programming love list – but if you want a job, learn SQL

UBfusion

Re: Python-- a transition from v3.9 to v3.10 breaks things

I totally agree with your sentiments after a week of struggling with Python versions. My prof codes in Python and I am investigating the consequences of a possible upgrade from Mint 20.3 to Mint 21 (equivalent to a jump from Ubuntu 20.4 to 22.4).

The thing is that the new Mint (and Ubuntu) now defaults to Python 3.10, which breaks most IDEs like Spyder and Eric, which require v3.9. The growing dependence of the apps and the OS itself on Python means that it is almost certain that several things will break when either updating the apps or upgrading the OS. At about the end of the OS's life cycle most of the bugs (depending on users' requests) will be ironed out, but the next OS iteration will adopt a new version of Python etc. etc. ad infinitum.

It seems that virtual environments like venv or Anaconda may provide for a temporary solution but a) they have a steep learning curve and b) seem to require a different environment for each app (at least that is my impression after several unsuccessful attempts to have both Spyder and CERN Root run in the same Conda virtual environment).

I am beginning to suspect that Canonical predicted exactly this situation a long time ago and thus chose to integrate the snap store within Ubuntu to ensure all apps are containerized together with their appropriate dependencies versions. Just because an app appears in Ubuntu's or Mint's software center does not guarantee it will run - the list is not curated (at least the two IDEs I mentioned above don't).

Time and the desire of staying up-to-date are the real enemy here, and therefore the universal rules that apply are "do not mess with a system that works", along with "test thoroughly any changes/upgrades within a virtual machine first". Thank you very much, for the foreseeable future we will stick with Mint 20.3 and Python 3.19 - everything works.

Scientists unveil a physics-defying curved space robot

UBfusion

A control experiment

I would build an experimental control setup using *straight* tracks instead of curved ones, and see what happens. If this behaviour occurs only when the tracks are curved, there might be a possibility that we are in the presence of a new phenomenon.

I have not read the theory behind the claims, but my hunch is that the control experiment would yield the same result, indicating that there are hidden variables in play, such as friction, asymmetrical air resistance, servo motor & cable inertial effects etc.

AMD nearly doubles Top500 supercomputer hardware share

UBfusion

Re: x86?

x86 in this context is a shorthand for the Intel architecture (as opposed to AMD's or other CPU manufacturers'), the more technically accurate term would of course be x86-64

Should we expect to keep communication private in the digital age?

UBfusion

Still can't decide

Post mortem, I have to admit that I did not vote in this debate mainly because I was not able to decide what the argument really meant. Let me explain:

Disregarding the intro 'in the digital age' and rephrasing the double negative, I still am not sure whether the phrase 'we should not expect our communications to remain private' is 100% equivalent to 'we should expect our communications to not remain private'.

In addition, I am not sure I understand who mandates what I "should" expect and what not. In my book 'expectations' imply the existence of some vague unwritten social conventions and/or implied rules, that is an informal etiquette that is left to discretion of the communications platform(s). But again, I am not a native speaker and I may misunderstand expressions like "we should expect", "we are supposed to", "we are expected to".

Finally, what does the verb "remain" suggest? That comms should be private even after a court order? Even after a nuclear holocaust? Even if I wave my hands and scream 'help, my privacy and my UN rights are being invaded, #metoo'?

My position is that I am allowed to legally DEMAND my communications to remain private only if I pay for them. When I'm using free services (event govt ones) I fully acknowledge that I am the product and therefore am not entitled to expect anything at all - regardless of the existence of any fine print saying so. Therefore, my version of the argument is that "In the digital age, the privacy of communications should be assumed compromised, except when it's not" and I'm afraid it cannot be translated into a 'yes' or 'no' vote in the specific Reg debate.

Now that we know that 67% of respondents voted 'against', I would welcome some ELI5 explanations from them, in the hope they can shed some light to what they think they voted against and what their precise position is.

VMware pulls physical to virtual conversion tool, adds VM to container conversion tool

UBfusion

There are alternative ways

I also find P2V very useful in several scenarios . One is to support customers buying a new PC with Win10 while needing to preserve the familiar environment and apps of their previous OS (usually Win7 or XP). Another is to keep a local copy of a client's OS environment to troubleshoot, pre-install and test new apps they need to add to their workflow and thus determine how to proceed to actually install them in their production PC.

It can still be done without VMWare's tools, just not on the same PC: you have to disconnect the target disk and connect it to a second PC preferably using a SATA (or IDE) to USB adapter (the method is called cold migration). Then several backup utilities exist that support backing up the disk directly to the .vmdk format (I have done it with Paragon HD Manager and I think Winimage can too).

This method worked for me flawlessly so far, and has the bonus advantage that it will work on any kind of OS (not only Windows).

Chrome passes Firefox in global browser share

UBfusion
Black Helicopters

I don't care about the stats

Even (I'd say especially) if Chrome becomes #1 in popularity, I'd never consider another browser.

The internet is already a VERY dangerous place and so far the only full armor browser is FF + the aforementioned plugins. Yes, plugins do need memory and make FF run much slower, but the certainty of being safe and private is priceless. FF is as mandatory as having an Internet Security AV suite. As they say, better safe than sorry.

FF plugins will eventually be ported to Chrome, but again, a browser that still has no internal proxy support (and most probably will never have) for me is out of the question.

As a commenter in Reddit put it recently, Mozilla treats you as their customer, Google treats you as their product.

UBfusion
Pint

You are my man!

Could you please predict the winning Lotto numbers for next week, so I can bring me out of my misery? I promise to donate 15% to you, spend 15% to buy ElReg shares and another 15% for charity.

Kindle Fire: An open letter to Jeff Bezos

UBfusion
Paris Hilton

What are "Google Apps"?

Is it perhaps time to get rid of the so-called "Google apps" that apparently are ruining your internet experience?

I am online since the web was discovered and never had to use any them - in fact and in total honesty I really don't understand why people find them necessary.

Compact Disc death foretold for 2012

UBfusion

Not anyday soon

Unless the brick and mortar music stores are also planning to shut down by 2012, or the digital downloads start costing much less than they cost now, I'm not convinced CDs are going to die anytime soon.

In Amazon UK the latest Justin Bieber (don't shoot please, it's only an example) is at £8.99, while the digital download is at £7.49. If (god forbid) I were a Bieber fan, I'd never consider bragging about being the first in the gang to download his latest album - after all who is going to believe me? The excitement of camping outside a music store to be among the first to get the new release is priceless (much more than the £1.5 of the price difference). Same applies to Harry Potter physical books vs e-books. Shopping thankfully is still a social activity and we like most to do it in groups and later on to enjoy our purchases in good company.

To sum up, downloading an album is not an experience - it's a dry banking transaction.

Imagine a world without Apple stores, where people could purchase iToys only electronically... Apple would certainly not have become what it is today.

Facebook's complexity will be its doom

UBfusion
Thumb Up

Best post so far.

I'd like to add that if you are "not a friend" then you are not an "enemy", but just a "non existent" person which IMHO is much worse. FB serves not only to delimit the the 7 billion human universe to a much more manageable 20-2000 "friends" only universe - it's here to make us forget the rest, which will eventually lead us to total social apathy. Let everybody else starve to death or die from radiation, they're not my "friends".

We've seen many FB pages of Jeesuses, but I seriously doubt whether we'll see a FB page of a 20 lb African kid starving to death or FB pages of Fukushima workers who committed suicide to save their fellow citizens.

UBfusion

Today I learned the apocryphal meaning of 420 - thank you for that.

Top level domain explosion could wreak MAYHEM on NET

UBfusion
Facepalm

XP is passé

"Using a Windows XP SP3 computer, The Register was unable to reach any of the three sites above."

I am proud to report that my super modern OS, Windows 7 SP1 x64 is very happily resolving http://ac/

The older the OS is, the more secure it seems. Any one tried Windows 3.11 yet?

UK is a closed source 'stronghold'

UBfusion

Elephants, mosquitoes and the Corporations

As El Reg repeatedly points out, many IT-related breakthroughs were born in the UK only destined to die soon after. It still fills me with awe that the first ARM processor (and the first widely available RISC architecture) was designed on humble BBC Model Bs and in addition the first prototype chip did actually work. This for me represents a triumph of British technology (not to mention the Spectrum and BBC micro revolutions).

My relevant to the article point is that these platforms allowed literally everybody to produce open source (or open BASIC listing) code that was readily deployed in schools, research facilities (if you browse scientific journals of the 80's and 90's you'll see a lot of research done with BBC micros), even administration (first era of word processing in the UK). Since the advent of IBM-compatibles, the game was lost to The Corporation.

Unless UK administration (and any country's administration at that) sets effective financial disincentives and/or limits to IT-related infrastructure budgets in all public sectors, the UK will be bound to proprietary closed solutions forever. Why should a kid in school use Windows 7, Office 2011 and Photoshop CS5 to write a 1-page lab report? Why should a public service secretary use the same for writing a letter or printing an envelope? Why should a small company use Excel to just add 50 numbers for a bill of materials? And why should all of the above spend endlessly sums of money for antiviruses, updates, and repairs?

Everybody, especially the public sector, should use tools adequate for the specific job at hand, with the minimal long-term cost possible, and not use elephants to kill mosquitoes.

Ubuntu board rejects slippery Flash installs

UBfusion

Not really important to the end user

The average Ubuntu user together with their mom, aunt and dog really don't care whether the installation has a proprietary ingredient or not. For them, "free" cannot not forked into beers and speeches.

However, if removing flash altogether from the distro would relieve Canonical from some millions of dollars of licensing fees, I would gladly approve, provided they invested said sum to improve other parts of the user experience.

Turkey bans Google Blogger over pirated football feeds

UBfusion
Go

Ban Google altogether

And how do people find said video streams in the first place? Via Google search I presume. Unless Google (and all search machines) are banned altogether, satTV providers are out of luck.

Apple: If you're under 17, you can't use Opera

UBfusion
Jobs Horns

F&$@king Mac App Store, how does it work?

What disturbs me is that the rating system is silent - i.e. apps are rated 17+ without an explicitly stated reason. As a counterexample, here is a proper and informative rating from IMDb for a random movie: "Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexual content/nudity".

I will not go into the hypocrisy of MPAA ratings (e.g. the 100+ violent kills in a random PG-13 movie), but my point is that parents can read this informative rating and know what they risk exposing their children to when going to the movies or renting the DVD.

I don't remember parents having to sign any Terms of Use contract when purchasing a computer or a smartphone, stating that "this product has a rating of X for possible strong violence, language, and possibly a whole LOT of sexual content/nudity. By agreeing to this TOS you are expected to protect any children under 18 using this product. Neglect of proper parental control is liable under the country's laws such and such".

By the way, Opera has disappeared from the top free list, as expected. Currently #1 is 'Virtual DJ Home', a mixing app famously used by the Insane Clown Posse to produce their +4-rated masterpiece 'Miracles' (ain't the App Store a Miracle?) containing the famous existential rant "F&$@king Magnets, How do they Work?"

Is videoconferencing reborn?

UBfusion

Please define 'videoconferencing'

What precisely do you mean by "videoconferencing"? A conference in a real or virtual venue with physically present or remote speakers and physically present or remote attendees who watch a multicast and can ask questions? Or just a normal conference that is videotaped and then available for public viewing, like e.g. TED conferences?

Memo to Microsoft, RIM, Nokia: Quit copying Apple!

UBfusion

All food for trolls is humbly accepted

The abundance of comments here proves the article's main point - customers want to share winner's glory and the issue is who is perceived as a 'winner' and according to which metric. Just like pub discussions over soccer matches, the above comments indicate a fierce agony to find arguments validating the metric that will make one's team #1. Diverse criteria are deployed like revenues, market share, openness, glorious history, predictions, projections, arguments, agreements, fights, it's all talk. This editor (as any editor, or myself), just wants to feed us trolls, it's his job by definition.

Perception (as BugsRUs above nailed it) is really the key to power and dominance and my bet is that soon the day will come where the cost of advertising a device will definitely exceed the cost of producing it. And then a time will come, where the devices will become free, meaning that the real product is ourselves (obviously, facebook is on the right track, converting us to cheap bricks on The Wall). After all, it's all part of the planned obsolescence strategy.

Personally, I REFUSE to pay €550 for any device that has a physical cost of $50 (or less), the rest being hot air used to inflate ad balloons. This is one of my very few opportunities of legal revolt and one of the few rights I have left to enjoy freedom on this planet. It's my own way of being a winner and continue being a person instead of a product.

Greece tells Siemens it wants damages

UBfusion
FAIL

Slow news day?

No one ever went to jail (or paid for damages) in Greece over really big financial fraud and it seems no one ever will, be it a govt, a political party, a company or a big tycoon. However, little guys regularly lose their homes over 100 euros of debt.

If it wasn't for the ~40% profit tax, Greece would be a global investment paradise - it's the country of zero risks and zero liability.

Coca-Cola fizzes over pornforacoke.com

UBfusion
Thumb Down

Pepsisexygames.com

Coca Cola (TM) would certainly change their minds if some clever company with a name similar to the title published polls suggesting that 89% of women believe that Pepsi bottles (and possibly cans, we've seen convincing examples) provide more satisfaction than Coke ones.

SGI forges overclocked servers for Wall Street

UBfusion
Grenade

Did the study the Collateral Damages?

I hope they have thoroughly tested what happens to the other PC components when a CPU fails due to excessive prolonged strain, the effects should not be predictable.

I can't even start to think what could happen when such a CPU decides it can't hold no more. If this happens when the CPU is at full load, the PSU must have a hell of a design to tolerate the current surges and transients resulting either from a short-circuited CPU or the sudden change from say 50 Amperes (600W) to 2 Amperes (rest of the PC) when the CPU open circuits.

If the PSU fails, anything might get damaged beyond repair, from the motherboard to the hard disk(s).

Samsung dangles £200 lure at iPad-eyeing punters

UBfusion
Thumb Down

I call racism

I thought the Galaxy would be a good Xmas present for me, but this UK-only 'gifts' policy made me swear that I will never again consider purchasing ANY Samsung product. This is pure racism - why are other European customers not worthy?

Horror AVG update ballsup bricks Windows 7

UBfusion
Thumb Up

Please do, and test 64-bit as well

Very good idea, but please put equal weight on 32-bit and 64-bit testing, since the latter are getting more and more popular. I am using 64-bit since XP was out and I'm never going back, the stability it offers is vastly superior from anything 32-bit.

Crazed buy-a-satellite-for-the-poor scheme raises $16k

UBfusion
FAIL

How on earth is this going to help?

I am not a troll, but please consider my way of challenging the whole idea: Could somebody convince me why the Internet would definitely improve the life of citizens in Africa? Namely:

1. Will it help find food, find water, fight diseases?

2. Will it help build schools and hospitals?

3. Will it help provide decent homes to the homeless?

4. Will it help fight injustice and corruption, prostitution and slavery (and please give me no Wikileaks examples)

5. Will it really help children education or just promote the american way of life?

6. If none of the above can be ascertained, who will profit from the whole operation?

I am not a Luddite but I am forced to challeng the whole idea because I live in an underdeveloped third world country (Greece) and fast Internet not only didn't help at all in the aforementioned directions, but it can be argued it actually accelerated bankruptcy. Children use it to pirate media and games, facebooking and entertainment, while in schools the level of Internet use for EDUCATION is almost negligible. Evidence from the University where I work show that students are totally unable to find information not only via Internet, but also via printed matter (which they did 20 years ago very successfully, thank you). The working classes use it for piracy, online shopping of gadgets, gossiping via FB (2,898,180 members i.e. >25% of the population), online betting and other similar online cultural activities.

In addition, somebody please enlighten me how did the Internet help Ireland to prevent its current decline, and how it will help Portugal and Spain not get bankrupt too.

THE TRUTH on the Californian NASA POISON ALIENS

UBfusion
Alien

Old news, slow day, or cover up?

I read the story on BBC, and there is a link to another article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7558448.stm) from August 14, 2008 (same research team). Are they pulling our leg or is this another major cover up case of e.g. "Arsenic-based lifeforms found on Mars" ?

Berners-Lee: Facebook 'threatens' web future

UBfusion
Coffee/keyboard

Facebook: a dangeroys hybrid between herd and individualistic mentalities

Your view that closeness is necessary for the existence of e.g. Facebook has deeper explanations: Humans constantly strive for two conflicting goals, on the one hand to belong in a group/herd enjoying the privilege of being accepted as a member, and in the other to be accepted as a unique individual (i.e. not belonging anywhere).

Being on Facebook or buying an iMac/iPhone/iPad not only creates a divide at both the level of being and of having, but also an artificial scarcity ("you don't know what you're missing out "). Personally, I am constantly, actively and proactively resisting the idea of joining Facebook because I totally HATE artificial scarcity of all kinds.

Therefore I would counter-argue to Mr. TBL that in the same way he does not disclose the things he wants out of public view, or frills at the idea of publicly available video streams of his premises, in the same way the Internet (or any commodity at that) is bound to have private, shady or totally isolated places. Perhaps his views need some more clarification (even He can't model the internet in two pages, can he?) to reflect the view that if hiding your emails and telephone calls from the public (it's 'information' too, isn't it?) is legal, ethical, healthy and even necessary for the individual's survival, then "closed" spaces on the Internet are too.

On the other hand, I don't think that Mr. TBL had envisaged the Internet as a Panoptikon (the idea/ideal all governments and agencies salivate at).

At the bottom of it, what consists a "threat" to the Internet? If the internet is seen like a public commodity (like e.g. water, electricity or telephony), the only threat I can see is the threat of controlled access or deprivation. If the Internet is seen as a public right or freedom, the only thing to fear is also controlled access or deprivation. Are you afraid of that? Personally, if this time comes, I'll say "good riddance" with it. I' ll accept that the Internet was my heroin and that now I will have the change to break free.

Microsoft plans biggest ever Patch Tuesday

UBfusion
Unhappy

If only patches worked...

Do you know if any of those 49 vulns is .Net related? In my box the number of pending .NET updates from v2.0 to v4.0 that can't install properly is constantly increasing - presently there are 10 (ten!) of them in the list... I did spend one full day reading authoritative MS forums and trying various magic solutions to no avail. In the beginning I thought this must be MS's way to convince me I need to move on from XP, but from what I've read the issue gracefully plagues all versions of Windows. Since there are only a handful of .NET apps available and I'm not running any of them, I don't intend spending more time to address the issue until I migrate to Windows 8 in 2013 (provided I survive the 2012 doom). Fortunately, until then MS will surely stop issuing patches for XP and then I'll feel safe at last...

Windows 7 Backup gets users' backs up

UBfusion
Thumb Down

No way!

"Microsoft should have either purchased one of these companies"

Hell no - we (users and developers) are all grateful that Microsoft did not ever include any 'good enough for the job' utility or system maintenance tool with their operating systems. If they did, there would have been no incentive to produce freeware tools like Firefox, Winamp, Total Commander, Auslogics defrag, Tweaknow, Irfanview, DriveImage XML (the latter is an awesome backup tool) etc. without which it's impossible to use Windows in an effective way. In addition, if MS did produce decent tools, this would pull the rag under big software companies' feet. Could you imagine what would have happened if MS had included a (free) PDF reader and writer in Windows 3.11? Or a free office suite?

The only thing MS got right was Sysinternal Tools, and my guess is that they hired the man because otherwise MS developers would be very embarrassed to admit publicly they are using non-MS tools to troubleshoot their own OS problems. Now they can just proudly tell users 'use our (Sysinternals) tools and see what' wrong'.

To be honest, while I'm still locked into Windows since 3.0 due to job demands, I do not trust *any* of the Windows-provided tools, except perhaps checkdisk and emptying the Trash Can.

Tech resource woes won't be solved with Afghan minerals

UBfusion
Thumb Up

2nd article needed

Great article, I have to reiterate the cudos hailed by the above readers. Extrapolating your views a bit, am I correct to assume that you posit that the electric car industry (Li-based) is neither really welcome or expected any decade soon?

I'd like also to point out that the raw materials issue is a political one. Building on the einsteinian equivalence between energy, politics and capital squared, I'd really enjoy a 2nd article on the political underpinnings. Since this bit of news is no-news, and the reports are non-reports, there must exist non-papers somewhere. So we have to ask, "Cui bono"? Who benefits from spreading this word at this particular point of world history? I have two guesses here: the first one is that someone wants to obscure the reasons behind the real Afghan issue (both soviet and US-wise). The second one is that someone wants to provide incentives to either Iran, India or China to invade and build mines and roads. I know that there is not IT angle in the above (except lappy batteries), but do you have any better ideas or other enlightening resources to read?

Apple's iPad resellers are revolting

UBfusion
Jobs Halo

Mystery solved

Now I finally realise why the british empire has such huge debt...

Google turns on SSL encryption for search

UBfusion

DPI?

Which of the following wikipedia definitions of "DPI" do you mean?

# Dhaka Polytechnic Institute

# Death Pact International

# Digital Program Insertion

# Disabled Peoples' International

# Disposable personal income

# Dry powder inhaler

# Dye penetrant inspection

# Dadeh Pardazi Iran

?

UBfusion
Coffee/keyboard

Resistance is futile

Symantec acquired Verisign's SSL... Is this just a coincidence?

Furiously pressing Escape does not work anymore, figuratively AND literally in my Firefox 3.6.3.

Can't be a coincidence...

UBfusion
Coffee/keyboard

So what?

Could somebody please explain what are the supposed advantages of SSL when using google search, beyond third parties being unable to sniff our requests? Will SSL e.g. prevent Google from recording my personal data/interests/vices or from providing my 'suspicious' queries to the powers that might request them?

Escape, 'cause me thinks we can't.

IBM hands out malware-stuffed USB at security conference

UBfusion

Autorun is not to blame...

because if it the stick wouldn't autorun, the user would promptly seek setup.exe and execute it manually.

To me, it seems the "latest laptop image" did not have any AV installed (not even Microsoft's free one!). Time for Big Blue to buy a small AV company...

Who owns science? Manchester Manifesto can't answer

UBfusion

Towards a Science and Industry of Fear

The authors of the Manifesto in page 1 claim "Science is a rapidly growing industry." This very sentence implies that in the present century it is very hard to draw clear cut lines between knowledge and know-how, pure science, applied science, technology, industry and economics. Therefore, the question "who owns science" is in fact at least 7 overlapping questions, and this is reflected in the reader's comments. Idealists are usually biased towards pure science 'for the advancement of knowledge', while liberals or neo-cons may view science as a more competitive endeavor, aiming at providing more jobs or better life conditions.

Unfortunately, "public goods" as defined by Mr Warstall are nowadays just byproducts and or "left-overs" of scientific activity (unless he had the iPhone in mind, created to effectively fight cancer). An innovation becomes a public good if and only if there is enough commercial incentive for companies/manufacturers to implement it in a massive scale. Evidence to this claim are for example the electric car, fission reactors, cheap vaccines and food for the third world: invented decades ago but still held back because the profits are not high enough.

Discriminating between inventions and innovations is rather irrelevant. The latest fashionable "inventions" seem to be focusing to the development of the Science and Industry of Fear (producing whatever is necessary for the establishment of a State of Fear). Yes, the issue now has become political and the Manchester "critical mass of research expertise" may be massive but not critical anymore. Reviewing this year's El Reg popular topics, one can easily see that technology is more and more focusing on orwellian or googlian themes. All indications seem to point to the same direction: "Science" (in all 7 flavours mentioned above) will in the end belong to either the State or the Monopolies. "Public goods" like clean water, electricity, health or communication are becoming either harder to purchase (filling the Money Banks) or being exchanged with precious personal information needed to fill the new banks, the Data Banks.

Yes, I'm paranoid and delusional when it comes to "Science" and Knowledge. For those that will compassionately advise me to "get a life", thanks, but I can't afford it any more. Big props to El Reg editors for the great articles like this one, managing to really strike a chord in me.

Egyptians uptight about 'Artificial Virginity Hymen'

UBfusion
Thumb Up

I like the IT angle of it!

Excellent international reporting from ElReg, glorifying the powers of globalized market (Japanese idea made in China, exported to Netherlands then to Egypt and soon to appear near your neighborhood).

I suspect that this product will be the next big thing for both male and female customers. Bearing in mind that the original advertisement says "With this product, you can have your first night back anytime", I'd bet that both boys and girls would desperately want their "first night back" as often as possible. The IT angle of it is that this probably is the cheapest and most ingenious use of silicone as a memory chip or a time machine ever invented.

If only we could have a Japanese gadget that "restores your purse in its original state after each purchase"...

Microsoft Security Essentials shakes up consumer antivirus

UBfusion

Does really Win7 phone home?

@adnim (or someone that is in the know): Could you please provide more data and indicate where you have found evidence of what precisely "Win7/IE8 ...does in the background" ? Does it send more private data to Microsoft than XP or Vista?

Microsoft offers stickers to boost Windows 7 64-bit take-up

UBfusion

At last!

It was about time - in my humble opinion this is a move that should have taken place since the XP release!

I have spent hundreds of hours hunting and hacking 64-bit drivers for various laptops and desktops. In fact, the lack of 64-bit compliance from the early XP days led to peripheral/chipset manufacturers neglecting the development and testing of proper 64-bit drivers. This has left many of us, who do not wish to dump our perfectly performing but oldish hardware, with the early beta drivers that some (decent) manufacturers released under the pressure of 64-bit users.

I am running XP 64 bit since 2006 and I am not going back to 32 bits. Ever. I skipped Vista and I don't plan to move to Win7-64 before 2012. Unless a slimmed down n-lited version is released.

How to host your very own Windows 7 launch party

UBfusion
Megaphone

@Register: Please offer job to Charlie Brooker

Congrats to CB above for his modest treasure hint, which should be featured in a prominent position at ElReg's front page at least until the launch of Win7

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/28/charlie-brooker-microsoft-mac-windows

The following two quotes from Charlie Brooker have within minutes become the signature of thousands of Win and Mac and Tux nerds in Digg, Reddit and Slashdot:

"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"Using Windows is like living in a communist bloc nation circa 1981. And I wouldn't change it for the world, because I'm an abject bloody idiot and I hate myself, and this is what I deserve: to be sentenced to Windows for life."

Just Google it now and remember to Google it in 10 years - success is guaranteed: windows subway piss

We urgently need a Playmobil party simulation! Because communism is not dead yet!

AMD foundry spin-off breaks $4.2bn ground

UBfusion
Coffee/keyboard

Wise move

I don't think that Intel in the future will relieve any of the pressure on AMD e.g. by conforming to the EU fines and directives. The damage that Intel did to AMD processors and the brand name is irreversible. In addition, AMD/ATI graphics chips everyday lose more and more faithful users, because on the one hand the company refuses (or can't afford) to invest developer time on proper drivers for the new GPUs and on the other AMD opted to call perfectly capable hardware as "legacy" in order to avoid long-term support. Even Linux users are most disappointed, because the Catalyst proprietary drivers do not support those "legacy" GPUs on the new Linux builds at all (on my 4 year-old ATI powered laptop and my 2nd PC, Ubuntu 9.04 is still incompatible with Catalyst drivers).

Therefore I'm afraid AMD as a CPU and GPU designer does not stand many chances to survive, unless they make a real break-through in extreme low-power systems on a chip (integrated CPU/GPU) that might power the emerging new types of hardware (like the rumored iTablet or next-gen netbooks/smartphones).

The new foundry is a wise move, probably signaling a shift in the main activities of AMD from products to (chipmaking) services. I just hope that it will perhaps also provide a smooth job exit route to some of its employees.

AMD is pressing Esc, although there is no escape: the one Ring is destined (with a little help of foul play) to rule them all.

Google patent feeds ebook 'monopoly' infrared 3D

UBfusion

Patent on what?

I don't get why the existence of a 3D scanner patent helps create a monopoly. To my knowledge, the existence of a patent does not prevent anyone from building a device based on the information, it just prevents them from mass manufacturing and selling said machines. As I understand it, nothing would prevent me (or my startup company) from building such a scanner and start visiting libraries making scans of their books (provided they'd allow me to). Making profit from the scans would not infringe the scanner patent, would it?

'Like pedos in a playground' - the media and Web 2.0

UBfusion
Thumb Up

Wonderful article

Article of the month, world class indeed. Raising the standards of ElReg, with several precious gems inside. I enjoyed most the concept of empty books. In fact they are not empty, but full of signifiers without signifieds, empty rhetoric and nanotwitters, magnified by corporate atomic force microscopes. There was a time when only people who had not just a loud voice, but an _important message_ would be remembered for posterity. This is why there are written records left of Plato, Shakespeare, Upanisads or the Gospels, while we do not have any 'famous' words from farmers cursing their miserable destiny while feeding their sheep in Wales around 1450.

In essence, the web today promises immortality, or at least everybody's 5 minutes worth of being famous (ref. Andy Warhol): every utter nonsense, every bit of clueless opinion, may be reflected, ricocheted and magnified a billion times as if it were spoken by God himself. The web offered everybody (cheap) paper, not a voice. We got interwebs and tubes, but hardly a message that might save one's life or bring him a glimpse of happiness. Your position that up to now the only success of the web is "free downloads" is saddening but bitterly truthful, honest and precise: the present web is just another brick in the wall, another channel of white noise entertainment, an empty book staring our empty eyes and addressing empty minds and waiting for us to flip the bits, from parallel to perpendicular. Perpendicular vs upright is another story. I remind you that the Greek word for 'man' is 'anthropos', meaning 'gazing upwards'.

Beeb borrows copyrighted Flickr image

UBfusion
Paris Hilton

I still don't get it

Consider the following scenario: I am an amateur photographer. I have an excellent legal i.e. innocent, non-offending picture taken of a e.g. a landmark/landscape/cityscape/skyscape or an animal or of _myself_ walking down the street with my dog.

I want desperately to show off my work on TV and brag to my friends about it in the pub. I proceed to send the picture to the BBC, together with a check for £10, and an a signed permission to use the pic as they wish (provided they notify me when they do).

Multiple choice test: What do you expect will happen?

A. They deny my offer, suggesting they need much more to publish my picture, especially since I'm not a member of a journalist union.

B. They decline, saying that "it is illegal to use a picture without having talked with the owner's lawyer".

C. They accept, pay me £500 and tell me "keep 'em coming".

D. They decline, saying that my image's worth is in the thousands and that it is Illegal/morally incorrect to accept it for only £10.

E. They keep the money and broadcast my picture because they think at £10 it's a steal.

Please advise me whether I am correct in betting £1000 on answer A.

PS 1. I sincerely cannot grasp why this guy is complaining. Flickr is not an Art Gallery or Sotheby's, where you sell your pictures and give due percentage to the agent. In addition, the BBC to my knowledge is non-profit, so they did not make a penny out of his picture (however, in the US he could sue CBS/ABC/CNN for $thousands).

PS 2. Personally, I'd kill to have my picture shown on the tele - I'd become instantly famous. Who wouldn't?

Paris, cause her pictures get posted everywhere and she never asks a penny for them.

Conficker Autoplay ruse gets teeth into Windows 7

UBfusion
Alert

Take precautions now!

The best recommendations I have found so far is from the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre (CCIRC): http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/em/ccirc/2008/in08-007-eng.aspx

The main idea is not only to prevent Windows from executing autorun.inf, but even *reading* it!

Conficker seizes city's hospital network

UBfusion
Dead Vulture

@ Sarah Bee

Yes, this is my real name (I am not an anonymous user offended by the OS war).

I cannot really get used to the idea that Reg moderators tolerate a user that calls other posters "usless fuckers" without apparent reason.

No, I deny being called a "fucker" by anybody. Is this the brand new strategy of ElReg in order to attract more users/comments? Do we want to become like Digg or 4chan? Can you show me past topics in the Register where this has happened? Please google for "fuckers site:theregister.co.uk" (I just did) and find me an instance where this behaviour has been accepted in the past.

I wonder where you do place the red line - calling with that name a minister, or the Queen Herself would have made it too through the moderation?

UBfusion
Thumb Down

Please enforce moderation

@ Mungo: You have crossed the line - I have been severely insulted by your attitude and language. Please retract.

@TheRegister: Please consider moderating all comments that are expected to provoke OS wars.

Microsoft delays first Windows 7 public beta

UBfusion
Paris Hilton

VMWare appliance available...

... for those wishing to test drive it in a sandbox environment:

http://www.tuxdistro.com/torrents-details.php?id=1434 (torrent, 191 seeders, 2.6GB Compressed/ 5.8GB Decompressed

According to reports it works fine - good luck!

Paris, 'cause her lucky number is 7.