* Posts by BristolBachelor

2200 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Jan 2009

Apple cripples iBooks for jailbreakers

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Stop

@ Okey dokey

"...Denon, ..., DELL, HP, MS, ..."

I'm a bit lost by your tangential hyperbole. I have PCs from both DELL and HP, and both are running software from MS. I also have a nice music player from Denon.

The Denon music player will play MP3s, FLAC, and various other media files without bitching. I can install any software I want on both PCs, and I can run it.

So why wouldn't I buy products from said companies?

Google Chrome extension bars domains from search results

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Megaphone

Give me back my google

Got the link in here anyway, but givemeback my google submits your search with a whole load of -inurl:(kelkoo|bizrate|pixmania........

http://www.givemebackmygoogle.com/

Now what I want is a plugin that only shows search results that CONTAIN MY FRIGGIN SEARCH TERMS.

I am always looking at the cached version to see "contained on page linking to this page" or some such, and the page google found had NOTHING to do with the search terms I used.

Google open video codec faces second challenger

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MPEG & MPEG LA

I've got an idea. Why don't MPEG push MPEG LA through the courts for using their IP; trading on their name, etc...

Then MPEG don't have to keep telling people that MPEG LA is nothing to do with them. And MPEG LA will not have to tell people that actually they are not MPEG.

Oh look, a flying pig!

Wooden spaceship descends into Moscow sandpit

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More realistic

Elsewhere another website asks what can make it more realistic. Unfortunately the comments part of this other site stopped working when someone fiddled with it, so no one can answer but...

Tell them that there has been a small nuclear leak nearby. Unfortunately that means that although they will only receive a low dosage of radiation, nobody can get to test site if there is a medical emergency, and it will take a few months to get it cleaned up enough to rescue them. However on the plus side, it seems that all of the communication and control systems are still working, so the experiment can continue...

One third of Russians say Sun revolves round Earth

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Headmaster

And America / UK?

Do you have the results for America / UK?

An additional question for them is "Was everything made by a big invisible bloke, and nothing exists unless he made it?". To tax them further ask them if the big invisible bloke made himself because otherwise he wouldn't exist!

I remember seeing something about a TV show that replaced USA on a globe with ocean and asked people to point to America, and a lot didn't realise anything was missing and pointed to USSR / Asia as the largest land mass. Of course it could've been an urban myth.

I'm also afraid about how many people would have to do the quiz verbally due to being illiterate.

Paleontologists: Standardise 3D laser image files, for pity's sake

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How long...

...before MPEG_LA comes along and says "we are sueing you for using a single standard that benefits all mankind"?

OK, I'll get off me soapbox.

Now, Nokia, what about the hardware?

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E90 Hardware

I agree. I have an E90 here, and it would probably be a better phone running almost anything (maybe not VMS). Even the first communicators running GEOS (basically DOS) were better.

Can't fault the physical phone or the hardware, and certainly not the spec for it's time. Only the software lets it down.

Nokia's 15-year tango to avoid Microsoft

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Nokia smart phones

I still have a Nokia 9110 communicator smart phone as a backup. My wife has the 9300 communicator , and one of my current phones is an E90 communicator.

Between the 9300 and the E90, Nokia royally lost the plot. The E90 hardware should´ve blown everything else away, but the appaling state of the software, and built-in apps spoilt it. Even the 9110 (practically running DOS) outshines it.

It seems that switching to WinCE is just to get rid of the mess they made with their own SW through keep changing their policies on it. Just my 2p.

Card surcharges face super-complaint

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Legal tender

IANAL, but at Uni when they introduced the new, smaller £10 note, Group 4 started charging extra for taking the older bigger ones (people said it was because they over-powered the guards; Group 4 were loosing lots of prisoners at the time!). The uni bars then started refusing the older but still legal tender notes.

The law students came out with the legal tender issue and said that if you offered legal tender to pay for the drinks and the bar refused the money, then you have performed your part of the contract of sale, and you can get your drinks for nothing. I remember that this spread around campus in no time, and then the bars accepted the old notes again.

Of course I've no idea what the law actually says, but it was funny at the time.

Protection of Freedoms Bill is released

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Who is AC?

Is that Blunket, or Jacqui?

You wouldn't be so anonymous if they hadn't shredded the ID card scheme!

US gov says it can't build an interstellar starship

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Joke

RMS wealth ??

To do a proper statistical analysis, you take the RMS of wealth; hat nasty minus sign simply disappears, and there you are, the weathiest...

Net censors use UK's kid-safety frenzy to justify clampdown

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Troll

Protect my Children

OK, so I haven't got any yet, but when I do they will need protecting. All the following should be blocked to protect them:

1. Religion

2. Fake (druid) "science" (Astrology, homeopathy, numerology, climate "science"...)

3. Politics

However I consider the following to be only natural, so should be allowed through:

1. What people look like with no clothes on (except their ankles, which are obscene!).

2. What happens when you mix different chemicals together.

3. The fact that in order for species to survive, animals need to mate.

4. Large prime numbers and how to use them.

Oh flying spaghetti monstor, now I look as mad as the rest...

Delete all you like, but it won't free up space

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Joke

Statistically not a problem?

If (statistically speaking), deleting a file does not free up space, because the blocks are also used elsewhere, then when you ADD a file, it takes up no space because the blocks will be shared elsewhere too.

Therefore statistically speaking, Dedupe systems never run out of storage space as long as you have room to add a few more links and meta data for a file!

OK, I'll get me coat. (Actually it doesn't have to be my coat, just one that looks the same!)

Ofcom okays Derren Brown psychic-baiting

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Derren Brown

If Psychics don't exist, and the dead don't talk to the living, how did Derren Brown know what the lottery numbers were going to be?

Maybe the program was a sham, and Joe Power could get his own back on Derren by doing an investigation.

On the subject of Derren Brown investigates, please could he do Homeopaths and Astrologers next? (appologies if he already has, don't watch it)

Indian courts 'rule astrology is a science'

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Confusion

"...mathematical movement of the stars..."

No, see that is where you are getting confused with astroNOMY (and cosmology).

AstroLOGY says that the bright lights in the sky that move faster (planets) than the others are gods, and depending on where they were standing when you were born, and where they are standing now tells you exactly what will happen to you now.

As an aside, since there are now even brighter lights in the sky, moving even faster than the planets, should we be predicting based on them instead? Could plane-spotters predict the future?

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Changing with the times

Once upon a time, you would need to be on drugs to believe that astrology stuff, or to believe that 1/12 of the population would all find their new love on the same day because they are all capricorns.

Now the shame is that with the state of education, plenty of people believe it without any drugs at all...

Twenty-tonne space truck poised for ISS trip

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Man-rating & ARV

Apart from Gs, vibration, noise, temperature and breathable atmosphere, there is a major change in design philosophy when something is man-rated.

Generally speaking, for "reliable" stuff, you assume that everything must work after a single failure, and that failure can be anything. If something is really super-critical, or if there is risk of significant damage or human harm (e.g. a rocket taking out an entire launch complex), then you have to assume that you can have any failure, and any other un-related failure at the same time, and it will still be "safe"; It can fail, it can blow-up maybe, but won't destroy everything and kill everybody.

Now, when you have spam-in-a-can, you have to assume that for any two completely unrelated failures, everything will still carry on working no problems. Even in the event of a catastrophic failure, everything has to hold together and keep going straight for at least long enough for any escape system to operate and get the spam clear of the fireball that the launch system turns into.

That takes a lot of work upfront working out system architectures and overall designs, then later it takes an astranomical amount of work proving out that two entirely independant failures aren't a problem. Certainly some of the control systems of Arianne were designed with that in mind.

As for ARV, I thought that there was a plan for another run at ARV launched from the new VEGA rocket. The plan is still that ARV is for returning experiments from space rather than people, but maybe that is just s step on the way.

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man-rate the Ariane

Originally the size of the Ariane 5 was just right to launch the Hermes space-plane, complete with humans, so human-rating was originally anticipated. However I don't know if any of that got dumped at the same time as Hermes.

As far as cost effective goes though, yes the Soyez certainly looks like the cheapest and most reliable way to launch humans to the ISS at the moment.

ICO drops BT, ACS Law probe

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Dead Vulture

"worse than usual incompetence"

John Oats says:

"...leaked online after ACS:Law was hacked."

However, everyone in the IT world (including el reg) recognises that ACS:Law was not hacked, it was just completely incompetent and knew nothing about IT when it put it's website back together after suffering from very high load (DDoS).

As for the title of my post; it insisted that I needed one, so what better than the byline for the story I am comenting on?

Photo loss blogger to Flickr: You're f*cking kidding

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FAIL

@Semaj

"He's a fool for not having a local backup..."

So tell me Mr. not a fool, how does he backup the internals of Flickr's database? You know all the relationship data that is completely internal, and can only be guessed at by going to every single page on Flicr.

Now assuming that he has managed to backup the internal database relationships, how does he put it back?

Japan plans space debris fishing trip

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Boffin

couple of problems

1. The problem with orbital debris is the damage it does because of how fast it is travelling compared to the object it hits (think of something travelling north-south at ~26,170 mph and somthing travelling east-west at the same speed). So what happens to this net when it is hit by something at that speed?

2. The other problem with orbital debris is that it hits things that we want to stay up (satellites, space stations, shuttles, etc.). So what stops this kilometer sized piece of orbital debris doing the same? (OK I know the answer is to change the orbit of your sat, but that uses fuel, reducing it's life, and meaning that all the measurements it takes afterwards for a while are no good).

However, I'm generally OK with someone doing something to sort it.

Chinese 'repurpose' Top Gun footage

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Pint

Drunk programming

I seem to remember reading about some drunk programming that worked absolutely perfectly, but when sober the programmer couldn't make head or tail of the code or why it managed to work when all the earlier code failed.

Boffins squeeze a mesh onto Android handsets

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Data charges!

"The newly-demonstrated project is called Serval, after a kind of cat, and enables a standard Android handset to make voice calls (VoIP), which are relayed though one or more handsets back to the cellular network"

While I think this is a great idea, I do think it's a bit unfortunate for the poor sod who foots the bill for everyone else who is not in range of the base-station (or the poor sod who's connection is used for up/downloading who knows what).

LCD pushbutton sunglasses issued to US Navy SEALs

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Joke

Peril seneitive glasses

They could be a requirement to be worn all the time by all state employees, and automatically be programmed to activate whenever a wikileak is within view :)

Gatwick Airport security swoops on 3-inch rifle

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Smuggle guns in the post

So if I get this right, it was a firearm, and as such was illegal to take onto a plane. However if you have an illegal firearm at Gatwick airport, you can legally post it overseas?

Bartender another please, I still don't understand...

Finnish regulator calls for iPhone refunds

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Re: iPhone usage in the cold

Yeah, but the story from Norway is that it was that cold OUTSIDE, so therefore the warrantee is void. I would think that the phone was with the owner, and that the owner wasn't at -18°C because if she was, she wouldn't have complaned (she'd be frozen!), but Apple said that because the temperature OUTSIDE was -18°C, no dice.

I'm with the other comentard; when companies plaster their T&Cs with get-outs, it's nice when they bite back :)

UK.gov 'HyperHighway' aims to 'speed up the internet by 100x'

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100x faster

I'm assuming that since our core routers run at 40Gb, and the upgrades are already planned to take that to 100Gb that this extra is to take us to 10Tb

However since there must already be work in progress that increases the 100Gb, then this new research must go even higher :)

After all just giving everyone 100x 100Mb won't help because the 100Gb tubes will already be full.

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Joke

This is government IT we're talking about

AC said: "It'll be UP TO £7.2m per second!"

But the government are pushing it, and it's IT....(wait for it)

So the budget will START AT £7.2m, and go up by the second.

BOOM BOOM said basil brush.

Court orders seizure of PS3 hacker's computers

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Copyright, licenses & software

IANAL, but as I understand it, copyright gives it's owner the right to control copying of works.

One day, a hung-over (or still drunk) judge said that when software is executed, it is copied because it is "copied" from the storage to the processor for execution, and that the copyright owner can attach conditions to this copying to their heart's content.

However when playing a record, no one comments about how the shape of the groove is "copied" as vibrations on a needle, currents in a wire, vibrations on a speaker cone and then compressions in the air. When I look at a banknote, a "copy" of the banknote exists on my retina, but I am not guilty of copying banknotes!

WTF! Please can we undo this crap about running software is copying it, and therefore needs a special license.

Copying software is copying software, and _should_ be punished. But people who have bought software should be allowed to use it.

As for this case; if Sony / Apple sold a computer and put something in a place to stop people running _their own_ software on it, and someone works out how to do it, then tough for Sony / Apple. If instead Sony allowed people to run their own software, but the commercial games had to have a special key, then that's different.

FBI serves 40 search warrants in Anonymous crackdown

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significant civil liability ??

"...as well as exposing participants to significant civil liability"

But the problem is that the companies on the receiving end publicly said that it didn't affect them, and one solicitor in the UK even said:

"I have far more concern over the fact of my train turning up 10 minutes late or having to queue for a coffee than them wasting my time with this sort of rubbish."

We know that solicitors never lie, so the civil liability must be less than that for a 10 minute late train.

OK I'm going...

Sat-spotters find secret payload launched by giant US rocket

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Boffin

privacy complaints

You don't have to fire off privacy complaints; Just point a very intense light source upwards, and it can't "see" as it passes overhead.

In the US, telescopes are not allowed to use adaptive optics for this reason unless they publish their intended operations in advance and get authorisation to use them. However in other countries you can use them all you want.

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Boffin

Vandenburg launchpad

My understanding was that Vandenburg is better placed for launching into certain orbits.

If the rocket can launch more mass to orbit from another base, you can have more fuel in the bird for longer life and more orbit changes to spy on different targets.

Newspaper site pulls plug after 'sustained' hack attack

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Another email filtering option

Another option open to you (although a pain in the arse sometimes), is to use a different email address for every contact, registration, etc.

I get basically no spam what so ever. When I do, I just delete the offending email address from the whitelist (I also get to see who the email address was originally given to so I know why leaked it).

Israelis seize woman packing 44 iPhones

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Once found a knife

One time I took all my stuff out of the tray after the X-Ray machine, to find a knife in the bottom of the tray. One of the security people had put it into my tray to test if the scanner person was paying attention; they weren't. It was a bit of a crap knife too, not worth having, so I pointed it out to a security bod saying that it was nothing to do with me, and should it really be there?*.

* I was in 2 minds. I was worried that if I just left it someone would notice, get upset & I'd miss my flight. On the other hand, reporting it may have lead to me being shot in the head to subdue me for questioning :(

WTF is... wireless HDMI?

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HDMI connections

“If only HDMI didn’t need a pesky wire to connect things up.”

I don't know. The reviews of TVs now always complain that they don't have enough HDMI sockets (or they are on the back, not the best place to plug in your camera / laptop).

Wireless HDMI (in theory) could overcome the limits of how many HDMI devices you are allowed to own (more than 1 console, Bluray, AV processor, Media tank...). It would also make inpromptu demonstrations from a laptop or camera easier.

But the downside is that public displays will be hijacked like in Iron Man!

Of course, you'd still have to buy a wireless display-port to wireless HDMI adaptor to interface the slightly different interpretation of wireless HDMI from an Apple macbook to your TV :)

Israeli firm readies pocket-friendly desktop PC

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regimes that murder women and children

That must make it very hard buying anything computer related; avoiding Intel and AMD limit things quite a bit...

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Linux-on-ARM

"...and Linux-on-ARM is at a relatively early stage in its development"

Been running Linux on ARM since 1998, and I wasn't even first to that party.

Scotland bans smut. What smut? Won't say

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@AC

"have never possessed any illegal porn"

You say that today, but next year will be different. Someone else will be an MP with ideas from the Victorian age, and ankles will be taboo. Some of your family photos will suddenly be "obscene" and you will be publicly flogged.

The fact that it was legal when you took the photos, that no-one was even upset by the taking or viewing of your family photos does not matter, nor the fact that there was no detriment to society nor any person. You will be burned at the stake.

End of the line for ID cards

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Pint

Sorry you are wrong...

They are only shredding the DATABASE, not the PROPONENTS of the scheme...

...nice idea though.

WiFi comes to Sydney buses

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Pint

Old hat in Madrid

Had this on most of the buses in Madrid since last year (eventually will be on all of them).

Unfortunately it's not on the commuter coaches that go into Madrid from the mountains though :(

Cerveza porque es viernes (Friday!)

Website with 10 million users warns of password theft

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Next you'll say...

that it beggers belief that some people have just one email address that they give to all and sundry, and that they use the same login credentials and passwords everywhere too.

(BTW. you are only anonymous until someone hacks into El Reg and finds your details and your posts, or the moderatrix leaks everything to Wikileaks :)

Anne Hathaway slips into catsuit

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Indeed

I clicked the link to see a red square turning into a piece of black film saying exclusive videos. Not the pictures I was looking for (although exclusive videos of said lady in catsuit would also do)

I'm sorry Lester, but this almost wipes out all your points for PARIS!

Halfords.com crashes off the internet

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administrative issue

"a temporary administrative issue in our domain name renewal process".

Which likely translates as: "We at halfords do not pay our bills on time, so our provider has stopped the service." They are lucky now that domains tend to have a grace period before other people can buy them, otherwise they could loose it.

I wonder what happens if I go into Halfords and say: "I'm taking this now but I will come back at some other time to pay you for it"

Case cut-outs connote iPad 2 SD, HDMI connectivity

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SD vs USB card reader accessory

"now that iOS 4 has killed Apple's SD card reader accessory"

Actually it was a USB accessory, and the distinction is very important. If the new iPad really does have the resolution that is claimed, it would be perfect to check digital images in the field, and then a CF adaptor would have to be plugged into the USB accessory.

I am suddenly very interested given that the 3" 0.3MP screen on the back of digital cameras is like squinting at a photograph whilst drunk in the dark trying to see if the focus & exposure is correct in a 21MP image!

An alternative is a battery-powered digital photo frame that supports CF and has a resolution of 2MP or more - shout if you know of one, cheers!

WikiLeaks gets Swiss bank info

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2000 people

I'm assuming that the CDs contain more that just names.

I mean a list of 2000 names doesn't mean anything, but if you also have account lists and lists of transactions (that can be verified from the other end to verify that the data is correct...)

Special Ops satellite-bitchslapping hydrogen strato cruiser flies

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I thought that too

It is at least higher altitude than the Wright brothers' first flight :)

Ace Reg reporter in career suicide shock

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Re: I always check the author

Nah Lewis Page is harmless (at least as an author); I find his articles seem to be written by A Man From Mars in the kind of spitting bile temper of Naomi Campbell just before she launches another phone at someone.

At least he allows comments. I vote for Andrew "no comments please" Orlowski instead.

Spain grovels to penguins over 'Linux' anti-terror plot

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Joke

Linux improving world security again...

Hey it's only a joke, relax.

4G networks can screw up cable TV

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Surely Virgin are OK?

"Cable TV uses the same frequencies squeezed down a wire, but if the LTE signal is strong enough it can sneak into the wire too, generating interference."

<tongue in cheek>

I read some Virgin press-release / adverts that they use fibre, so they will be OK, no?

Space boffins save BT's satellite station for Mars missions

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FAIL

...called for the government to also back...

That's a brilliant idea. The government should even have a department that could back it. They could call the department something like: "UK Space Agency". The governement could give this agency money, and the agency could use the money to back the project.

Then we could read things like:

"The new deal sees the creation of a new company, Goonhilly Earth Station (GES) Ltd, set up by Orbit Research Ltd and Oxford University. Qinetiq, the UK SPACE AGENCY and the International Space Innovation Centre are also backing the project."

A brilliant idea. All he has to do is now go back in time about 2 years, and propose the idea BEFORE it actually happens, instead of after...