Posts by Fred Flintstone

Re: Talking Sense

You could walk around with little office stickers. Every time you see one of these people you sticker the camera hole. Might make you unpopular, but it could be killer fun for a flashmob.

The problem is indeed that Google is trying to circumvent with volume what laws would normally prevent - not the first time. Unless it is possible to proxy the data stream through some sort of device that rips out other data, what you basically have is the Homeview version of Streetview, right there (the first to come up with that idea were the Germans, followed by the BBC)

And I, for one, will merrily chuck out anyone who walks into my house or office wearing one.

Re: Still Snake oil

So, what will you do with a compromised biometric data set?

All you have is a hash value, probably salted with a secondary key if the designer had a remote clue of securing access data, and you're going to use that to do what? Work back into a biometric model that will replicate someone's biometric ID elsewhere? A vein scan has a lot more data points than a fingerprint scanner (which is why you need specialist software to validate it within seconds), so good luck with creating a fake at vein depth in someone else's hand. If you want to replace someone's hash with your own you still need to create that first - you could do that by getting an entry in the system and then copying the hash, assuming the hashes are salted identically (which is not an approach I would take).

Biometrics themselves aren't the issue, it's how they are stored that is important.

Re: Educate me?

The 8GB cache is managed by the drive electronics, not by the OS. It seems to be monitoring what you access and how often, and adjust cache contents accordingly. You can notice this by the way it speeds up over the first couple of days you install it, and even the 3rd or 4th cold boot is already dramatic.

I stuck one in my laptop, and it performs rather impressively. I am not sure how it assesses what moves where, so I'm a bit reluctant to use a crypto file system, but as a vanilla swap-and-restore-from-original replacement it's been superb under OSX, and I have heard similar stories about Win 7.

Having said that, my purchase decision was based on the 750GB model dropping in price. Now I know why :).

Re: @Fred Flintstone This was really stupid

Hold on, so instead of carrying around my Galaxy note and HDMI adaptor (£5 on Amazon), I have to carry around an Apple TV as well as an ipad?

:)

No, you're correct in that that would be useless for portable applications (my oversight, I tend to use a "normal" laptop for that which has a boring VGA adaptor). It's more for the reverse - we have a fairly large screen in our office which has become the major means of presentation since we stuck an old v2 Apple TV on it that someone had lying around gathering dust. Might as well give it something useful to do..

Re: Keelhaul them.

LOL, that would be actually quite a fun way to go about it, but may I offer an alternative:

1 - Fine the screaming crap out of them. No excuses. They spent years fighting the fine, so it's not like they were unaware of the issue (BTW, bad marks for EU enforcement, but it was up to MS to comply)

2 - Charge 10% interest for every month they are late paying. Because they will. I am not sure how the EU is going to compel payment, but shutting the door of every national MS outfit might work.

3 - use at least 50% of this fine to sponsor beneficial FOSS projects. I know this will start a fight for pork, but a good start would be staying existing projects such as SAMBA, LibreOffice and a DECENT replacement for Outlook. Oh, and forcing MS to make their products provably, fully compliant with MS OOXML or the OpenDocument format or lose government contracts - after all, that was the reason MS started that game.

Re: Range Anxiety

Could be a Boeing battery ..

Re: There are 2 points here. Benefits and screen real estate.

I think the fairest way is that the advertiser pays you

Well, that's what they do by giving you a service or a useful app in exchange for some advertising space. You can't go any further because the point of ads is not for them to be watched, it is for them to lead to a sale. Paying someone to watch ads is thus the reverse of the actual aim (or I may have misunderstood this - it IS Friday, after all).

As I have seen above, I think we need to be clearer in descriptions. There is a slot between "free" and "buy" which is called "ad supported" - if we could make that clearer quite a few issues would disappear.

However, I refuse to pay for a service with personal details. Not a chance.

Re: But Really...

"To cause disruption to the enemy, to steal information, to cause internal descent, sabotage."

installing a lift?

Yup. It's called the Schindler attack. It works on many levels.

Another vote for the old RAZR physical format

The physical format of the v3i was as close to perfect as I've ever had a clamshell. Mechanics as well as design dimensions were *just* right. All it needed was (a) a non-shiny keyboard and (b) a decent OS and it would have been perfect, also because it could go for days on a *removable* battery. Which reminds me, I better buy a new battery for mine before they can no longer be bought.

It also had another good thing: the top display. It was far more discrete than your smartphone popping up a window over the screen lock and announcing to the world that ex no2 is calling..

If someone would buy that specific design and put a better OS in it I would buy it immediately.

Re: Why revel in things someone else has decided are waste of time?

Personally, I'm more interested in the reaction of the recipients, that is, provided the Razzies are actually reasonably honest and don't descend into a hate fest. Although we may differ in taste, I think we can all spot wooden acting or someone being cast in a role that probably wasn't to the best of their abilities - there IS a lot that can go wrong with a movie and series because making screenplay is simply a complex business with lots of variables.

The people that collect their award in person such as Paul Verhoeven, Tom Greene, Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock only end up looking better for it as it shows a strength of character and a sense of humour which elevates them above the "look at me" Hollywood stereotype. Getting the award does not need to be a negative event - how you handle it determines that. In that context, thumbs up for David Eigenberg too :).

Re: More

I really must wander in there next week :).

I don't care that it isn't autonomous (and probably needs a number of cameras to ensure the entire 3D movement space is monitored), it's still very impressive. I also like how the copter controls stop them from turning over after what are actually rather wild movements.

Hmm. Couple of cameras, fridge with cold beer, serving platter.. Must investigate :)

this was an old person who smoked. I'm willing to bet he had health problems, and quite possibly had a drink problem too

So, your theory is that the alcohol basically caught fire through his smoking? Works for me :p

That's probably also a good reason not to cremate alcoholics - the risk of combustion..

Re: Scenario in my head (For US)

You know, I'd buy, sorry, lease a copy if that was a likely scenario, but only if we got a webstreamed camera in Ballmer's office when he's told. I'm sure that if we sold access to that webcam we'd have more than enough money to properly support LibreOffice..

Re: they all laughed alright...

Google's trying to find a better way to sell ads (Mr C's better route to India) ...... so what is going to be Google's New World, I wonder

Probably an automatic refusal for health insurance cover for people with facial injuries because they couldn't see the road for ads..

Re: Worlds most handsome man...

Hey, don't knock it. I've had curries like that.

Re: Yep.

you can requests that your Office 365 data never leaves EU servers if you require it.

That illusion only lasts until you read the US PATRIOT Act *properly*..

Re: I never believe these stories / "Fly-by-wire" misunderstanding

in order to conform to EU safety standards the brakes must have a mechanical link.

Yup - but it goes via ABS. Which is where UCSD found they could influence proceedings enough to kill that off.

However, in this case I agree up to a point. Once you're up to a certain speed you have an awful lot of kinetic energy stored in the vehicle, I'm not sure you could get it to stop completely when the engine was still going full tilt, also keeping in mind that an uncontrolled automatic will downshift as you go slower, thus giving the engine more torque to work against the brakes. This is why you should always retain mechanical control over at least one of them: if you cannot kill the engine because it's kept alive by malfunctioning gadgetry, you should be able to kick the gears into neutral. Having both "automated" appears to be begging all the Gods of chance on your knees for problems.

I can't see any of us trusting a computer enough to allow it to act on its own - so I wonder just how many people will trust their lives to Google driving tech..

What percentage of UK, Dutch or Finnish citizens voted for the politicians that supervise CNIL ? Or was asked if they approved of CNIL "organising" something on their behalf?

It is a working group of appointed people, if you look at the actual letter you can see their names underneath it (and you can also see who joined that group of 27 a bit late :) ). This is not something the French did on their own, it is a collective decision. The French merely take point in this so it would not be a game of isolated lawsuits that could be played against each other. It strikes me that those EU people have learned a number of lessons from the games that Microsoft played, including giving Google enough rope to hang themselves.