* Posts by Fred Flintstone

3106 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jun 2009

Dixons and Best Buy start selling Google Chromebooks

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Anyone willing to bet..

.. that the next bit of hardware to run Chrome OS will look remarkably like a Microsoft Surface device?

Ballmer hasn't thought this one through: telling the OEMs MS will make their own kit means said OEMs have to go elsewhere for revenue. Google may have accidentally timed this to perfection..

Berkeley Lab to air-cool Cray Cascade super

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Black Helicopters

Nice to see them planning ahead ..

.. they clearly don't want to upgrade their hardware again when Windows 9 comes out..

Joking aside, I cannot help wondering how long this thing would take to rip the crypto off an SSL protected web session. I suspect there may be versions planned all painted in matt black for those other customers in need of computing power..

Sysadmins: Your best tale of woe wins a PRIZE

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Re: Simple things

"As for them stocking one, you have more chance of the devil calling a central heating repair service!"

You've given the answer yourself: they DO stock copper pipe.. :)

Darwin alarmed by six-legged mutant cane toad

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Coat

It's perfectly logical

It's in Oz, remember? This way the beast can drink more before being totally legless.

The one smelling of cheap booze, thanks.

Microsoft to open UK retail store early next year

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

It makes perfect sense

As I have said in an earlier post, Ballmer is desperate to do an Apple, and thinks he can get away with it now Jobs isn't there to publicly laugh at him.

Microsoft has a long history of trying to imitate, steal or, as a last resort, buy innovation and then try to absorb it into the Windows lockup. Stacker, VISIO - a lot of good stuff has gone to Microsoft to get ruined. The problem is that a combination of Vista and the ribbon interface have pretty much nuked the upgrade cycle so profits are declining and there is no strategy for growth because people have become too aware that the word "innovation" only means "you're going to have to spend, again" when uttered by Microsoft. To make things worse, the crisis has made people finally think about what they spend, and why.

Thus, the idea to "do an Apple" - the illusion that you can enter any different business strategy by throwing enough money at it has still not waned in Microsoft HQ, but Ballmer never was an original thinker - Gates and him only shared the same deplorable ethics.

The entertaining thing is that the way they are going about it amounts to sending the Titanic back to ram the iceberg once more. They have pre-announced - this puts an age limit on current products so sales will slow down. They have announced to do their own hardware, which not only pisses off every OEM they have worked with, but also removes the blackmail that has kept those OEMs from looking at alternative platforms - guess where they will go? They have tried to make a unified interface (an idea Apple has avoided for simple reasons of usability versus use) - the Vista/ribbon disaster is still fresh in people's minds and the new GUI doesn't exactly get rave reviews, even by the mags where they pay for ads.

This is not re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, it amounts to trying to stop the current inflow of water using C4 explosives. Buy some popcorn and sit back - this is going to be interesting. Especially upsetting the OEMs is something Ballmer and co will suffer for as it pushes those very hard towards Linux and Google Chrome.

So, to get back to the original point, the shops make thus perfect sense - MS is trying to do an Apple.

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re: PC World

"NOTHING can be worse than PC World"

I think Microsoft may prove you wrong. Remember, they cough "innovate"..

Apple users get pricier hotel options from Orbitz

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Re: Easyjack

Actually, Easyjet is AFAIK breaking the Data Protection act with their enforced answer to "why are you going there" question. It's none of their business.

I've stopped using them now, for the places I have to go it's actually cheaper and more efficient to use a decent carrier as it saves me having to travel back from the a**e end of nowhere to where I actually wanteto go - which consumes any alleged savings..

Microsoft says tablets will trump PCs in 2013

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Such statement actually says something different

To me, this sort of predictive bla of an OS that hasn't even seen a customer yet says "PLEASE buy this shit, PLEASE. Don't buy anything else because if this doesn't work we're pretty much f*cked as a company because we just pissed off all our other OEMS who will compete the crap out of us as soon as they find an alternative OS".

If any OEM out there has a remote clue they'd band together and work on Linux usability. That's what Apple got absolutely right (although not perfect, we all work different), so if someone gets serious about that on Linux all hell will break lose for Microsoft. And deservedly so, they have been blackmailing OEMs for years to keep them away from Linux (by charging more for OEM licenses if not exclusive).

However, it demands Linux UIs becoming mom-and-pop compatible, and they are not. Especially not when you try to get WiFi up..

Fraudsters phish for NatWest clients with 'Stephen Hester' email

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Re: Catch-22

On the plus side, after the wait you will at least be able to ask what the weather is like in India (not my joke, blame Shappi Khorsandi :).

Even Apples sometimes have worms in them, admits Cupertino

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My Mac is totally virus free!

Oh dear, frantic clicking of fanbois and Apple deniers alike. Calm down, it's not what you think.

That is, my Mac is free from iOS5 viruses.

For the rest I have taken great care to make it compatible with all OSX, Windows and even Linux malware by means of Virtualbox (I hate Bootcamp, because that means I can only get one type of malware at a time).

Yet, the machine still hasn't got any malware, because I do not execute applications I don't know (there is something to be said for the walled garden) also because I like to see file extensions, I don't visit odd websites and I keep up to date with the latest patches. The latter is a complete pain in the rear, whereas OSX hits the Net once every week and then very occasionally finds something to pick up, the Windows (XP) VM is unusable for half an hour if I have the temerity of not letting it work for a week because of all the OS patches and its own anti-virus update. The Linux Mint VM less so, that's more at OSX level of update overhead.

Oh, and I never bought the "virus free" crap and I have anti virus installed. Call me fickle, but I prefer hard facts and proof over marketing fiction (it's great fun to wind up fanatics in any camp asking them to prove their claim that the platform is virus free - it totally frazzles Linux users, for instance)..

Now, on balance this means all the platform living on this box are OK - because the same sanity applies to all. It's simple: if stick your appendage into dodgy places you're sure to catch something so don't. Apply common sense instead of believing any stupid marketing drivel - works every time..

By the way, anti-virus is an "after the event" measure - prevention is better. AV will not help you at all with zero day threats, and I have seen one remain unnoticed for over 2 weeks, despite me submitting it to some AV vendor contacts I have and getting it back 2 hours later with a note that I was right calling it a virus.

So there.

UK regulators eye up Facebook's $1bn Instagram bid

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Thumb Up

Re: Let's put the art aside, shall we?

You, dear Sir, are spot on.

Resistive Ram cache to make Flash fly, say boffins

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Maybe avoiding batteries is the whole point? Batteries always present a failure point, whereas non-volatile simply doesn't have that problem at all. In addition, scaling this stuff up to datacenter volume would mean an awful lot of batteries being charged (I reckon it's not going to be based on a boatload of Duracells).

Having said that, it's not my area of expertise so maybe there is a simple way to do this. Anyone?

Acer big cheese: Microsoft Surface sales will be 'superficial'

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Re: Well for me its simple

You are right from a pure logical perspective, but that's not the game Microsoft plays (it never has). They sell to the stupid, but the idea of doing their own tech is going to hurt them very quickly IMHO.

Ballmer is desperately trying to do an Apple, and the first thing he does is screw up by pissing off his OEMs. Apple has a rather well working distribution chain and support model in place, Microsoft has zip (how well did those Microsoft shops do?). Thus, MS needs to get all of that in place, replacing OEMs which were until now making some money off Microsoft driven sales.

Those OEMS were kept from cheaper alternatives by "incentives" (more the absence of tax) on pre-install copies of Windows, but now Ballmer has told them that MS wants to go without them they are not quietly going to lie down and die - they will find alternative software, with or without tablet hardware. This is likely to be Linux, for instance, Linux Mint has a passable pre-install release out that would do well.

In short, I think Ballmer will seriously regret losing control over those OEMs by what he's done with Surface - they represent a MASSIVE competitive threat because they operate in the same or even lower price bracket, and they will now wake up The Penguin. If I was a shareholder in MS I'd reconsider my position..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Joke

Re: Business Users and Corporates

Try a Mac Airbook..

(if that doesn't stir things up here I don't know what will) :)

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Coat

Re: No 'surface wound' puns?

No, it's got no real depth..

Facebook loses face: Faced down in faceoff over face-placing

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Re: Lawyer speak

"Could they come up with a more convoluted way to say that?"

Umm, they're lawyers - paid by the word and minute..

Texas sues Google for 'withholding' documents from antitrust probe

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Re: And I am sure...

Hmm, don't know. IANAL, but this could actually have criminal law implications.

Apple desperate to prevent nightmare scenario of iPad in Iranian hands

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Coffee/keyboard

Re: It's simply because...

Bwahahaha - brilliant.

Gigapixel camera heralds new world of snoopery

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

You need more "everything"

One of the challenges the increasing image size brings is that you need something to handle and store it. For most domestic users, the kind of resolution that allows an A3 print of an image is more than enough, yet they still fall for the "moxe pixels is better" BS.

Yet another total waste of computing power..

Nigerian scams are hyper-efficient idiot finders

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Re: Fucking DUH!

Why various .govs don't go out of their way to stop spam email in general, and 419 scams in particular, is beyond me

I would really not like spam filtering done by *any* government, because they would *love* the ability to censor your email under the pretext of spam filtering. No thanks..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re: Greed filters

"I would say they are greed filters"

Hmm, yes and no. "Not that bright" does not equate "not enough money in the bank" (well, for now, that can, of course, change when they come across a scammer), but in another context you're right. Programs such as BBC's Hustle and "Leverage" go out of their way to state that "you cannot cheat a honest man" - a tad too moralistic for my taste, but they are right in that greed can indeed overcome common sense.

Schneier spanks AV industry over Flame failures

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Unhappy

AV alone is indeed not helpful..

I received an email with a virus on June 6th, and according to virustotal.com it was unknown (the file was VerifiedByVisa.htm with a chunk of java in it).

I forwarded this to two contacts I have in the anti-virus biz, and one came back 2 hours later confirming it was a virus and they'd add it to the database. The other one never even bothered to reply, which will cost him beer the next time we meet.

Out of curiosity, I kept checking. It's now the 19th, 13 days later, and only two packages out of the 42 pick it up - to the remaining FOURTY, this is still a zero-day level threat, which suggests to me that it was a targeted attack (large scale triggers honeypot emails of AV vendors). This means, for users of those 40 (which include the bigger vendors), the file I received would be effective in infecting the target system.

Anti Virus is only a tactical, reactive method of protection. Assume you will get hit eventually and plan accordingly.

Top US Senator to Apple, Google: 'Curb your spy planes'

Fred Flintstone Gold badge
Pirate

Forget painted body parts..

.. I'd call this an excellent argument to put up some serious 3D street art, drawing extra roads, houses and the occasional human who needs to be blotted out. You'll know when the images have gone live when drivers show up, desperately trying to find he supermarket car parks you converted..

There is no law that says we have to provide Google with real data, so we might as well have some fun with some creative data pollution..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re: 4 inch resolution...

I'd worry about jagged edges then..

Facebook fesses up to Face.com face finder financing

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Re: Not my kinda fun

Yup, the moment I hear *any* exec or marketing droid blab about "fun" I know I'm being lied to and must pay attention..

Microsoft takes on tablets with keyboard-equipped Surface

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Is it called "surface"..

.. because there is absolutely no depth to this announcement?

Is this the good old bag of tricks being opened, pre-announcements to try and spoil a market? If so, I think they are a tad late..

'Kindness of America' snapper shot himself in 'act of self-promotion'

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Coat

So..

.. he mis"lead" people?

The bulletproof one, thanks.

Facebook shells out $10m for using users faces in adverts

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Another game of percentages..

The game that both Google and Facebook are playing is that of numbers.

What *really* should happen is that they are made to pay per individual violation, because exposing the details of an individual doesn't have a lesser impact if it happens to more people. However, because that would finish the companies (and, presumably, the associated juicy campaign contributions and lobbying) the correct charges are turned into something that can be paid out of petty cash.

The whole business model they are running is flat out ignoring the law, and they say "oops, sorry" when they're caught out - at which point the number trick follows. In other words, there is absolutely no incentive for these organisations to ever go even *close* to actual compliance, ever. Let's just screw over the populations' rights chasing the almighty buck.

The brutal irony in this is that the executives of the organisations are very, very shy of the disclosure they demand of others themselves (government organisations display the same attitudes). I makes you wonder what they have to hide..

Windows Metro Maoist cadres reach desktop, pound it flat

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Re: Shutdown button

Because it saves time and effort the next time you boot Windows, especially if it was expecting to have been shut down correctly in order to finish installing the latest round of updates...

Umm, you are aware that a short press of that button starts a normal shutdown by almost any modern OS unless you manually reconfigure that behaviour? Holding it in longer will indeed simply nuke the power, with all the consequences for any system that doesn't use a journaling file system..

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

The old adage, now more than ever true..

Windows 8, from the people that brought you EDLIN.

Slight detour: EDLIN was still supplied with Windows XP, I stopped checking after that (mainly because Vista was just too much and I finally fled elsewhere). Anyone an idea when they finally gave up on this?

Apple adds gay and lesbian icons to iOS 6 messaging

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

But is it Skype compatible?

I couldn't care less about gay or non-.gay Emoj, what I really want is that Skype on iPhone does a faithful rendering of its animations.

If you don't know what I mean, try entering "(mooning)" (with brackets, without the quotes. Works on anything but iOS5 (it shows the essential part, but doesn't animate).

I mean, let's focus on critical stuff here..

HBO 'sorry' for skewering Dubya

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Who saw it first..

.. and gave them the heads-up (as it were)?

Personally I would have taken the South Park approach: don't apologise, satirise..

WD beams in 802.11n Wi-Fi stations

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re: So when the hard drive craps at 1yr 1day after purchase,,,

Isn't that law on goods EU wide? You should have a reasonable life out of the device, and a spindle dying in a consumer device after 1 year is IMHO "of a quality not suitable for sale"..

Alternatively:

"The primary cause of failure in electrical appliances is an expired warranty. Often, you can get an appliance running again simply by changing the warranty expiration date with a 15/64-inch felt-tipped marker". - Dave Barry, The Taming of the Screw

Wraps come off UK super-snooper draft plans

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I'm OK with the Bill, provided..

.. that those who vote for it share every detail of their life, publicly. I know from experience that once the resources are there they WILL be abused, so it is this best to exposed the "Ye" voters to what is really going to happen.

I must admit I am a tad curious about what is so fascinating about the lives of ordinary citizens that they are so enthusiastically trying to gain access to it. Or did they buy Facebook shares and now seek to help the company to some more customer data to haul the share price back to a point where they can finally shed the stock?

I really don't have anything to hide, but that still doesn't mean I want someone jacking a scope up my rear end whenever they feel like it - I do not need to defend wanting privacy, that is my right. They need to defend why they want the privilege to invade it, and "think of the children" isn't exactly cutting it.

The key problem is trust. They would have had a much easier ride if it hadn't been very clear that abuse will actually precede proper use (we've seen enough of that with anti-terror laws), and without the ability to supervise use this should not even be considered as a law if they genuinely only had benign motives (let's turn this around: in an alleged democratic government, THEY should have nothing to hide). Transparent release of its use (which can be delayed to protect ongoing investigations, but never omitted) is required, as well as punishing the heaving crap out of the PEOPLE (not companies or institutions, PEOPLE) who abuse this privilege instead of using cheap escape clauses that even Tony Blair would not have deigned to use.

I acknowledge the need for crime fighting tools. I do not acknowledge the need to make those tools easy to use. And I certainly disagree with the traditional attempts to avoid accountability.

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re: Time to ....

That will only work if you can do this collectively. Personally, I think this is what is missing from the Tor project: traffic obfuscation (basically doing what you propose, but distributed over a large set of nodes).

Another investor pulls out of Habbo Hotel after grooming claims

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Re: One more time...

You are 100% right, but would you believe that even Governments don't get this?

China makes human rights play ... but forgets the internet

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Thumb Up

An Islamic gay democrat marriage

I salute you, sir, for your sarcasm forced a keyboard clean.

Bwahahahaha..

Linux Mint joins mini-PC hardware business

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Re: My phone has a faster processor

So you decide on desktop specs on the basis that it cannot play Angry Birds.

That's a new one, thanks.

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Proper task division

your windows box is for your porn. Don't insult Linux.

To be exact:

Windows: to watch porn

Linux: to serve porn

Hope that clarifies matters :)

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re: Is it just me, or is that temperature really high?

Try sticking it in a cabinet or a desk with bad ventilation, and you'll be glad it has that high a tolerance. I'm actually quite impressed by it - this is at least a device you can use in the more tropical places of the world, provided you keep humidity levels decent (monsoons are *not* ideal climatic conditions for computer kit, especially outside :).

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

IPcop and NAS

When I move I plan to front my new home network (cabled) with a firewall, so I'm looking for a box that can run IPcop comfortable enough not to limit throughput, even when I have 2 VPNs up. I'm also planning to build a NAS which doubles up as a VM host.

I am thus very interested in fanless, spindlefree (SSD, for the base OS) based mini PCs, and I know from experience that IPcop runs on almost anything. However, for the VMhost/NAS I suspect I'll need to build something myself - the amount of power I need almost guarantees I will have heat to dissipate, which means forced airflow. Either direct, or remote via a liquid cooler.

So, to answer the question: firewall, Wiki/email/web server, remote controller, media recorder head end, internet radio - loads of uses. There is quite a bit more on the market than just the "Mint" devices, though.

Google Apps cloud fine print may not protect EU biz

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I would just like to see ONE thing in privacy law..

Personally, I think we need an obligation in law for companies to tell the end user where their information will be kept, and an extra notification requirement if that changes.

It's all good and well that companies use hazy cloud services to process data, but as an end user you stand no chance of finding out unless the obligation exists to declare it - a bit like declaring where the meat comes from in Swiss restaurants. This would allow me as end user to make decisions on which company I'd use on the basis of just how careful they are with my data.

This goes as far as email - these days I do an MX lookup to see just where email goes - my recipient may have an agreement that their email is scanned as the payback to Google for offering email services, but *I* did *not* sign that agreement. In principle, this means that Google scanning an INbox is a flat out breach of my privacy.

Ten... Sata 3 SSDs

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re. TBs of storage off a normal drive

Could I suggest you look at the hybrid drives then? You can get a 750GB drive with 8GB SSD for less than the 240GB "pure" SSD costs, and unless you truck around huge files all the time it will do good where you need it. I will throw one into my MacBook next month.

Stanley Black & Decker picks up Wi-Fi tracking tools

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Coat

Is it just me..

.. or does the combination of "Stanley" and "Black and Decker" feel sort of uncomfortable in association with hospitals? I get visions of standard DIY issue knives and cordless drills being used in surgery by people wearing dirty overalls..

Yeah, yeah, I'm going. Be glad I didn't crack a joke about bum cracks..

Germany reveals secret techie soldier unit, new cyberweapons

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

Re: AI Fields in which IntelAIgents do not suffer Fools and their Blunt Tools

Personally, I think my life is controlled by a chaotic mess of mysterious yet all powerful forces. Toast always fall buttered side down, until you try to demonstrate it to someone else. Hardware works just fine, right upon the moment it ought to convince your investors. Umbrellas are a powerful force agains rain, proven by teh fact that it will gush the moment you forget the thing. I mean, what more proof do you need?

Bradley Manning in court as lawyers wrestle over secret docs

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

I heard rumours they're busy moving the shower soap dispensers down - 30 cm off the floor..

Windows 8: Not even Microsoft thinks businesses will use it

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Re: Metro On the DT is CRAP !

I just realised that this is not exactly good marketing for Excel either, if that's how they have done that projection :)

Touchscreens to get finger friendly

Fred Flintstone Gold badge

And gaming..

The first time since, umm ever, a game of whack-a-mole can become interesting. You could also move objects around on such a screen (low weight, like ping pong balls or chess pieces) - this tech may have application beyond screen keyboards.

Last but not least, you could conceivably create an interface for blind people with this. Awesome!