* Posts by Intractable Potsherd

4159 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Thought of in-flight mobile calls fills you with dread? Never fear, US Dept of Transport is here

Intractable Potsherd

Re: @AC 06:29

Can't remember where I originally heard it, but someone involved in security recounted a tale of when they were in a train carriage with a woman who was conducting several transactions on the phone at standard mobile-phone volume. After one or two such calls, in which she was giving all sorts of personal details, account numbers, dates she would be travelling etc, he began to take down the information, and then texted her (on the number that everyone in the carriage now knew very well) all the information he had about her just based on what she was shouting to the world. Apparently, she stood up and very angrily asked who had been listening to her calls ... all the hands in the carriage went up. She then proceeded to rant about how it was rude to listen to other people's private conversations ...

(If anyone knows the original of this story, I don't think I've embellished it much. If I have, apologies.)

Ghosts of Christmas Past: Ten tech treats from yesteryear

Intractable Potsherd

I so much wanted a Sinclair Microvision, because it was like the CommLock used in Space 1999! http://catacombs.space1999.net/main/cguide/umcomlock.html (Really, I wanted a CommLock, but that was never going to happen ...)

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Laserdisc = Human Jaba

I've got a VHS version, and my somewhat less reliable memory of the cinema release, that says you are correct. The actor was Declan Mulholland, and he was overlaid by the CGI version in the later versions. In the original version, Han walks all the way around Jabba without rising as he walks over the tail (because it wasn't there). The upwards movement is therefore also added very post-production!

Intractable Potsherd

Re: memories - DER

That's the company I was trying to remember! We were customers of theirs for years (I don't think my parents actually owned a TV outright until well into the 1980s). I can't quite place the year, but I remember the getting the latest Phillips TV (with remote control!) and VHS just before Christmas, and being the only one in the house who could make either work reliably (because I fiddled endlessly with the controls on both during the boring Christmas holiday - probably contributing to why no-one else could ever work them out ...) I even remember taking the top cover off the VHS so I could work out how it functioned, though only when it wasn't so new.

Somehow, buying my own tech isn't as exciting as waiting to see what the rental man was going to bring through the door ...

OMG, Andrex killed the puppey! Not quilty, exclaim bog roll boys

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Izal isn't the worst...

I've used it - it is like that cheap paper kids used to have for drawing on (fibres visible to the eye) with a dimpled surface. I believe it was a by-product of experimental rapid runway-laying techniques. It requires much fortitude to build up the courage to use it, and few can wipe without whining a little and shedding a tear or two.

Thought your Android phone was locked? THINK AGAIN

Intractable Potsherd

Re: They're not hypocrites!

Idiot AC is answering his own posts now!

IBM turns plastic bottles into life-saving 'ninja' MRSA, fungus fighters

Intractable Potsherd

Re: On the contrary. @Buzzword

And there is the difference between us. If I ever come up with something that has this potential for good, I will be honoured to make it open to anyone to use, regardless of the claims of scientists, suppliers, pensioners, photographers and graphic designers (or, closer to home, my family or cats).

'Don't hate on me for my job!' Googlers caught up in SF rent protest ruckus

Intractable Potsherd

Re: San Francisco is a city of rich white people...

"Detroit is now America again, you've no one but yourself and friends (or community), no work but what you can make, it's pure freedom. Detroit is true American Freedom."

Freedom to starve or die of curable diseases, freedom to be exactly as safe and secure as your neighbour allows you to be, freedom to screw people over if you want to. God bless American Freedom - but most of the rest of us don't want to live in a Heinlein novel, thanks.

Apple's legal bill for Samsung patent fight tops $60m

Intractable Potsherd

I really don't know how anyone even cursorily interested in phones can say that. iPhones are much chunkier in appearance than most other manufacturers, within the natural constraints of the device itself. Let's face it, even cars are difficult to differentiate from each other these days if you can't see the lights or the badges.

ICANN posts guidelines to avoid gTLD mix-ups

Intractable Potsherd

Re: .cs není české

Thanks, AC - I was just going to post exactly the same thing.

It really is strange that, twenty years after the event, people haven't realised that Czechoslovakia no longer exists, and is two independent states. It drives my (Czech) wife mad when people say "I haven't been to Czechoslovakia yet, but I'm thinking of going in a couple of years". Fortunately she has taken my pleadings to heart, and no longer does that thing where she looks as if she is going to rip out the speaker's throat with her teeth - she now merely sets them straight with a tone of voice that could freeze a star ... :-(

Fiendish CryptoLocker ransomware survives hacktivists' takedown

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Interesting

All the "don't do it" comments just show that the terrorists have won.

So sad.

Inside Steve Ballmer’s fondleslab rear-guard action

Intractable Potsherd

Re: puzzled

I think you are missing the point of the article, and the comments. No-one is saying that there isn't some useful stuff that a tablet can do better than a desk/lap-top. There clearly is. The argument is with the assertion in the article that tablets are going to *replace* desk/lap-tops, and that the touch interface is superior to all other methods of input - and that is not based on evidence. Even your own argument says that the tablets are effectively turned into desktops with all the peripherals (except decent storage) in order to do real work.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: No, Liam, I won't be using a fondleslab as my primary computer.

Amen, Trevor! Hipster twits like the author are all so immersed in their little worlds that they cannot see that there are other ways of doing things, and that "new" isn't always "better". The tablet is a tool for a particular corner of the computing world - and may have some advantages over other methods - but it isn't likely to take over from the current way of doing things any time soon. At the very least, there will be a significant number of people who want native programs and significant on-device storage.

@TheOtherHobbes - I like the idea of tablets as thin clients. Good analogy!

Our Vulture strokes Dell's ROBUST 15 INCHER: Inspiron 15 Core i7

Intractable Potsherd

Personally, I hate numeric pads. They skew everything to the left. One of the reasons I use X-series Lenovos is that everything is symmetrical around the centreline (and no touchpad - another major benefit!)

Brit inventors' GRAVITY POWERED LIGHT ships out after just 1 year

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Reinvented cuckoo clock

Well, the belt and hook look "proprietary". When either break - which the belt will, sooner or later - it isn't going to be easy to cobble something together from stuff easily found in the places that form the market for the gadget. The tolerances (hole centres, thickness of belt) and materials performance (deformation etc) appear to be important. It isn't obvious how the belt would be changed in the field, either. I hate to be cynical about this, but it looks as if the manufacturers have made sure there will be a steady revenue for spare-parts.

RBS MELTDOWN LATEST: 'We'll be the bank we should be ... next YEAR maybe'

Intractable Potsherd

Thanks, Fogcat. That is useful.

Intractable Potsherd

So, based on anyone's real knowledge of the systems in place, which bank(s) are least likely to have serious IT problems? Serious question, because I want to change and this is one of my important criteria.

People's Bank of China bans Bitcoin over 'drugs and guns' trade fears

Intractable Potsherd

Re: entrenched industry... @Don Jefe

"Certainly you aren't suggesting we kill off 2/3 of humanity; are you? I suppose we could just let them starve ..."

Well, since Destroy All Monsters specifically mentioned getting rid of social security, then he clearly does want at least a percentage of the population to starve (or freeze, or die of a curable disease).

There are some nasty people on here.

Two million TERRIBLE PASSWORDS stolen by malware attackers

Intractable Potsherd

Re: "little indication that those efforts to educate users are gaining much traction"

Whilst I don't do it (I am fortunate in having a reasonably good memory and a technique for creating passwords), Bruce Scheier actually advocates strong passwords written down and kept in your wallet/purse. I'm not sure I agree, since money, cards and passwords all kept in one place just seems to multiply the pain if it is stolen, but using a simple substitution code (all numbers are +2, or whatever) could help.

One-minute Koch-blocking earns attacker two years, massive fine

Intractable Potsherd

Re: How much free speech can you afford? @404

That is one hell of a weak defence!

It's probably the best the Kochs can get, though ...

MINING in SPAAAACE! Asteroid-scoopers? Nah - consumers will be the real winners

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Property rights in space

John Locke, like Burke above, was just a bloke trying to say how he thought the world should work. He doesn't have any more actual validity than I do.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: private property doesn't exist up there in space.

Burke, like all philosophers, was simply stating what he thought the world should be. There is no requirement that reality should match, and in this case it most certainly doesn't.

Equally, economists do the same thing, claiming that their ideas are natural laws - they aren't, though they have modelled reality a bit more accurately for the last couple of centuries.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: " As one of those capitalists, you're not going to skimp on $100k or $200k on wages"

"Although I bet you could probably offer room & board and STILL get enough applicants to take the job at the start..."

If they can get this off the ground in the next twenty years, I'd take that offer!

Darth Vader outs self as iPhone fanboi

Intractable Potsherd

Re: These are not the Androids you're looking for

But, worryingly, Darth Vader died at the end of "Return of the Jedi" (remember the Viking funeral and neon-glow reunion with Ben and Yoda?) The fact he can take a picture at all is ... well, unlikely.

Report says Microsoft has divided CEO list into possibles and probables

Intractable Potsherd

Is Mulally the one who brought in the flustercluck top-down management system at Boeing where the people who actually know how to do things are ignored in favour of the MBAs?

False widow spiders in guinea pig slaughter horror

Intractable Potsherd

Re: its all over facebook as well

I hope the couple of rather large spiders that take a turn around our living room every evening realise how lucky they are. I even politely greet them and ask how they are. The cats don't bother them, either.

On the other hand, perhaps we are going to become an asylum for all the neighbourhood's spiders now ...

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Jordan

Define "popular".

I agree with the OP - that name ranks with "Wayne" as an indicator of parental sensibility.

Sceptic-bait E-Cat COLD FUSION generator goes on sale for $US1.5m

Intractable Potsherd

Re: device

It isn't amanfrommars, it's Rossi ...

... or the local psychiatric hospital has a patient that reads El Reg.

Samsung hauls in chiefs for 'CRISIS awareness' confab – report

Intractable Potsherd

Re: @SuccessCase

And here's the modern problem - someone puts a well argued case, but because it runs to more than four words, people don't read it.

I despair ...

Samsung to spend ENTIRE budget of London 2012 OLYMPICS... on ADS

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Not necessarily @ Don

Sorry, my friend, but this determinist shit you are spouting is really just a load of nonsense. You are falling for the ad industry's tricks whereby anything that makes a person buy a thing is advertising. Independent reviews, word-of-mouth, and personal experience are not "advertising" in any real sense of the word. Just giving facts isn't advertising, either (comparing spec sheet A with spec sheet B). Buying a product because it meets the articulated needs of the buyer isn't advertising, either.

Please, don't make out the marketing industry as having special insight into humanity - they don't, but you have unfortunately bought into their self-advertisement.

Little devil: Electric Imp is an Internet of Things Wi-Fi PC-ON-AN-SD-CARD

Intractable Potsherd

Re: conflicting form factors @ Robert

The article specifically states, "That said, the Imp’s connectors are electrically compatible with a real SD card, so it won’t do any harm." (First page, between pictures 2 and 3).

HEADS UP, text-flinging drivers! A cop in a huge SUV is snooping on you

Intractable Potsherd

" ... but in other areas they are a little more sensible."

That reads much better.

Scores of profs give hated US patent law an F minus, demand massive rewrite

Intractable Potsherd

"Because PAEs do not make or sell any products of their own, they cannot be countersued for infringement. As a result, PAEs can use the high cost of patent litigation to their advantage,"

This is one of the biggest arguments for changing the system. Both sides should be at risk.

London: Hey Amazon, wanna slip your speedy packages down our tubes?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Except... @gerryg

Okay, we get it - you work for Oyster. Now shut up!

What does the NHS’s new IT plan really want to extract from us?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: How else is the NHS supposed to do this?

The problem is small numbers - it is ridiculously easy to identify a small group (or individual) in a small population with very little information. Data-sharing at population level means that the size of "small population" is increased by at least three orders of magnitude (instead of easily identifying 1 in 40, it becomes trivial to identify 1 in 40 000), and this means that *any* use, even audit, should go through research ethics approval to ensure that the interests of the participants are properly protected.

This is not trivial, and hiding behind AC to defend it makes your position very suspect.

Space tourist Dennis Tito begs US to BANKROLL HIS manned Mars flyby

Intractable Potsherd

Re: A Wasteful Stunt

The biggest human need on this world is to make other worlds available as backup. At the moment we have all our eggs in one basket. There is *nothing* more important than human space-missions.

Men have LARGE APPENDAGES, are OXYGEN THIEVES: Science

Intractable Potsherd

Haven't seen that film for ages - must find it!

The REAL JUICE behind leaked BlackBerry OS: Android apps to slip in without protection

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Sad day, sad day

Clearly, I am "f*cking mental"! I made a conscious decision to go for a touch-screen phone after years of hating half the *phone's* real-estate being taken over by a keyboard that was often too small to use properly, and/or required multiple touches per key to type anything. Blackberry keyboards that I tried were the worst of the lot - for me. Touch-screens give a choice of configurable keyboards, can reduce the risk of RSI (e.g. swipe-type keyboards), and get rid of the keyboard when it isn't needed. For my use-case, this is perfect - of course, YMMV ... and I wouldn't question your intelligence for having a different opinion :-)

Lavabit founder: Feds ORDERED email providers to stay open

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Not allowed to be secure

Whilst no fan of this, it does have to be pointed out that it has been like this probably since government began. The leader (this can include multi-party governance as well) thinks he is the right one to be leading, no matter how objectively correct that opinion is, and there are always functionaries who will garner information on his (their) enemies for a number of reasons. Let's not forget that Walsingham his a hero to a great many people* because he intercepted communications between private people - Catholics - who had a different point of view about how England should be run, and so probably contributed to a great change in the path of European history. The fact the Soviets (for example) did exactly the same makes them bad people ...

To me, the question is not "Should it be done?" but "What are the limitations and protections that should be placed on it?" Given that we are in an extremely low-risk world at the moment (religious nutters don't constitute a serious threat, and the number of countries we should worry about is small and most nominally constitute our friends), the limitations on internal surveillance should be high, and the level of spying on other countries should be at the usual background level for that country.

*Including me.

Getting it right on the second attempt: Sony Xperia Z1

Intractable Potsherd

This is one of my disagreements with the "plastic cases are cheap and nasty" comments. Plastics are often exactly the right thing for a device's casing, both to improve grip and protect if the thing is dropped. I've tried metal and glass phones, and they feel too slippery and insecure in my paw, and it strikes me that when they fall, the screen will be broken because the its nothing to absorb the shock.

Whilst I usually put my phones in some sort of case, I don't want to be effectively forced into it by the basic design of the phone.

iSpy with my little eye: Apple wants to track your every move

Intractable Potsherd

Re: I'd have expected the author of this article to provide the details...

If you don't like it, then the is no compulsion for you visit the site. If you do visit, accept the house style. Perhaps you'd be happier at Ars Technica.

Space hotelier Bigelow wants capitalists to FIGHT comm-MOON-ist takeover

Intractable Potsherd

Re: It always starts like this

... or maybe he's modelling himself on D. D. Harriman??

MANUAL STIMULATION: Whack me with some proper documentation

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Password generation

Read more science fiction! If you can't find enough weird names that can then have (additional) punctuation added, then you aren't reading the right books! I find Iain M Banks books, between Culture citizens (especially drones), aliens and planets, serve me very well for now.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Video tutorials

"My other pet hate is the shit-munching video tutorial. I fail to see how spending a quarter of an hour watching a blurry rectangle of illegibility while an American spits and wheezes into a microphone that’s so muffled it might as well have been be shoved up his arse is superior to reading a step-by-step workthrough that I could complete myself in less than five minutes."

This sums up my entire attitude to modern help files. Yes, in a minority of cases, seeing what is supposed to happen is useful, but in general that can be done with words and stills - video not required!

'I'm BIG, I'm BALD and I'm LOUD!' Blubbering Ballmer admits HE was Microsoft's problem

Intractable Potsherd

Re: "The news moved the entire family to tears"

In my not very deep experience, Coldplay songs fall into three categories: make you cry; make you bored; make you want to kill something, preferrably anyone that thought this bunch of miserablists should be hyped to popularity.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: @raving angry loony ".............in my opinion, more going for them than what I thought."

@Arctic fox: To my mind, the bad news is that anyone thought up such a shitty system in the first place, and that others thought enough of it to put it in place. Such a system only works for game-shows, not any enterprise that actually wants to achieve anything.

Google SO CAN scan ALL BOOKS onto its sites - judge

Intractable Potsherd

Re: 30M Down, 100M to Go @jnffarrell1

Could you try that again, AFTER your first coffee of the day, please?

MPAA, RIAA: Kids need to learn 3 Rs – reading, writing and NO RIPPING

Intractable Potsherd

Re: It's simply amazing... @AC moron

If your employers at the various IP protection agencies haven't made their case successfully to someone like me - law degree (including an IP module), MA (including a great deal of IP), and a PhD in the social effects of governmental involvement in social goods, then they really are failing. My considered, educated opinion is that the media industry is as relevant to the modern IT-enabled world as leech-breeders are to modern medicine.* Certainly in music, what I see is a bunch of middle-men trying to maintain their ability to make money from both people who can do something** and the people who want to buy it in a market where it can all be done in a direct way. The film industry may be a slightly different case, but the principle still applies.

It is clear I am not the only one who thinks the same, and yet you insist on ad hominem attacks on our education, intelligence, and honesty. You really are a twat, aren't you?

* I know there are some edge-cases where leeches have been re-evaluated for some conditions, but that only reinforces my argument.

** In general - I am yet to be convinced that anything in the charts is being done by people who have any clue what music actually is.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: @Robhib

If you aren't open enough to post with a recognisable -nym, then you don't deserve to have any attention paid to you. The fact that you post the same tired old astroturf every time, and are recognisable by the terms you use doesn't alter the fact that you don't have sufficient confidence in your views to allow others to search your previous posts.

By the way, have you noticed that you are in a huge minority here - doesn't that tell you anything at all?

Norks EXECUTE 80 for watching DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

Intractable Potsherd

Re: bibles @ an it guy 11:28

It is a bad thing when there is semi-official approval of hassling people simply for having a copy of a book of fiction, regardless of what it is. Almost as bad as semi-official approval of hassling people for NOT having a copy an approved book of fiction.